Spectrum of Misconception

Its that time of year again, time to share a very special message.

Spectrum of Misconception is our Social Enterprise, set up to give our son Zach the opportunity many of us take for granted, to experience work.

When we set up the enterprise we wanted to make it relevant to Zach and so we came up with an idea which as well as giving Zach work experience also educated people about autism.

Autism is extremely complicated and varies so much from person to person. How many times as a parent have I had someone tell me ‘oh yes, I know someone like that’?  I can tell you, it is many! Have I challenged everybody who has ever said it? No!

To explain the vast spectrum would be like unravelling a never ending ball of string because there are so many differences.

We wanted to bust some of the most commonly held myths about autism, to share messages which would raise awareness of autism, to let people know that not everybody who has autism comes from the same mould. The only thing most people with autism definitely have in common is the label.

Our Enterprise was entirely funded using Crowd Funding and the very generous support of dear friends. We feel a massive responsibility to make the enterprise a success and to keep it going, we hope that we can expand and offer more people who have autism and complex needs the chance to gain work experience.

How can you help?

You can order some of our wonderful Christmas Cards. The cards are unique. We asked a local artist Malini Croxon to illustrate them this year and she has really captured our concepts. Both illustrations carry subtle autism awareness messages related to the image and a festive greeting.

Zach’s role in the process is packing up orders and taking them to the post office where they are weighed and passed through to the staff behind the counter.

 

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This is a challenge for Zach but he is doing brilliantly at getting boxes ready, packing up the correct orders and in the Post Office. He is helped with all this by his wonderful support team.

We hope to receive your order, for us there is no more important message than to raise autism awareness and understanding.

Find us at http://www.spectrumofmisconception.com

 

 

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It’s been busy!

One of the things my blog is meant to be about is life, so it is a bit of nuisance when life gets in the way and there aren’t the hours in the day to do some writing!

The last couple of months have been a struggle.  My poor Mum had a nasty fall, resulting in broken bones and a miserable hospital stay.

As a student nurse the ‘Activities of Daily Living’ were what was drummed into us and the importance of ensuring that these needs were met during a hospital stay. It was hard to witness the lack of personal care and the malaise shown towards patients who were elderly. Modern medicine is great but if we are to keep people living for so much longer we surely need to offer services that reflect the interventions used to achieve this. Life must have value to and quality. We cannot treat people as though they are no longer important once they reach a certain age.

Mum is now in a nursing home and my Dad still at home in their flat. They have been married for 69 years and it seems very sad so I am spending a lot of time beetling between them and trying to ensure they see plenty of each other.

While all this has been going on we have had Zach’s 21st Birthday Party. It was so great to see so many people who have been such a big part of our journey all in one place. The look on Zach’s face as more and more people he cares about arrived was a picture. Thanks so much to everyone for coming, you are all fabulous!

 

There has also been plenty of work going on with the ‘Spectrum of Misconception’. We cannot thank you all enough for your generosity and support with our crowd funding. We have the first illustrations for our autism myth busting cards and we also have a great logo and a Christmas card.

Our logo is based on the triad of impairments which are often referred to in relation to the autistic spectrum.

Triad of Impairment is used to describe the main features of autism. These are social interaction, Communication and language and rigidity of thinking.

The triad of impairment will tell you all about the most negative aspects someone who has autism may have. I am sure I don’t need to explain the meaning of our logo!

We are now working hard to get the Christmas card out in a timely manner so that it isn’t too late for those who want to buy it. I know some people are incredibly organised and buy cards early so  I can’t bank on everyone being like me and buying, writing and posting my cards on the last day of posting.

Our Christmas Autism Awareness message is….Autism comes in all shapes and sizes! It will be on the inside left cover, so subtle but lets hope the message hits home.

We have all we need for the packaging so can post cards out to online orders. All our packaging and products will be environmentally friendly and recyclable.

Our Christmas card is a beautiful design which has a very subtle autism awareness message. We wanted our card to be able to sit happily alongside others whilst raising awareness at the same time. I hope you will love it as much as I do.

We have a face book page and have been working on the website. I am pretty much totally useless with anything on a computer so am waiting for expert support to make them look as interesting and professional as we want them to be.

Please keep an eye out for our Christmas Card design and if you would like to order some let me know, I promise it will be ready as soon as possible.

The website (when it goes live) is at http://www.spectrumofmisconception.com and the facebook page is Spectrum of Misconception.

I look forward to hearing from you (fingers crossed!) 🙂