Latest News for Parents & Carers

A touring art exhibition is giving young people who are autistic an opportunity to express themselves. The Creative Voices: What Autism Means to Me exhibition showcases more than 140 pieces of art created by autistic post-primary pupils from schools right across Northern Ireland.

Saffron Anderton was at university when she was diagnosed as autistic. The 22-year-old, from Newmarket, Suffolk, also discovered she experiences alexithymia, meaning she cannot identify emotions. Saffron similarly struggles to create mental images in her mind, a condition called aphantasia.

The Disabled Apprentice Network has launched its 2023 report Speaking from Experience: Getting It Right for Disabled Apprentices. It is Disability Rights UK’s follow-up report to 2022’s Getting it Right for Disabled Apprentices. The report considers what works well through collecting and analysing young Disabled people’s experiences of how they receive information about apprenticeships; their engagement with training providers and employers, and the support they have received. We also collected the views from various stakeholders who work with Disabled young people.

Disabled people are abandoning plans for outdoor activity breaks due to the cost-of-living crisis. Their decision comes at a huge cost to their physical and mental health. 20

The Council for Disabled Children has worked with parent carers of autistic children and children with a learning disability, medical professionals and charities to develop a guide to improve conversations and decision-making about the prescription of psychotropic medication.