By Nicole Rogerson, CEO and Founder.

Back in 2007, when I started Autism Awareness Australia, I thought “awareness” was the most important thing we needed. I believed that if more Australians understood autism, life would improve for my son Jack and for the thousands of Jacks (and Jills) across the country who shared his diagnosis.

I don’t think I was wrong. But I did overestimate just how much heavy lifting awareness could do.

So, 19 years later… are we there yet?

Well, we certainly have more awareness. We can tick that box. Autism is understood, talked about, and visible in a way it simply wasn’t back then. But is life actually better for autistic Australians?

The honest answer is, sort of.

And I know some people will disagree with me, but when I look back, real change has happened. We have the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Yes, it’s a basket case. But it’s our basket case. And despite its flaws, it has brought dignity and agency to hundreds of thousands of Australians with disability. That matters. It can be fixed, improved, and reshaped. That work is ongoing, and it’s worth doing.

Our education system now at least recognises that autistic children need something different at school. Many schools still do a shocking job of it, but it’s no longer invisible. It’s on the radar. And that’s a step forward. But here’s the problem. Awareness got us this far. It won’t take us much further.

Pathways to employment are still deeply broken. For autistic people with high support needs, housing options are inconsistent at best, non-existent at worst. Families are still left to navigate systems that are fragmented, confusing, and often failing the very people they’re meant to support.

This is where the narrative gets uncomfortable. Because we’ve become very good at talking about autism. We’ve created months, campaigns, and labels. April is now Autism Awareness Month, Autism Acceptance Month, Autism Understanding Month. And yet, for many families, not much changes when the month ends.

The truth is, none of these labels really make sense. Autistic people are not one thing. Their needs, their strengths, and their challenges are vastly different. A single word or a single campaign was never going to capture that. So maybe we stop trying to label April altogether.

Because just as awareness was never enough, a month will never be enough either. What actually matters is what happens the other 11 months of the year. The policies we build. The services we fund. The housing we create. The jobs we open up.

Awareness opened the door. But it’s not the solution.

The next phase is harder. It’s slower. And it requires real commitment.

And whether we like it or not, that work is on all of us.

So we keep going.