I have very proudly worked for the charity Autism Together for the past 11 years; although I have been connected to the charity all my life.

My mother has worked here as a house manager for a residential setting since i was around 6 months old. I grew up often visiting the residential homes, attending events and having the people we support visit our home and the farm my dad worked at. My mother is a huge role model in my life and the reason why i often say ‘it was in my blood that i was going to work for Autism Together’.

I first starting working here in the Admin department, which gave me a real feel for the whole organisation and i was able to work across services. From here i moved to the Children and Family service due to my passion in childcare (10 years service award for Girlguiding and running a Brownie unit). Here i developed a number of services and found a real fascination to working with teenagers and young people; i developed a Befriending Service for 14 – 18 year olds with autism and acted as their mentor to help them develop their own independence skills and personal care. I also provided support to parents and carers of young people with autism, developing a newsletter that was sent out to over 2,000 people weekly, themed coffee mornings and workshops and also attended local paediatric appointments to be there for families during reviews and at diagnosis appointments.

I then moved on to the Fundraising department where i have worked for the last 4 years and feel it is a role i was destined to be in. I am very proud of this charity and the services it provides and feel i am a great advocate to share its message. I will often publicly speak at various events and conferences and present to schools and businesses where needed to share autism awareness and encourage people to fundraise on behalf of autistic people.

Apart from work i like to be heavily involved in my local community; having recently joined my daughters school Parent Teacher Association to utilise my skills in fundraising and events. I was also a member of GirlGuiding for over 10 years and ran a Brownie unit for young girls, something which i hope to get back involved with soon.

Just last year i lost my best friend and my sister (who was also a Support Worker at Autism Together). She died very suddenly from a heart infection and from that day i took in my 2.5 year old niece, who with my partner have now formally adopted. My sister is my biggest inspiration and i vow to live my life in the way she did and would have; being kind and empathic to others, helping wherever i can with whatever i can, finding the positives in everything, living life to the full and taking many pictures along the way!