What a week.
Its been Schools Autism Awareness Week for the past 5 days and I wish I could say I've seen much evidence of it but it seems to have largely passed my local area by, even my own school didn't really bother with it much except to allow me to run an afternoon/evening conference on Wednesday.
Despite the numbers of children diagnosed each year climbing and the ever increasing importance of autism awareness and reasonable adjustments being needed it still feels like a lot of school staff, employers, colleagues, general public don't really give two figs.
I worked incredibly hard to pull off our conference on Wednesday and while I'm very proud of my own achievements in that regard, I do feel somewhat let down by the attitude of my colleagues towards my event and the campaign in general - yet again autism is something that has been dismissed as 'not a priority' which disappoints me.
Its a pervading attitude that I worry is indicative of the way non-autistic people think of autism in general; its too easy for people to 'pay lip service' for a short while then go straight back to carrying on as they always had been with no regard for what we live with every minute of every day. Its not like my sensory issues come with a dial or pause button that I can utilise when it suits someone else.
They certainly wouldn't be allowed to 'get away' with 'forgetting' about the specific needs of a diabetic/nut allergy sufferer/paraplegic/blind person - in fact I'm pretty sure sometimes more effort goes into be considerate of my colleagues gluten/wheat/dairy intolerances than goes in to making sure I've got a sensory environment that wont give me an overload migraine every few hours!
Anyway, stressful week over - its time to crack open a bottle of wine, watch The Last Leg and enjoy the thought that I have nothing planned for the next 48 hours apart from watching the England team lift the Six Nations trophy!! (Lets make it a Grand Slam please boys?!)
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