Tag Archives: CASDA

Link

So. Here is the preliminary video of the autistic advocates’ panel at the CASDA 2018 Summit. This is not the official video, which CASDA is working on getting professionally edited; this is basically the raw footage with a few edits (title and removing the final remarks of the day) by me. Once the official video goes up, I will remove mine and put a link on this post to the new one.

CONTENT WARNING: The video is just over an hour long, and as I state up front, there are some very difficult and painful things to hear (including mentions of suicide and filicide).

Comments are welcome.

😐 tagÂûght

#CASDASummit2018: Day 2 (Pt 2) – #UnspokenPriceOfAutisticAdvocacy

So, as mentioned in the last post, this post is focused entirely on our panel – First Voice Perspective – The Unspoken Price of Advocacy. Note that the panel was recorded, and I’ll be putting up a link to that recording when it goes live.

The panel consisted of myself, Corey Walker (from BC), Patricia George-Zwicker (from NS), Jackie McMillan (from ON) – all of whom were on the CAPP Advisory Group with me – and Daniel Share-Strom (from ON). There was supposed to be one more, Bruno Hache (from ON), but unfortunately one of his best friends committed suicide on the Monday, so he couldn’t make it.

But before I get to the contents of our panel, I want to share a picture with you – a picture that was taken of pretty much all the attendees of the summit. (It’s not loading into this post, so here!)

Read on, please.

#CASDASummit2018: Day 2 (Pt 1)

Day 2 of the CASDA Summit (Thursday April 19) started out on an interesting note. And by “started out”, I mean 1 am.

I spent the first two hours of the 19th working on the script for my portion of the “First Voice Perspective” panel – finishing writing it out, and then reading it out loud and making edits. (I spent from 1am to 2am doing the latter.) Then I managed to crash – for a while.

The Summit Day 2 session itself also started out on an interesting note.

Read on, read on!

#CASDASummit2018: Day 1 and Self-Care

First day of the CASDA Summit of 2018 (Wednesday April 18). Woke up earlier than I meant to, which was irritating. Read an article from the Ottawa Citizen written by Senator Jim Munson, and got upset about some of the terminology used. (He saw my tweet, and apologized both on Twitter and in person, I definitely have to respect that.)

Got to the summit place (same place as last year, the Shaw Centre, which is attached to the Rideau Centre, which is kitty-corner from the hotel), grabbed breakfast and chatted to various people, including the other ASNL staff and board member there, and then settled up front at the “autistics'” table. 🙂 (AKA the table that most of us sat at, including all of us who were on the “First Voice Perspective” panel.)

Just a warning note before I get into the day’s panels: I was only able to note down certain comments (as opposed to the whole speech of each panelist – thinking of recording certain panels next year for my own info), so I went for the ones that struck me as particularly important in what each of them were saying.

Read on for more details of the morning (I skipped out on the afternoon) and what I did the rest of the day

Leaving, on a Jet Plane

(Except I know exactly when I’ll be coming back. 😉 )

So, back in November/December, I applied to be a member of Autism Canada’s ASD Advisory Board. On my application, I filled in that I was interested both in being part of the planning for a conference specifically for autistic adults (AKA a Canadian version of Autreat), and as a stakeholder in discussions, polls, surveys, etc. The latter has gotten me involved in CASDA (Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance) as a stakeholder for the Canadian Autism Partnership Project (CAPP), a Federal initiative whose goal is to: “address key issues such as information sharing and research, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, and supporting families” (quote from Canadian Autism Partnership: Canada’s Economic Action Plan).

The first face-to-face meeting of stakeholders is going to be in Halifax next week. (I’m rather looking forward to it.)

And even more, because my sister and my oldest niece and my nephews all live in a suburb of Halifax, so I’m going to be spending some time with them as well.

For more about my plans, continue reading