Young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) want to participate in community life, and numerous pieces of research on the field highlight the profound benefits this has for them. One of the first contexts in which youth with ASD can challenge themselves is youth organizations.
However, currently, there are very few resources for youth organizations working with the general youth population that wish to include young people with ASD in their activities.
The YouthASD project partnership created a guide addressed to these organizations to renovate or change existing organizational structures and to propose strategies to be implemented for the common purpose of attracting, including, and safely integrating youth with ASD in their activities.
The Guide will answer questions such as what is autism and what are the differences between the various manifestations. It will also provide strategies on how to communicate effectively with people with ASD and how to create a safe and inclusive environment both environmentally, organizationally, and relationally. Finally, some good practices and initiatives were collected among the partner countries as good examples and sources of inspiration.
With this Guide, youth organizations have the opportunity to increase awareness about ASD, improve the knowledge and skills of management staff in developing internal capacity to support people with ASD, and increase participation of ASD youth in youth activities. In a context where training on this topic is still lacking.
The Guide is available for free in all partnership languages (English, Danish, Italian, Greek, and Spanish) on the project website at this link: https://youthasd.eu/guide-for-youth-organizations/.
