Stalls

There will be a variety of stallholders at AutistiCon this year, from support providers, health care, diagnosis, employment, mental health, social groups and more.

Leeds Autism Services are a charity dedicated to helping to create a more autism friendly society. We have been helping autistic people to reach their true potential for over 30 years.

Leeds Autism Services provide specialist support for autistic adults in Leeds as well as working with businesses, families and community groups to improve autism understanding and awareness.  

Leeds Autism AIM is a free service for autistic adults in Leeds who receive little or no funded support. We offer advocacy, information, mentoring, autistic-led groups and post-diagnostic support for newly-diagnosed autistic adults. We run regular Autism Hub sessions for booked appointments only and drop-ins on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at the Lovell Park Hub.

Provide statutory and Community advocacy and related services that promote empowerment and inclusion. Parent organisation of Leeds Autism AIM, Yorkshire Autism AIM, LEEP1, CHANGE and Asking You!.

Forum Central is the collective voice for the health and care third sector in Leeds, delivered in partnership by Leeds Older People’s Forum and Volition.

Our vision is a better quality of life for people in Leeds.

We connect third sector organisations in Leeds with decision makers in health and social care. We influence strategic developments, policy and ways of working across health and social care. 

Our work is informed, driven and led by our members. 

Specialist Autism Services has worked exclusively for and with autistic adults (18+) and their families since 1999. We are a non-profit organisation that works with the charity Sacar to provide autism specific services across the Yorkshire region.

We provide a range of services including group social skills workshops (through an autism-specific learning programme), information and guidance, autism-specific counselling, employment support, and autism awareness training.

We believe that autistic adults deserve access to the correct level of support at the right time. We are passionate about empowering our service users (members) to develop their skills, enabling them to progress onto new opportunities such as independent living or employment.

Lighthouse Futures Trust is an innovative and forward-looking organisation with a mission of changing the lives of young adults.  We do this by designing and delivering engaging employability programmes that include opportunities to work with a range of local employers via a supported internship.

From the beginning of their journey with us, we support or students to develop skills so that they can forge their own pathways in work, accessing specialist support as and when they need it, but taking ownership of their future, from the start.   We believe that this helps them to find and keep paid employment more easily, and thus create a more sustainable future.

Established in 2002, People Matters changed into a charitable incorporated organisation in 2017. We have a commitment to improving the lives of people who experience disadvantage, especially through learning and other disabilities.   Operating as a social enterprise enables us to generate a surplus through the sale of goods and services, which is then entirely used to ensure continuity of the activities that are valuable to the people we support. As a not for profit and charity any surplus is then used to further our work in the Leeds area.

The West Yorkshire Neurodiversity (Autism & ADHD) Review is a partnership project, funded by the NHS West Yorkshire Mental Health And Learning Disability board.

Lots of organisations and individuals with professional and lived experience are involved in the project in different ways. The project is looking at the state of services for autistic and adhd people in West Yorkshire to identify what’s working well and what’s not working well. The project provides recommendations for change with the involvement of people with lived experience of autism and ADHD as well as professionals and commissioners working across Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield.

We have already done a lot of work on uncovering what the problems and strengths are, now we want to find out what people’s main priorities are and how they think we should all be tackling inequality and issues in our system when it comes to Autism and ADHD. We will be asking people at Autisticon to share their ideas with us, and inviting people to get involved in our co-production work.

People in Action is a charity working to improve the lives of autistic and learning disabled people. There are several facets to the charity:

–        We provide one-to-one support to learning disabled and autistic people; supporting them to be independent, healthy and well-connected.

–        We run social clubs around Leeds, allowing members to meet and take part in engaging activities.

–        We run learning courses, covering topics such as arts and crafts, cooking, and skills for independent living.

–        We run a Healthy Lifestyles Programme, supporting its membership to make informed choices about the food they eat, and facilitating gentle exercise.

At Purple Patch Arts we offer weekly Lifelong Learning Programmes for learning-disabled and autistic adults across Yorkshire. We use creative methods such as art, drama, music, movement, and multi-sensory activity to make learning fun and accessible!

Little Hiccups is a Leeds based support group that has been set up by parents who have children with additional needs and disabilities.

Through personal experience we recognise the importance of allowing the parents and families of a child with an additional need or disability the opportunity to meet people in similar situations, to make friends and support each other.

We know that to every family that this is an individual journey but we also recognise the importance of sharing the events of that journey with other people in similar situations. We offer a range of support from our Outreach Programme for those families that are just not quite ready to come to one of our sessions. But for those that are, we offer a variety of support from Stay n Play to monthly Family Fun Days.

Specialist arts education for neurodivergent young people aged 16-25. We would like to promote our students work and give them the opportunity to engage with the public and potentially sell products they’ve made for our ‘Pinc Shop’ enterprise.

We run the Through The Maze website and signposting service that helps people find accessible information about services, support and social opportunities.

We provide training for people with a learning disability, family carers and staff.

As an organisation with a learning disability focus, we are not relevant to autistic people who do not also have a learning disability, but will be of interest to people who do. Our stall would introduce people to our work.

AssistiV CIC are a not-for-profit Community Interest Company.  

We provide assistive technology to allow individuals with autism to work independently in the workplace and significantly increase their chances of securing long-term, paid employment.

Our tech provides information to the individual via smart phones, watches, tablets and earpieces.  Our tech is built for each individual’s specific needs.  The aim is always, how we can replace other human interaction in their roles and pave the way for genuine independence.  The tech will provide whatever instructions/guidance are required via videos, pictures, text, symbols, etc.  In addition, it will give timing prompts, quality assurance, transition from one task to another, etc.  It also gives personalised well-being care and support to ease at work anxiety for example.

We are the commissioned visiting housing support service in Leeds. People over the age of 18 can refer themselves or be referred to us for housing support and people can be in any type of tenure. We support people who could be at risk of losing their home, support to live independently and to enjoy greater involvement in community.

There also needs to be some sort of support need that we can work with people on in order to try and improve housing and quality of life. These needs include issues connected to health and wellbeing, substance misuse, domestic abuse, self care and harmful behaviours, offending, dementia, carers strain and also support around managing finances and maximising benefits as well as helping people in to education, training and work.

Live Well Leeds is a Leeds City wide service, based in the community to provide support for people with mild to moderate support needs to manage and/or recover from their mental health, diagnosed or not. Volunteer opportunities available. Our aim is to reach out to all who could access the service and benefit from it.

The Child Oriented Mental Health Innovation Collaborative (COMIC) is an NHS research and development team from Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT).  Our team of highly skilled researchers develop research ideas in collaboration with children, young people and their families, clinical staff, academics and external partners with a vested interest in the improvement of the mental wellbeing of children and young people. Our work aims to provide innovative mental health research in areas such as: Social and emotional wellbeing, Neurodiversity (including autism and ADHD) and Social prescribing.

 The Prince’s Trust believes that every young person should have the chance to succeed, no matter what their background or the challenges they are facing. We help those from disadvantaged communities and those facing the greatest adversity by supporting them to build the confidence and skills to live, learn and earn.

The courses offered by The Trust help young people aged 11-30 to develop essential life skills, get ready for work and access job opportunities. We support them to find work because having a job or running a business can lead to a more stable, fulfilling life.