Autism Alliance of Canada is proud to present The Autistic Voices Project (AVP), a series of 7 innovative lived experience testimonial videos, bringing the perspectives of 29 Autistic Canadians to the forefront.
This project highlights employment-related lived experiences of Autistic Canadians during COVID-19 by providing invaluable insight into both the exacerbated employment challenges participants face, and the opportunities that have arisen as a result of the pandemic. In these lived experience testimonial videos, Autistic Canadians describe barriers faced, opportunities emerged, job role changes, supports received, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.
Personalized accounts such as these will hopefully increase understanding, knowledge and autism acceptance in the adapted employment in the context of COVID-19 by Canadian stakeholders. Furthermore, the opportunities and success stories outlined in these videos provide immediate, intermediate and long-term actionable advice during and beyond COVID-19. We hope that these powerful, thought-provoking video outputs will identify what our society can do to create autism-confident workplaces in a world beyond COVID-19. We also hope that this video series will encourage employers and stakeholders to make improvements to policies and workplace practices that remove barriers to participation for Autistic employees and job seekers.
All 7 testimonials can be found on the website of The Inclusive Workplace.