Background:
Autism Action’s Community Network aims to empower autistic people, and their supporters, to make more of a difference.
We want to grow our empowerment work, from increasing representation of minority groups and groups often excluded, to exploring ways that network members can shape our work and influence Government decisions. First though, we wanted to get feedback from our existing network members. To do this, we designed an online survey.
How this work empowered people to make more of a difference:
This was a chance for existing members to help us improve and expand the Community Network. It’s hoped that improving the Community Network will mean existing network members will have more opportunities to get involved and that expanding the network will empower more people to make a difference and influence national policies that shape people’s lives.
What did we ask people to do?
In a regular update email that was sent to our Community Network in April (at that time 1057 people), we included a link to an online survey. The survey asked questions about how existing members found out about the network, opinions on some of the questions asked when people sign up to the network, the experience of taking part in one of our opportunities, and ideas about how we could expand the network.
116 network members completed the survey, with this including 103 autistic people, 45 parents/carers/supporters of one or more autistic people, and 42 people who work in the field of autism (these groups overlap). Out of the 116 people who responded to the survey, the majority told us that their ethnicity was white (81%) and more than half identified as female (64%), with 26% identifying as male and 6% as non-binary. Out of the people who completed the survey, 13% reported they had a learning disability and 4% used an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) method to communicate.
How we used suggestions/responses:
Expanding the Community Network
In the survey, we asked for feedback about the questions we ask when people sign up to the network (current and new questions) and for ideas about how we can expand the network. Based on the comments:
1. We’ve made changes to the questions we ask when people sign up to the Community Network →
We acted on suggestions to change how we ask about a learning disability and we’ve added a question asking for the year people were born.
2. We’re going to regularly post about the Community Network on our social media channels →
29% of people who responded told us they would consider sharing a social media post – This could really help us reach new people, so we plan to regularly post about the Community Network as one way to try and expand the network.
3. We’re going to develop more ways for existing members to share information about the network →
The people who responded told us they would consider sharing information about the network in different ways: a social media post (29%), a flyer or webpage (24%), emails (20%), and messages via WhatsApp (19%).
4. We’re going to develop the Community Network page on the website →
We recognise we could be clearer about what the group does now and what we hope it will do in the future – 14% of people who responded told us they hadn’t recommended the group to others as they didn’t know how to explain what the group does.
5. We will continue to contact organisations and groups →
As recommended by network members, to help us expand the network, we will continue to identify specific organisations and groups that work with the people we want to be included in our network.
6. We will continue to try to engage with the community in different ways →
Some of the comments from network members confirmed what we already knew – We need to engage with the community in different ways. As well as using social media more, we also plan on attending more in-person events.
Taking part in opportunities
We asked network members if there was anything that made them more or less likely to take part in an opportunity. Whilst some comments highlighted personal preferences, such as completing surveys rather than Zoom calls, other comments will help us make further improvements to the network. Based on the comments:
We will include less detail in emails
Some network members told us they preferred to have all of the information at the beginning (which means detail is included), whilst others told us that if the explanation is too detailed they are less likely to take part. To account for both preferences, we’ll cut down the detail in emails, whilst making sure all the detail is available for those who follow a link for more information.
We will include opportunities that aren’t as time-consuming to complete
We know that some of our recent opportunities, such as surveys, have been quite long and we will try to include opportunities that aren’t as time-consuming in the future.
We will continue to review the wording of the questions we ask and try to reduce the length of them
For larger pieces of work, we will continue to ask network members to help shape the questions we ask. As part of our process, we will explore if there are ways we can reduce the length of the questions e.g., by including information/context separate to the question.
We will continue to make it clear if network members will be compensated for their time
We reimburse people for their time as much as possible, and always for activities such as focus groups or online sessions. The exception to this is online surveys, which allow us to include many more people than we have the resources to reimburse.
What's next?
We’re already making some of the suggestions outlined above, for example, posting more regularly on our social media, but others, such as developing more ways for existing members to share information about the network, will take longer to action and are therefore part of our longer-term plans.
We will be asking existing network members to update their details (age, gender, and ethnicity) so that we can review how representative the network is and be able to contact certain groups.
