The single most exciting and important project I have been working on in the last few months is our new campaign – It’s how you show up.
Work on the campaign began last summer, when we conducted a survey about public understanding of autism. It was filled out by over 8,000 people, with 4,231 autistic people and 4,007 non-autistic people, who were mostly parents or carers of autistic people. The results (1) were shocking:
- A quarter (25%) of autistic people said they usually get a negative reaction when they say they are autistic.
- Nine in ten autistic people (90%) have experienced poor mental health due to attitudes or perceptions of autism and 84% have experienced social isolation.
Some of the comments on the survey were deeply upsetting:
"My bad experiences have meant that I am afraid to go out or interact with anyone in public"
But there is hope.
We also surveyed members of the public. While it was very clear that there isn’t the understanding of autism we need, there is a real willingness to learn more. Through this You Gov poll of 2,128 adults, conducted on behalf of National Autistic Society, we found nearly two thirds (62%) of UK adults said they want to learn how to help autistic people feel more accepted. (2)
So how do we bridge this gap between wanting to help and taking action?
For so many autistic people and parents, when we asked what they’d like the public to do in a situation where an autistic person is becoming visibly overwhelmed, they said things like:
"Be patient and give me time to process my reactions."
"Reassure me that they aren’t judging and want to help."
"Be understanding and kind."
Patience, reassurance and understanding is something everyone deserves, and it is clear that there’s something every one of us can do.
This survey was just the beginning. Fast forwarding a few months of hard work, and our campaign was born.
We worked with autistic people throughout the process and a creative agency called Don’t Panic. We’d previously worked with them on our award-winning Too Much Information campaign, so we were thrilled to take on this campaign with them.
By autistic people, for autistic people
It’s essential that autistic people were involved in this campaign every step of the way.
Our autistic colleagues at the National Autistic Society have been part of our campaign team from the start, and we formed two steering groups during the campaign – one made up of autistic people and one of parents of autistic people (some of whom were also autistic themselves). Their combined input helped us decide on the name for the campaign and approve early advert designs.
Autistic people are also featured within this national campaign as well.
For our campaign film, we worked with an incredible family. Chris and Penny were selected after open call outs for an autistic parent and child across our social media channels and our film production company’’s networks. Taking part in a film shoot was a completely new experience for the whole family, and in preparation, the director, producer and writers all completed National Autistic Society training on autism and took the time to ensure the entire experience was as comfortable as it could be for everyone.
Each of our adverts feature autistic people who have kindly shared their stories of how someone showed up for them. We spoke to dozens of people when searching for stories that would resonate with the public and spent many hours planning shoots across the UK to ensure we could capture a huge diversity of experiences, and representation within the autistic community.
One of the stories that stood out for me was as the teacher in Glasgow who took the time to sit under the table with an autistic child, because they had seen her parent do the same thing – a silent act of solidarity and acceptance. Some of the stories featured in our adverts will also be shared on our pledge wall.
