Our primary goal at ASH is to provide social groups for Low-Support needs Autistic Adults in Aberdeen. We focus on this group as they - including our staff and volunteers! - are often isolated and needing a service that treats them as the adults they are.
Our groups are facilitated by autistic staff and volunteers, as this allows shared, lived-experience assistance where necessary.
We consider agency and choice to be one of the most fundamental pillars of our mission, and so the groups are entirely shaped by the requests of our members.
We assume that every autistic person that comes to our groups is a competence and capable person, and we will act in support of that. However, capability doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself - Asking for help is part of capability!
We believe that it is critical for every human to make decisions on their own behalf. We also know that this is something many of us find difficult as autistic people. ASH is committed to facilitating this at every level (For example, see the 'Rebrand Story' for how we came up with our name and logo).
While our groups are - we hope! - fun social group, we are also committed to them being more that that - that by attending, you can gain confidence and options. However, in line with the other pillars, we are committed to this being at your pace, not ours! We also believe that all humans - including autistic people - develop best with their peers, and that by the existence of appropriate autistic social groups will enable us to enable and support ourselves.
Autistic people are often treated like children and assumed to be incapable of understanding 'adult' or 'important' things. This is obviously damaging! By providing a place that automatically treats all autistic people not only with respect, but also with genuine assumptions of capability, we hope to allow you a place to work to counteract that damage - alongside others who have faced similar battles and have similar fears.
This also means we are entirely autistic led. All decisions are made by autistic people at every level - the charity's governance is made up of autistic people (although they can choose to bring in non-autistic people to gain access to specific skills if possible), and so are all contact staff and volunteers.
Like most Autistic Persons' Organisations, ASH defaults to Identity First Language:- "Autistic Person" rather than "Person with Autism".
However, should you refer to yourself in an alternative way, we will respect that choice!
We also do not refer to autism as inherently negative; but nor do we think it is a 'superpower'. Autism is part of us with costs and benefits. For some of us, those costs outweigh the benefits. While we fully support people who consider their own autism a 'superpower', we think it is alienating to autistic people who cannot see the benefits to refer to the condition generally as one.
Today | By Appointment |
Autistic Social Hub
Davidson House
Campus One
Balgownie Road, Bridge of Don,
Aberdeen AB22 8GT
Autistic Social Hub Aberdeen is charity registered in Scotland, No. SC054031
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