Blue Sky's Autism Service's ninth annual Autism Acceptance Day is coming up on Saturday, April 12 at the South Cariboo Visitor Centre.
The event is held every as a way to increase the community's awareness about autism and promote acceptance for families and individuals who live with autism. Blue Sky's Autism Services program coordinator Addilyn Ratcliff said outside of the change of venue, this year's event will be set up like previous years.
"We've kind of moved on now from awareness about autism to acceptance of autism. I feel a lot of people (in the community) know what autism is but now (the question) is how do we include these individuals in our community?" Ratcliff asked. "How do we show them respect and how do we celebrate them? That's kind of what we're focusing on this year, the inclusion and celebration of these individuals."
This year the event gets underway starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 12 and runs until 1 p.m. As in previous years, Ratcliff has teamed up with the Cariboo Chilcotin Partners for Literacy who will be setting up a story walk for parents to browse through. This year their chosen story is More Than Words by Roz MacLean, which teaches children about the various ways they can communicate verbally and non-verbally.
Setup on the visitor centre grounds will be several sensory games for children, along with some information booths for their parents. Ratcliff said they will have a face painting booth set up for kids along with an arts and crafts station, a bubble machine, a ball pit and some sensory tables.
"Something new this year is we are going to have some books on display from the library that tell stories about people with autism or just how we can include autistic individuals in our community," Ratcliff said. "We hope to have a few other service providers from the community joining us as well."
When asked what the community can do to be more accepting and accommodating towards autistic individuals, Ratcliff said it is important to keep in mind that just because you know one person with autism doesn't mean you've met every person with autism. Each person with autism is an individual and has their strengths and struggles different from one another.
"One thing we're finding a lot is giving the families the space they need to work through meltdowns with their children out in the community. A meltdown is really not a tantrum, it's the child being overstimulated so it's really important people don't gather around or try to intervene but give these parents and children the space they need," Ratcliff explained. "More often than not, when that happens the meltdown will be over faster than if people tried to intervene and help"
Ratcliff said the new location will be outdoors and should be lots of fun for everyone. She added they welcome anyone with time to come see what they're all about and get to meet some other families.
If someone wants to attend but is busy that day, Ratcliff said they contact Blue Sky's via their Facebook page or by emailing blueskysautism16@gmail.com.
