Ivan and Charika Corea of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK have issued a call in Autism Awareness Week (17-24 May 2004) for the Government to support autistic children and adults from Britain's ethnic minority communities. Autism is on the rise in the ethnic population in the UK and yet there is little statistical data collected across the UK of people with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome from the ethnic communities. The Corea's claim that many struggle without access to public services.

There is a shortage of SEN teachers and speech therapists from the ethnic minorities. Some ethnic parents remain confused and others do not know who to turn to when their children are diagnosed with autism. The Autism Awareness Campaign UK are calling for more public services for the 520,000 Autistic Community including 90,000 autistic children in the UK.

"When we look into the whole subject of Autism, Aspergers Syndrome and Britain's ethnic minority communities we need to take into account the changing population in the UK" said Ivan Corea. "7.9% of UK citizens are from a minority ethnic group. From within this group there has been a rise in the numbers of adults and children with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome. What we are not seeing are culturally appropriate services to meet the growing needs of ethnic minority communities across the UK. By 2010 ethnic minorities in some of Britain's major cities will be in the majority. Are local councils, local education authorities, NHS Trusts and social services prepared for these changes?"

There are a number of issues that concern ethnic minority communities.

• DATA COLLECTION - there needs to be data collected on ethnicity and autism.
• ADVOCACY SERVICES for parents where English is not their first language.
• DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION ON AUTISM AND ASPERGERS SYNDROME in the major ethnic minority languages.
• A NETWORK OF BI-LINGUAL WORKERS - There is a need for bilingual workers in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Sinhala, Bengali, Arabic the major African languages.
• RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF SEN TEACHERS FROM THE ETHNIC MINORITIES.
• AUTISM WORKSHOPS geared for parents and carers and autists from the ethnic minorities are urgently needed.
• TOURING ROADSHOW - there is a need for the NAS (National Autistic Society) to develop a travelling Roadshow in 2005 in order to get the message across to ethnic minority communities.

The Coreas say that the NAS and other autism related organisations in the voluntary sector in the UK need to show true commitment to the ethnic minorities by making changes from within, for example, by appointing someone to the Board of Trustees from the ethnic minorities; creating an Ethnic Minorities Directorate; establishing a Parent network for the ethnic minorities and by inviting autistic people from the ethnic minorities to get more involved in the work of the NAS.

Autism Awareness week runs from 17 - 24 May 2004.

For further information please click on www.ukautism.com or visit the National Austistic Society website www.nas.org.uk.