Jason White, Specialisterne Australia Employment Service Manager, and Catherine Trezona, Altogether Autism national manager, at the Specialisterne booth at APAC, Sydney, September 2017.
September 2017 – Thank you for your response to the autistic talent survey. We are currently working closely with organisations in New Zealand to establish hiring programmes to employ autistic talent.
Your contribution, and those of others who participated in the autistic employment survey, has given us some very important leads.
We know there are many talented individuals on the spectrum in New Zealand looking for work.
Autism@Work, Sydney 2017
Members from Altogether Autism and Specialisterne Australia attended the Autism@Work event in Sydney on Wednesday 6th September, and listened to employers and employees talk of the benefits of hiring employees on the autism spectrum.
Dr Robert Van Barneveld from SunPork Farms talked about the benefits of hiring autistic employees to workplace culture and existing staff. SunPork Farms was involved in the Autism and Agriculture project in Australia in 2016 and 2017.
Asia Pacific Autism Conference (APAC), Sydney 2017
Members from Altogether Autism and Specialisterne Australia attended the Asia Pacific Autism Conference in Sydney (APAC17). The conference had a much larger focus on adults and employment than it has ever had in the past.
Some of the presentation focus points included mental health and wellbeing, transitioning after high school and employment. The programme can be found on the APAC website.
Altogether Autism will also have feedback on APAC2017 in the next edition of our Journal, due out in October. Subscribe to this free Journal here.
Specialisterne Australia had a booth at the conference so attendees could come up and talk about the previous work in Australia, and future work in Australia and New Zealand.
Jay Hobbs from Specialisterne co-presented with Professor Tony Attwood on a programme created at Minds and Hearts Clinic called ‘Thriving at work’. This programme was designed to assist autistic adults in their successful transition to the workplace.
Jason White and Dr Rebecca Flower presenting on Specialisterne Australia: An Inclusive World, at APAC, Sydney, September 2017.
Jason White and Dr Rebecca Flower from Specialisterne co-presented on Friday afternoon. Their talk was titled ‘Specialisterne Australia: An Inclusive World’ (the title in the programme is different). It was about understanding the barriers in traditional recruitment process for individuals on the autism spectrum, and coming up with an alternative solution to allow candidates to show their skills rather than talk about them in a job interview.
We will keep you updated. If you have any questions you are welcome to contact us by email or phone Catherine on 07 903 7028.