North Wales MS and Chair of the Senedd’s Cross-Party Group on Autism, Mark Isherwood, has today called on the Welsh Government to respond to a key report’s recommendation that ‘local authorities should work with and support local neurodiversity-specific organisations, and consult them on the matters concerning local authority services and their accessibility for neurodivergent individuals’.
Mr Isherwood raised the matter in today’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament when questioning the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Cabinet Office.
He said:
“The End Youth Homelessness Cymru report, 'Youth Homelessness Through the Lens of Neurodiversity', launched at the Senedd on 17 April, states: 'Too often we overlook young people who have a mix of adversity and neurodiversity in their lives'.
“As its conclusion notes: 'At the core of neurodiversity is the understanding that not one person is the same’, yet ‘when we take for granted that everyone else thinks the way we do—that is when problems arise'.
“How, therefore, do you respond to the report's recommendation that ‘Local Authorities should work with and support local neurodiversity-specific organisations, and consult them on the matters concerning Local Authority services and their accessibility for neurodivergent individuals. Funding should be made available to those organisations to provide support and outreach to neurodivergent young people’, where the report also states:
'Prevention is always more effective than having to deal with a multitude of individual problems which arise further down a young person’s path’?”.
In her response, the Cabinet Secretary said:
“I'll absolutely recognise the important messages that you've given there in respect of the importance of understanding neurodiversity”, adding “I would hope that, through some of the investment that we've made, such as our youth homelessness innovation fund, we might be able to explore issues such as that”.