Current Events and Campaigns
City2surf 2013 - Sunday 11 August
It’s City2Surf time again and we are all set to go with our 2013 Autism Awareness Australia Team! The race is on Sunday 11 August and we'd love for you to join us.
Whether you want to run, walk or crawl we promise it will be a fun day, and you know you'll be contributing to a great cause!
Join the team and run with us! Contact us to find out how
Can't make the race but still want to show your support? Then please help us raise funds by making a donation. You can also share our team page via your Facebook, Twitter & email and encourage friends & family to make a donation!
We are all geared up to meet our fundraising target of $25,000. With your support we know we can do it!
Run or raise for Autism Awareness, and show your support for all Australians with an ASD and the families who love them!
What are you doing? a film about autism
'What are you doing?' is a short film, created by Autism Awareness Australia, which aims to teach school aged children about acceptance and understanding of their peers with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Narrated by television personality Tom Gleisner and written by
‘The Other Country’ author Michael Whelan, the film includes enlightening interviews with the brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends of children on the spectrum. Through beautiful imagery, engaging narrative, and quirky animation, ‘What are you doing?’ sends the all important message of inclusion and understanding of all those with ASD by their peers and within their communities. It has received glowing reviews at its three premieres in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and has enormous support from parents and educators across the country.
“What are you doing?”, along with accompanying teaching materials, has been distributed to every school in Australia, totaling over 10,000 copies nationwide. To find out more about the national school disctribution of the filmp please click here
PURCHASE YOUR OWN COPY OF 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?'
Autism: Building Positive Outcomes - 20 April 2013
What a fantastic day we had on Saturday 20 April at our event ‘Autism: Building positive Outcomes!’ A great day of info and support for parent and professionals, which we are delighted to say was FREE!
The event combined Autism Masterclasses and an Info Hub, where visitors met with quality ASD product and service providers.
Our Masterclass program featured two concurrent streams, one focused on early intervention and the other focused on adolescents and teenagers. The program was designed to give parents and professionals essential and practical information on topics such as: understanding ASD, funding entitlements, early intervention options, behaviour management strategies and addressing autism in adolescents.
Our speaker panel included international guests from the USA Dr Bobby Newman, Dr Eric Larsson & Dr John McEachin, as well as a host of Australian experts Dr James Best, Shannon Eeles, Charmaine Fraser, Ramona Toscano, Gail Quinn, Kathryn Wicks, Benison O’Reilly, Aurora Hammond, Michael Whelan and William Johns.
Whilst the weather wasn’t on our side, visitors who attended were certainly happy that they did! It’s not often that we see so many great minds are in the same room, and we are very proud that we were able to host such an important and much needed event free of charge to the community.
We plan to continue to take our parent and professional educational series around Australia in the near future. Stay tuned to see where we go next!
DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE INFO HUB PLAN HERE
Light it up blue - 2nd April 2013
We did it! The Sydney Opera House was illuminated a brilliant blue on Tuesday 2nd April 2013 for World Autism Awareness Day! Thanks to the support and generosity of Australians all across the country we were able to shine a bright light on autism, for all individuals on the spectrum and the families who love them.
Autism Awareness Australia was determined that Sydney would play a prominent part in this important global campaign, and we will continue to ensure we are represented in the coming years.
For us, it was never about a light. It wasn’t even about the colour blue. It was, and always will be, about making Australia more ‘Autism Aware’….and our ‘Light it up blue’ campaign certainly achieved that!
Thank you to everyone who donated to our campaign, who shared, posted and tweeted our messages! Your contribution helped make it such a huge success!
View our Light it up blue photo album
For all the campaign details visit www.lightitupblue.com.au
1000hours
The 1000Hours campaign was created in 2008, and still continues, to o lobby government to fund a minimum of 1000 Hours of Early Intervention per annum for 2 years for every pre-school child with autism.
The Commonwealth Government's Best Practice Guidelines state that "A program needs to be of at least 20 hours per week over an extended period of at least two years". This equates to 1000 hours per year for 2 years. Despite these guidelines only a handful of families can afford to access this amount of therapy.
Currently the Helping Children with Autism package falls short of providing children with best practice early intervention. Whilst the funding certainly provides universal access to at least some early intervention, for most children the hours provided fall far short of government recommendations, 100 - 150 hours per year. 1000 Hours is asking government to bridge this gap for all Australian children with autism as soon as possible.
Sign up and support the 1000hours campaign!
