Autism Acceptance Month 2026

Recognising difference and learning from colleagues

By David Woolley, Chief Executive, Your Voice Counts

National awareness campaigns like Autism Acceptance Month are great prompts for organisations to reflect on the subject and think about the expertise and experience we want to share with others.

Historically, services for people with a learning disability and autistic people were often grouped together, offering a one size (often didn’t) fit all approach which can now feel outdated.

At Your Voice Counts we are very fortunate to have many autistic colleagues working across our staff team and it is their contribution and perspective that has really helped us to improve how we design our own services. Some of these colleagues are in roles specifically created to bring lived experience into our work, while others are in roles open to anyone and who just happen to be autistic.

Together, they bring invaluable insight that has helped us think differently about what 'good’ services look like. As an organisation, I think we have really benefited from their contribution, accelerating how we have developed and differentiated our services for people with a learning disability and people who are autistic.

A fantastic example of this is Dharma who is our Training and Development Lead. I asked him for his thoughts and he shared:

“For me, as an autistic person, Your Voice Counts has gone the extra mile in terms of being inclusive. I was first interviewed for a Peer Support Worker role and the interview was very different to any I had been to before – crucially it was led by staff members with lived experience of learning disability and autism themselves. I’ve since moved into a management position with Your Voice Counts, largely because of how welcoming a space this has been.

"I feel I have been able to thrive here in a way that I haven’t felt at other places I have worked. What impresses me the most is Your Voice Counts’ willingness to listen and learn and adapt – and that’s something I hope to bring to my new role, so that colleagues with lived experience in my team have the same opportunity to thrive and progress that I have had.”

I believe that lived experience on our staff team has really helped to challenge our thinking about service design and how we support people as an employer. I’m pleased to look back at how our own offer for autistic people has been refined and improved over the years and I hope when Autism Acceptance Month comes around again next April we will be able to reflect on even more progress.