Act for Autism is a social enterprise based in Warwickshire that was founded in 2016 By Tessa Morton and Jane Gurnett and its purpose is to empower autistic kids to have a voice and use that voice to share more about autism with the wider community. In the short time it has been running the achievement of the team have been widespread. From creative projects, to training, to conferences to mentoring and counselling. The biggest achievement has been the film project Autism Voices, a 4-day project in Easter 2018, funded by Act for Autism with the sole purpose of supporting the cast of 12 autistic students, to make a film that would help teachers understand how it felt when their autism was not fully understood at school. Since making the film its impact has been overwhelming. It has been made available to all schools in Warwickshire, been shown as part of pgcert training in 2 leading universities, won a prestigious film award in New York, and been nominated for an autism professionals award. But more importantly the students have been brave enough to take the film into their own schools and where previously they felt unseen and unvalued, they now host assemblies and staff training where they show the film and talk about their autism openly to a huge audience. With the success of this film, we are close to securing funding for a second project this year and hope to have similar projects running every year until everyone understands. We believe that making the film and the subsequent showing of the film by the students themselves, has proved to be a perfect vehicle for self-advocacy. The pride and self-esteem coupled with the self-acceptance that has come from it have surpassed all expectations. We now show the film on all our parent training and school training courses, to not only inform about autism but to inspire parents and teachers to never underestimate the talent, and the ability and the desire that autistic students have to express themselves.
