The 'a' Appeal...Reality

So following previous blog with the "a" logo, i will explain what it's all about soon...the "a" appeal represents a Autism charity based in North London which helps, children and adults who are autistic as well as the parents & relatives.

My good friend Charlotte works for this charity and always used to talk about the charity in the past and i always remember saying i would love to do some work together for the charity but we would just repeat the conversation everytime we met....till i guess we were both at a time where it felt right and we had a better purpose and understanding for each-other in knowing how it could work us working together...

I have to admit, my knowledge wasn't as good as i thought, which i soon found out after visiting one of their evening groups a few days ago, the program i went to was around 7-10 children aged between 12-15 yrs old. The charity provides each child with their own helper who would be with them at all times.
I kept asking Charlotte what are the children like really expecting 1 answer for all, when it only made sense when i met them that every child was totally different from each other.
The first thing that really stood out was how amazing the team workers were, jumped into activities and dealt with every child with total confidence in terms of how to handle them when they may get too loud or excited, and then angry and upset.

I'm not great at going into great length over an event as....i'm simply rubbish at trying to explain something!!!
The bottom line for me was that reality really sank in when i was there, understanding what the parents or/and relatives have to do inorder to keep their child safe from harms way, it requires care 24 hours a day, it's not even like you can go to sleep and start it again tommorrow as you don't know whether your child will get up in the middle of the night, i heard one case of a little girl who kept trying to jump out of her window....and she lived in a high rise....!
On top of that, you then have someone who may be in pain but can't tell you, can you imagine? Being in so much pain and not able to tell anyone, no one understanding you, your voice not being heard, the confusion....and yet i know people who shout before they think, and have no consideration for other people's voices, it's deffo makes you re-think what i used to think was a high priority in life.

It made me see what i took for granted....there's not much more to go into apart from saying it opened my eyes to what's really important.

Each child i saw had something very special about them, you had the cheeky one who would know when to smile in order to get another biscuit, the most articulate young guy who i swear had better manners than my brothers lol and then the quiet one who only had to look at your with the most beautiful eyes iv ever seen which i could of sat and stared at all night!

The event i'm working on with Charlotte is on order the raise awareness for Autism and this specific charity, it's amazing much help they don't get considering what they do for young children and their families and did you know 1 in a 100 people are effected with autism?

I heard alot of different situations and story's about different families and what they go through, how to cope..it's not something everyone is trained to understand.
This has become very close to my heart and i will not stop until we achieve exactly and more what we have set out too......


Some Stats ...

• 2.3 million people in the UK are affected by autism: family, professionals, carers etc.
• Total people with autism in UK 587,900 (approx 1% of total UK population)
• 1% of total London population is 76,000 so this is approximate number of people living with autism in London.
• There is a common misconception that autism only affects white middle class families. Autism in fact affects people of all racial, ethnic, socio-economic backgrounds.
• Contrary to popular belief, there are likely to be around 17,500 families in London from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities affected by autism.
• There are an estimated 11,000 school-age children BME communities in England and Wales affected by autistic spectrum conditions.
• 4 times an hour, every working day a person is diagnosed with autism in the UK.
• Autism is one of the most common developmental disorders and yet is still one of the least understood.
• The cost of autism to the UK exceeds 1billion per year plus the average additional lifetime costs for living support and education estimated at nearly 3 million per person.
• 21% of children with autism have been excluded from school at least once.
• Autistic children are 20 times more likely to be excluded from school.
• 85% of teenagers with Aspergers (an autism spectrum condition) attempt suicide.