Altogether Autism Regional Network Meetings

March and April saw the first round of the Altogether Autism community network meetings held across New Zealand. All and all they were well supported with positive feedback from attendees. 

We had a range of guest speakers:

• Tanya Breen
  Clinical Consultant Altogether Autism speaking on Memory and Suggestibility of people with ASD: Implication in legal issues.
• Sue Robertson
  Parent, workstream leader for NZ ASD guidelines and Director of planning and development for Parent and Family Resource Centre Auckland, speaking on How Exciting! Where are you going? Three generation of New Zealanders have been involved in unceasing lobbying and advocating for service for people with ASD.
• Jan Glover
  Parent, private consultant, service coordinator for DHB PHO speaking on Aspergers Syndrome and Sexuality.
• Hilary Stace
  Parent, PhD research student, speaking on Moving beyond luck, how the lived experience of people with autism and their families can improve services and support for us all.
• David Greer
  Young man with aspergers, speaking on managing his special interests, and Diet and its effect on Autism.

Our special thanks to our speakers for sharing their knowledge, research, passion and areas of special interest with us. The purpose of providing presentations about ASD is to raise awareness and understanding of the disorder.  The topics that each of the presenters chose added much value to all our learning.

Copies of the presentations can be requested from our administrator, Sue Davies on

We appreciated all feedback received from people about service gaps and to those who reported about different training programmes and activities in their regions.  Many common themes occurred. As expected access to education and appropriate respite for children on the spectrum were high on the list. Also many questions were asked about the collaborative relationship and points of difference between Altogether Autism and Autism NZ.

We can report that at this time a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed. This states that the organisations agree to work collaboratively - share information about ASD and the issues, which affect them. This is already occurring at a national and regional level, with both organisations referring people to each other as appropriate. Further details will be posted on the Altogether Autism website at a later date.

Finally thanks to all of you who attended, we hope that you will continue to support future meetings. If you know of anyone who could not attend a recent meeting in their region, and would like to be on our email/post contacts list, please let us know.  We will keep you informed about the next round of meetings that will happen later in the year. It is likely that a member of our Professional Expert Group will be presenting at these.  We would love to hear your ideas about topics for our future presenters.  We also welcome feedback about how we can ensure that the meetings are relevant and of interest to people with Autism Spectrum Disorder, their families, whanau and the wider community.

Michelle Rivers
National Coordinator