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Archive for April, 2013

 

Hello!


Thank you so much for your support in making this an incredible Autism Acceptance Month! As April comes to a close, we at ASAN are profoundly grateful and impressed by how much backing Autism Acceptance Month has garnered from the public and from our supporters. It’s time for us to thank you for all we’ve achieved together this April, and also to look forward to the future.


This month, the Autism Acceptance Month  web site has received tens of thousands of page hits. Our  pledge has more than 700 signatures, 13 other organizations we approached have signed on as supporters of Autism Acceptance  (you can check them out on our  Sponsors page!), ThinkGeek released three new  T-shirts promoting neurodiversity and generously donated 100% of the proceeds to us, and we’ve published over a dozen guest  blog posts by self-advocates and allies about what acceptance means to them personally. Similarly, our What Is Autism? page recently included a  Personal Experiences sub-section, which hosts an additional set of short essays.

 

Our hosted  events – numerous film screenings, a sensory friendly concert, the last Day of Mourning vigil, a video game tournament, an open mic Celebration of Autism, and an “Ask Me About” hosted by autistic adults – were all great successes! We at ASAN’s national branch in DC were delighted to meet our supporters during our two film screenings at the National Youth Transitions Center, and to receive reports from across the USA about other events hosted by national branches and by our supporters. We couldn’t have asked for more.


The real body of our work this month, though, has been our  Resources page. We created it to be a compendium of articles, essays and information across the Internet gently  introducing people to the concept of autism, as well as for  Autistic self-advocates,  parents of Autistic adults and children, and  educators of Autistic people. The Resources page is where we listed our Autism Acceptance Month ebook when it came out,  And Straight On Till Morning, a collection of essays by Autistic writers on awareness and acceptance. And, last week, we also added dozens of PDF fact sheets to each subsection, written by us and by our friends at  MCIE, in the hopes that they can become a reference to people wanting to learn – or teach – about autism and being Autistic.


Finally, we’ve released our  Listen Up!  PSA campaign for Autism Acceptance Month. These PSAs have also had thousands of views on Youtube, and right now we’re in the process of contacting national and local television networks with our friends and supporters, asking them to air Listen Up.


It’s been an incredibly busy and rewarding month. We couldn’t have even dreamed of this – any of this – happening without having, from the very beginning, your unwavering assistance, interest, input and passion. You helped us put Autism Acceptance Month on the nation’s radar for good. You helped prove what we’ve been saying all along – that anyone can achieve their goals if provided with appropriate accommodation and support. That’s invaluable, and it’s what gets us through these busy, intense and sometimes trying campaigns.


So thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. We hope and look forward to continuing to work together to create a world where everyone is accepted and included.

 

Sincerely,

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network



 

Dear Friends,

 

We are thrilled to announce the launch of ” Listen Up (Katie)“, the second of two public service announcements that we’ve created for Autism Acceptance Month. This is a brand new public service announcement featuring Katie Miller, one of ASAN’s board members, telling the world that the Autistic community can speak for itself.

 

Listen Up (Katie)” is on YouTube right now. We’re asking for your help to create enough buzz and pressure across social media to get both of our PSAs on air for Autism Acceptance Month. Watch it, share it, and help us make it go viral. If you want to see our PSAs on television, you can email acceptance@autisticadvocacy.org or visit the Autism Acceptance Month website for detailed information and instructions. This is your chance to help us spread the message of autism acceptance nationally, and we need every one of you to contribute.

 

Help us change the national conversation on autism from one that largely occurs without autistic people to a conversation that frames our voices as central. Acceptance is an action, as we’ve been saying all month, and now it’s time for us to take action and reclaim our seat at the table.

 

We’re very excited about our PSAs, about autism acceptance, and about the prospect of seeing our messages aired on television and virally online. So listen up! Together, we can change the national conversation on autism!

 

Regards,

 

Julia Bascom

Program Associate

Autistic Self Advocacy Network



This Friday morning, the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will be holding a hearing entitled, “Does HIPAA Help or Hinder Patient Care and Public Safety?” The hearing is part of a series of public efforts on the part of Subcommittee Chair Rep. Tim Murphy to claim that people with psychiatric disabilities are dangerous public safety threats and that our mental health system is biased towards patient rights. 

 

HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) guarantees your right of privacy in health care settings. It’s the law that makes sure that your doctor can’t decide to share your private, confidential medical information with others without your permission. HIPAA already includes exceptions for emergency situations and law enforcement necessity. Despite that, Rep. Murphy and his allies want to weaken HIPAA further and threaten your privacy rights.

 

Stand up for privacy by  signing our petition calling on Rep. Murphy to reconsider his attack on HIPAA. Take action today – before it’s too late!


Take Action!

 

Should Congress Be Able To Disclose Your Medical Records?

 

Dear Friend:

 

Should your doctor have the right to share your private mental health records without your permission? This Friday, the House Energy & Commerce Oversight Subcommittee will be taking up this very issue as part of Chairman Rep. Tim Murphy’s attack on the HIPAA privacy rights of people with psychiatric disabilities. We’ll be showing up to try and send a message by packing the room with supporters of disability rights – but we need your help.

 

Join us at 8:30 AM outside Room 2123 in the Rayburn House Office Building to defend the privacy rights of people with disabilities. The hearing, entitled “Does HIPAA Help or Hinder Patient Care and Public Safety?”, will begun at 9 AM. ASAN and our supporters will begin lining up outside the hearing room at 8:30 to make sure we get seats.

 

All supporters of our cause who join us will get a free, orange “Nothing About Us, Without Us!” t-shirt that we encourage you to put on and wear during the hearing. We want Rep. Murphy and anyone else on the Committee who decides to attack our privacy rights to see a sea of orange-clad voters with disabilities in the audience!

 

RSVP with our event on facebook or, if you aren’t on facebook, e-mail us at lbrown@autisticadvocacy.org. I hope to see you there!


RSVP NOW

 

Regards,

Ari Ne’eman

President

Autistic Self Advocacy Network



Dear Friends,

 

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Listen Up, the first of two public service announcements that we’ve created for Autism Acceptance Month. Listen Up features Henry Frost, Amy Sequenzia, and Kevin Barrett telling the world that the Autistic community can speak for itself.

 

Listen Up is on YouTube right now. We encourage you to watch it, share it, and help us make it go viral. If you want to see Listen Up on television, you can email acceptance@autisticadvocacy.org or visit the Autism Acceptance Month website for detailed information and instructions.

 

Help us change the national conversation on autism from one that largely occurs without autistic people to a conversation that frames our voices as central. Acceptance is an action, as we’ve been saying all month, and now it’s time for us to take action and reclaim our seat at the table.

 

We’re very excited about Listen Up, about autism acceptance, and about the prospect of seeing our PSA aired on television and virally online. So listen up! Together, we can change the national conversation on autism!

 

Regards,

 

Ari Ne’eman

President

Autistic Self Advocacy Network



http://www.amazon.com/And-Straight-Till-Morning-ebook/dp/B00C35BDFG/ref=sr_1_2

 

We are excited to present our first e-book,  And Straight on Till Morning: Essays on Autism Acceptance, for this year’s Autism Acceptance Month. You can download the ebook for only $2.99 on Amazon. And Straight on Till Morning is part of an ongoing campaign to shift April from discourse about autism awareness toward discourse about autism acceptance, centering Autistic voices and creating a more inclusive, accepting world.

 

And Straight on Till Morning: Essays on Autism Acceptance features a collection of essays and blog posts originally posted to our website for Autism Acceptance Month last year. The writings selected forAnd Straight on Till Morning build on our tagline for Autism Acceptance Month-“Acceptance is an action.” The authors are Autistic people and allies, who write about the need for moving beyond awareness and toward acceptance; the ways in which awareness fails our community; and what acceptance can look like in practice in the community.

 

We invite you to  download And Straight on Till Morning today and share it with your best friends, worst enemies, colleagues, and random strangers on the street.

 

Happy reading,

 

Julia Bascom

Autistic Self Advocacy Network



 

We are excited to announce the launch of the new Autism Acceptance Month website for this April, as part of a history of campaigns by autistic people and our allies to shift the month’s focus from autism awareness to autism acceptance.

 

The tagline for our Autism Acceptance Month website is “Acceptance is an action.” This means that autism acceptance is an active process that requires both a shift in thinking and in action. Similarly, our website will not only provide fact sheets and resources about autism for autistic people, family members, educators, and the general public, but will also serve as a central location for posting and sharing information about autism acceptance-themed events occurring across the United States for the entire month.

 

You can also take our pledge committing not to give your time, business or attendance to autism events that talk about Autistic people without including us. Will you take the pledge?


We invite you to visit the Autism Acceptance Month website, sign the pledge, and share the resources with your friends and colleagues. Together, we can work to change dialogue about autism from fear, pity, and tragedy to support, acceptance, and empowerment.

 

Regards,  

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network