One of the strategies outlined in the Autism Act NI 2011 is to undertake an autism awareness campaign. It is crucial that the sources of information provided by public, private and statutory sectors regarding autism are relevant, true and most of all verifiable.
In the interest of that, we should be looking for 'true' and verifiable information from the very organisation that alleges to have 'spearheaded' the Autism Act, namely Autism NI. We should expect the information they provide on their website is accurate, balanced and fully accountable.
What I have detected from AutismNI's website is quite the opposite, illustrating a pattern of misleading and even downright false information.
In my blog entry last month here I raised the issue how Autism NI, an autism charity consisting of staff with no medical training or experience, felt qualified to publicly advocate potentially harmful mental health related treatment options both to Health Professionals and to the public, here. I await a response from Autism NI in this regard, but as I haven't received one yet in the three or so years since this blog has been in existence, I don't seriously expect one.
In their mental health 'factsheet' (link above) AutismNI allege that the DHSSPS, i.e. medical experts worked in tandem with the charity to produce the offending document. I quite doubt it, and I await sight of bona fide references of these medical experts.
More recently, a number of parents have brought my attention to yet another worrying falsehood emanating from the Autism NI website.
If one types 'AutismNI' into the google search engine, the following comes up: -
Autism NI is Northern Ireland’s main Autism charity. The organisation is evaluated by the Social Services Inspectorate (DHSS&PS) every three years and by DHSS&PS annually. The charity is further enhanced by its long history of evidence based (researched) practice which is undertaken for every project or service it delivers.
(you can go here to see for yourself and as for the reference to the charity's 'history of evidence based (researched) practice', well that deserves a blog entry or two, on it's own!)
Autism NI is not evaluated by the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) and could not have been because the SSI has not held that role for many years. After some digging I have been able to find out that the last performance audit carried out by the DHSS on the charity was over 3 years ago. What is the reason for AutismNI continuing to use the names of the DHSSPS and the SSI in such a way when it is not true?
(retrieved from Google - 14/5/2012
The kindest explanation is that it is simply an oversight. Yet AutismNI have 15 paid employees who are not exactly overwhelmed with organising services for children and adults with autism, or their families. The charity's 'calendar of events' is considerably reduced, and how 15 staff members even keep busy with such a restricted calendar is beyond me. With all that free time, surely one of those staff members was available to check the accuracy of information on their website before it was publicly viewed.
As we all know, the RQIA is Northern Ireland's Health and Social Care regulator. The RQIA took over the DHSSPS's responsibility of inspections of services in 2005. That was 7 years ago. Further, the RQIA has no record of inspecting or monitoring Autism NI at any time. 7 years is a long time to correct a text error.
Their website states: RQIA is responsible for registering, inspecting and encouraging improvement in a range of health and social care services delivered by statutory and independent providers, in accordance with The Health and Personal Social Services (Quality, Improvement and Regulation)(Northern Ireland) Order 2003 and its supporting regulations.
Which of Autism NI's services fall into any of the above categories?
As I indicated earlier in this post, one of the strategies outlined in the Autism Act NI 2011 is to undertake an autism awareness campaign. Autism NI lobbied for this Act and one of the largest tasks outlined in the Act is to develop autism awareness. What is the definition of 'awareness'?
If Autism NI or any other organisation posts lies or half-truths about autism, on their websites, who is charged with correcting those lies? What redress would a member of the public have if they followed incorrect, misleading or dangerous information? Who is ultimately responsible for providing accurate information about autism to the public and to the government and voluntary sectors?
Awareness about autism, like charity, should start at home don't you think? Autism NI please remove the offending text from your website and documents. It is patently unfair to mislead the public. From a Charities Commission point of view, I wonder if what you have done may even be illegal.
7 comments:
Having just looked at the above website I note that of the fifteen staff memebers employed 1 is a Director of Family Support and 1 is an Admin Manager (Family Support). I was wondering what the feasibility of this is as they have no longer employ any family support staff, due to lack of government funding as opposed to paying for the service from their own donations, nor do they provide and family support servies. One theory could be that perhaps they have recieved funding for these positions so therefore someone had to avail of these titles?
In a few of your other blogs you mention that the charity has a balance of £400,000. This had been maintained as an annual balance for quite some time. Could this perhaps be the cost of paying out staff wages/redunancies etc. in the event of the charity being unable to continue to function? It appears a strnage amount to keep as a running "float" at a time when many families are in great need and other charitable organisations are struggling.Just a thought..
Hello Anonymous and Anonymous - You raise very good questions/points - particularly about the £400,000 being used as a redundancy reserve or fund.
A £400,000 float is a lot of money to just let sit.
Thing is, no one asks, at least publicly anyway - so if no one challenges, the status quo remains.
i am so sick of reading and reading everything i can about autism only to find out the facts are wrong. Can someone please set out a fact sheet or something, i was handed the autism six steps wen my daughter got diagnosed, and in this pack i was told that i would be contacted with in 4 wks by an ASD coordinator. This didnt happen so i rang round it took me 3 phone calls to get through to the right people. I was told my daugher has to wait nearly 6 months to get help, this i dont understand seeint hey say early intervention is the key. im just gettin a bit tired of fighting running, but i plan to ring them a few times a week as the lady on the fon explained that things can change, they might get sick of me ringing eh lol As for the £400 000 just sitting i could do with some of that money to pay for ABA therpy for my daughter. Its sicking, if my daughter had a broken leg they would fix it striaght away and have after care, if ita asd they try and brush u under the carpet and hope u will go away, well guess wat!!!! im not and i cant wait for my first meeting with the asd team!!!
Hi anon - very worrying that you have not received help for your daughter - but you are doing the right thing by not letting them get away with it - your child's needs will not be met if you wait and wait - parents must be pro-active. Have you sent letters and cc'd them to the autisim coordinator's manager?
Join me on facebook? Autisms Northern Ireland (www.facebook.com/.../Autisms-Northern-Ireland/100003761258290) We as parents need to get the word out to other parents about what is happening so they too, become informed and make their voices heard that the system is not working for our children. These people are public servants - their wages are paid by us, their jobs are to help our children and WITHOUT our children, they would not have jobs. The only thing that EVER changes things for our children is parents.
£400,000+ is a comfortable cushion against redundancy. Not everyone is entitled to redundancy though,and unless you have a very generous contract, plain old statutory rules apply (see www.delni.gov):
After 2 years continuous service an employee can expect between 0.5-1.5 weeks of pay for every full year of service depending on age. Maximum number of years of continuous service which can be counted is 20.
So MAX 30 weeks pay if they have served 20 years aged 41 & over (i.e will be 61+). Some easy peasy maths- even if that applied to all 15, they would have to be earning an average of £880+ pw to use up the £400,000 'reserve'. Or maybe they all just have a VERY generous contract.
Either way,their tins (no, sorry, buckets) don't have 'EMPLOYEES' RESERVE FUND' emblazoned on them-so maybe next time they rattle one in front of you, you could ask exactly where your money will be going.
re the inaccurate website details- following the earlier post on this blog, I rang DHSSPS about the mental health leaflet & seeing this , I rang again. They haven't spoken to autism NI yet about the MH leaflet, but intend to. So I told them the bit about the inspections & they said they couldn't understand why this was being mentioned at all since DHSSPS haven't been involved for quite a long time. They agreed that parents would see their name & think automatically that the information was reliable.
Hope they check up on it, I'm sure they won't read the blog & that's a pity, because they might get an honest view of what goes on in the autism world, but it's all still there on the autism NI website.
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