Self-Advocacy Leadership & Opportunity

Post Reply New Topic

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrzPmUASBho[/youtube]

It is the self-advocates and not the atypical special interest that will create awesome change. So I have also been told similarly by a Harvard graduate and autism specialist. I never believed in programs owned by private sector businesses and government ran programs lack innovation. Where I live private sector social service day programs used to where-house people with disabilities. Creating paid jobs doing things like paper shredding for well under minimum wage. The brainstorming for innovation, the creation of economic and personal independence is not there. Even if it has been it may just be more of the worry of creating just enough empowerment that a loss of profits would happen from independence and not dependence.

It's not all bad and folks are nice but they might not know no better. Social services is not typically the business minded folks. After all social services is not something a business can create to become a millionaire at. So the solution is using what money there is left over and with as much audacity as possible in public relations to create opportunity change. That's what I'm doing where I live but your circumstances and the programs that exist where you live might not be relevant. Here is California in Humboldt County every social and bureaucratic fertilization in the metaphoric soil of potentials exist but someone just had to be motivative enough and innovative.

So I'd like to hear your ideas about creating opportunity for individuals with ASD and other developmental disabilities. Some of you goto college well. I'd expect you to be more like support workers or administrators then participants being supported and others are not that well off as you. So this kind of creative struggle you might not relate to. My organization has a preferential hiring policy of minorities and those with A.S for instance to service those with other forms of autism. Most support workers in this industry are females by the way and very few of any of the support workers I hear have a form of autism such as Asperger's Syndrome locally.

Can you share your thoughts and ideas about creating opportunity in society the mainstream can support? I already have a 5-year agenda and a 4 year previous track record blazing in the spotlight. Can you add to it with your ideas and can you imagine doing something similar where you live?

Nathan Young

I think it is a complex problem for a complex clientele. For example, there are people for whom working in a supported employment environment is a challenge in itself, so these forms of employment do serve a need. The problem arises when disability is considered to equal supported employment.

I think that because autistics and people such as yourself, whose lives are influenced by autism, are so different, there needs to be a multiplicity of approaches. Some need very little support. For example, I would benefit greatly if, when I take on a new position, I had support for about two weeks to help me set up organizational systems. Once that was in place, I would manage very well, particularly as I sourced my own supports with regard to interview skills training and social skills training. I think the skills I have just mentioned should be offered to anyone with an ASD dx as should the opportunity for workplace advocacy if required.

I also think there is a place for specialist employment services such as Specialisterne. Employers know where to go to source the skills they need, so as long as salary and conditions are equitable, and on short contracts, that means very well paid, I think some people are well served by these, especially if they do not have the stamina for ongoing full time employment. I don't see these as any different from say a secretarial agency, where a certain degree of social skilling is required i.e. usually people with typical neurology.

The area of special interests is, I think, a huge and untapped source of income. For example, I met a guy making a considerable amount of money buying and selling Lego on ebay, yet nobody viewed that as employment. Similarly a young woman was buying electronics parts on ebay and selling them at swap meets and market stalls. Both were doing well because of their phenomenal knowledge of market demand and pricing.

I would like to see a government working party into autistic employment formed and of course, there would be autistics on the committee. Only when that happens will anyone have a clear understanding of the issues involved.

My own perspective on advocacy is that I am an educator and have decided that although my sphere of influence is small, the best thing that I can do is to be open about my diagnosis so that our community sees me developing a successful career, but I am there, quirks and all. I also have the opportunity to support peers who have greater abilities in the public arena, so I think the message is that we need to do the things we do best, each in our own ways and go from there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA23NOyDx5Q[/youtube]

Here if you have Asperger's Syndrome you do not qualify for services. If you have HFA at least you do. One thing I am doing is the Humboldt Includes campaign and am working with media and broadcasting organizations as well as the Chamber of Commerce. Handing out yearly awards announced on radio and it seems perhaps the local media.

There are three kinds of employment development. Which I might add business has been my dedicated interest since I was 10.

1. Intra-center employment. Right now others pour candles, make lotions and a whole host of products are being added next year once the robotics equipment is acquired. The national Autism Candles brandology will be introduced late 2012 or mid 2013 with qa $50,000 online marketing budget targeting the online developmental disability community to acquire fundraising accounts and word of mouth to achieve online purchases whilst providing employment for product making and shipping jobs.

2. Customized employment for individuals with their own interests. Developing business models for participants, working with business contacts to help establish their dreams like others have done for me and working with local CPA's to lower and subsidize the costs of their services. As well as working with the Social Security Administrations P.A.S.S program.

3. The Humboldt Includes campaign seeks to make visible in the community the integration agenda. Businesses have already sponsored very-part time employment with assigned job coaches. This is the primary focus as mainstream inclusion is community diversity but some people just don't want to do that. Humboldt Includes also networks with local agencies that provide behavioral aids as support workers for those with more profound differences.

These issues of economic inclusion must be more far reaching and audacious then in the past whilst reserving mutual respectabilities. Non-confrontational, in partnership with broadcasting and media and as well looking to the public for their support as it has already happened but expanding upon that for the Humboldt Includes campaign. Over 15,000 candles have already been distributed and the demand continues to grow locally.

wow it sounds as if things are moving well in your area. Here, it is extremely difficult for anyone who does not have a degree of intellectual disability to get services or other supports. The main one which is available to anyone with a dx is that at any level of study, accommodations and individual learning plans are available.

I had the IEP's when younger they did not work. Autism is considered a cognitive disability or difference so I am told. Ultimately it does not matter what someone is diagnosed with as it is the individual needs, wants and desires which services are individualized for. Under California law someone must have a qualifying developmental disability to receive services and supports. I teach myself and have my own library of textbooks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJYN-eG1zk&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]

Oh gosh people you have imaginations. If you could create equality, inclusion and disability adaptation for individuals with forms of autism and other developmental disabilities that are not accepted and part of typical economic integrations and comparable rights as everyone else what would you do. Are people sometimes afraid to stand up for themselves? If you need help and want to do something where you live and really do have a substantial disability I might be able to help you and work with your local media.

Am I going to be disappointed in this post and come to the conclusion that most passionate and enabled online self-advocacy is about words like "cure" and the "image" of autism and not as well as or simply civil rights with economic inclusion? This is very much the same but still unique in of itself as what Dr. King did for African Americans.

Nathan Young

I'm getting bored. I will check back from time to time on the forum.

Positive notions...