The Policy and Campaigns Team have been busy this week at the Liberal Democrat Conference talking to MPs about issues affecting children and adults with autism, including education.
We spoke about our concerns about a lack of awareness and understanding of autism among school staff and about the challenges facing parents with autism, as they battle to get the support their children need at school.
NAS Fringe event
The NAS also held its third annual 'Cocktails and Conversation' fringe event, this year focusing on mental health services for children with autism, following the launch of our You Need to Know Campaign.
One of our young campaigners Hayley Nickels spoke at the event about her experiences of mental health services. Among other things she highlighted some of the problems she had had at school that had led to her developing mental health problems.
In the discussion that followed, the importance of better integrated working between health, education and social care was stressed.
Government spokesperson Baroness Northover said that it was worrying that so few parents and families felt that mental health services were helping them and that resources were being wasted as a result.
Liberal Democrat MP Annette Brooke stressed that it was really important that schools worked to prevent mental health problems from developing.
To find out more about the You Need to Know campaign see: http://www.autism.org.uk/Youneedtoknow
We will also be at Labour and Conservative Party Conferences and will keep you up to date on what we are doing on this site.
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