Helping to spread a positive message about autism

We were proud to sponsor a recent autism conference in the Midlands which advocated the message that autism must be embraced as a way of life that can bring a variety of benefits to both the person themselves and their family and community.

Midlands care provider Essential Futures hosted the conference, together with autism training company Positive About Autism, and Ratcliffe Consultancy. There were health services, social care workers, teachers and support workers all present to come together to help spread a positive and empowering autism message, concentrating on the positive personal traits that autism brings. Robyn Steward and Matthew O'Farrell spoke at the conference and reinforced the message that autism is about finding the individual strengths each autistic person has to offer.

"The opportunity to hear multiple perspectives on Autism is so important as everyone is different, there is so much miss information on Autism; conferences like this bring people together and that has to be a step forward.” Robyn Steward.

The conference was the third in a series of events about autism, and comes in the run up to the seventieth anniversary of the medical discovery of the autism spectrum in 2013. We were one of a handful of businesses backing the conference, alongside Warwickshire County Council, Staffordshire County Council, Richard Cadbury Charitable Trust and the Serious Games Institute. We intend to take our sponsorship further and will continue to support future events to spread the message across the healthcare sector.

Chris Barson, founder of Positive About Autism says: "We aim to put forward a positive view of autism. The conference aims to highlight the need for support for employment in mental health services for young people with autism in transition to adulthood.”

Positive About Autism is a charity that our company respects as we similarly believe in eliminating negative perceptions and removing barriers to a fulfilling life. We work with specialists across the health sector to design and implement seating solutions that support and facilitate independent living and care and that look natural and comfortable, not like a specialist chair. We work closely with people to understand their conditions and challenges and to continually improve our designs, matching seating solutions to specific individual needs. We have taken this even further with our new Multi Range of seating chair designs which cater for changing care needs and offer homes and hospitals more economic and adaptable seating solutions.

We take our corporate social responsibility seriously and have pledged to invest in our four chosen charitable causes across our region.