A huge part of Spectrum Gaming is our advocacy work.

We are a community that enables autistic young people to develop meaningful friendships and develop a more positive perspective of autism. But we have also created a movement that aims to have a positive influence on society through advocacy and enabling strategic change to ensure the needs of autistic young people are met across the UK. This doesn't just impact on our society, but helps young people to better advocate for themselves moving forward.

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Here are some of the projects our community members are currently working on: 

Barriers to Education
Unfortunately, a huge number of young people in our community struggle to attend or are out of school because of lack of understanding or support. We are working with Bury Council, Trafford Council and a variety of other partners to create innovative guidance on supporting young people who are struggling to access education. Over 300 young people, 600 parents and 80 professionals have contributed to the guidance so far. The website is not quite finished yet, but two sections are available, on Trauma and Anxiety, which are feely available for everyone to benefit from. 

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Youth Loneliness
Many of our members feel Spectrum Gaming is the first place they have felt comfortable developing friendships, and they want to help other spaces and organisations create spaces that can achieve the same for young people who mainstream support often does not work for.

So far, we have run a variety of focus groups and activities to identify the key issues that need to be addressed. The next step is to create some resources that are free to access for all organisations, so they know what actionable steps they can take to make their groups work for all young people. These resources will be co-created with young people and will be put onto a ‘youth loneliness’ website, that will be free for all individuals and organisations to access and benefit from.