A safe place to come for advice, support and inspiration.

by Seana Smith on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

What a lovely phrase that is. It’s just what we wanted the Australian Autism Handbook to be, but didn’t ever express it quite so well.

“A safe place to come for advice, support and inspiration.”

Have you heard of Autism United? Autism United is a new network for parents, professionals and people with an autism spectrum disorder. It has been created by a mum called Nicole and uses the Ning platform.

Ning is a simple to use online social networking site builder. You can join and then post photos, videos, add your comments to the blog, ask questions in the forums… lots of ways to communicate with others.

In the past I’ve been a very active member of some Yahoo groups, and am also a fan of some good autism-related Facebook pages. But I think the Ning framework is the best I’ve seen yet – for me it is lovely to see photos of members. For we visual people it really helps to build the community.

You can find out more about Autism United at the website:

www.autismunited.ning.com

I emailed Nicole to ask why she had started Autism United and she replied:

“The main reason that I wanted to start this network was because although these days you are hard pressed to find anyone who is not affected by autism, most of us are still dealing with it on our own behind closed doors.  I figured that if I feel lonely, isolated and often at a loss then, many others must feel the same esp those who are just starting out.

I had been talking about doing something like this for some time as I felt there was a real need. All the challenges that we faced over Christmas gave me the push to get started.

To be honest I think over the past couple years I have been working through different stages of grief since Dillon’s dx but over recent times was determined to turn that into something more proactive.

My vision for this community is for it to be more than a forum, but a real community, be virtual or otherwise.  I am hoping that we can make a difference in each others lives and even go the extra mile to make changes.”

I also appreciate very much Nicole’s notes:

“Autism United Guidelines
All members of Autism United must do their best to keep this community drama free. There can be no name calling or personal attacks on anyone. Its important to be respectful even when we don’t agree with other member’s opinions.”

So true!  We all have enough drama in our lives without finding it online as well.