AUTISTIC SELF ADVOCACY NETWORK

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network seeks to advance the principles of the disability rights movement with regard to autism. ASAN believes that the goal of autism advocacy should be a world in which Autistic people enjoy the same access, rights, and opportunities as all other citizens. We work to empower Autistic people across the world to take control of our own lives and the future of our common community, and seek to organize the Autistic community to ensure our voices are heard in the national conversation about us.
In order to support this mission, ASAN's goals over the next 5 years are:
To support our chapters and grassroots in becoming more sustainable, active, and independent so that they have the resources to advocate for the needs of autistic people in their own communities.

To increase availability of resources in multiple formats and languages to better serve a diverse community of self-advocates.

To increase knowledge of pertinent policy issues among self-advocates at all levels and to support them in exercising their rights as disabled people.

To continue to actively engage in high-impact policy advocacy in order to shape the future of disability policy in the United States, particularly as it relates to: legal capacity and guardianship, community integration, Medicaid, bioethics, subminimum wage and employment, the rights of students, and all areas pertinent to the civil rights and self-determination of people with disabilities.

Goal 1: Strategies to support our chapters/grassroots.
The ASAN Chapter Coordinator will provide ongoing and strategic support to enable ASAN chapters to become more active and grow in size, capacity, and visibility.
The ASAN Chapter Coordinator will support chapters to achieve independent 501(c)3 status and hold local leadership trainings, while also ensuring that new chapters are continuously added to the ASAN chapter network.
ASAN will hold annual leadership academies and increase participation of chapter leaders.
ASAN will use PADSA state plans to guide technical assistance (TA) activities in PADSA (West Coast) states, and these activities to guide overall TA resource development.
ASAN will facilitate regular network building by developing comprehensive and reliable contact lists.

Goal 2: Strategies to increase availability of diverse resources.
ASAN will increase diversity of resource formats, including audiobooks, large print editions, and e-reader versions of print resources.
ASAN will increase diversity and efficacy of resource dissemination methods.
ASAN will create and distribute resources to real-life community hubs.
ASAN will launch and maintain a cross-disability micropress.
ASAN will begin translating all existing and future resources into multiple languages.

Goal 3: Strategies to increase knowledge of policy issues.
ASAN will provide educational materials about key issues in disability policy, including ongoing information on ASAN's disability policy activities.
ASAN's grassroots will participate regularly in state disability policy discussions at the legislative and executive level.
ASAN's grassroots will form and maintain relationships with disability and related organizations in their states.
Members of ASAN's grassroots will be represented on State DD Councils and other state and local policymaking bodies.

Goal 4: Strategies to engage in high-impact policy advocacy.
ASAN leadership will testify at hearings and submit comments on autism research policy.
ASAN will hold a symposium for autistic leaders, researchers, policymakers and other relevant stakeholders to discuss autism research.
ASAN will work to create innovative model legislation related to issues pertinent to our community.

ASAN National is headquartered in Washington, DC, at the center of American policy decisionmaking. We also have 21 US chapters, as well as affiliates and partner organizations in Australia, Canada, Scotland, and Israel that help us in achieving our mission.
Both ASAN National and our chapters engage in grassroots advocacy and systems change. ASAN's national office promotes best practices and provides support/technical assistance through: policy briefs and toolkits, leadership and advocacy trainings, the Pacific Alliance on Disability Self Advocacy (PADSA) and PADSA technical assistance resources, webinars, the Autistic Press and general resource development and dissemination activities. We actively engage our community via these resources, and maintain an active social media presence, websites, blogs, and email alerts.
ASAN has a detailed public policy agenda guiding our engagement in legislative activities. Besides working to influence policy within the federal and state executive and legislative branches, ASAN also files amicus briefs when needed.
Local ASAN chapters engage in individual and public policy advocacy at the levels of local and state government. ASAN's national office supports local advocacy by curating a central knowledge base, facilitating information sharing between chapters and chapter leaders, and hosting leadership academies. ASAN informs the public about the concerns, needs, and issues pertinent to autistic people. We work to translate the results of community-based participatory research into practice through working relationships with researchers and research institutions. We provide accessible information and resources through social media, websites, blogs, television, print and other media, in addition to dissemination via our local chapters and affiliates.

Thus far, we've seen marked improvement in the capability of our PADSA-affiliated groups to advocate on the West Coast and participate in weeklong academies. There has been excellent follow-up with alumni from all of our academies. However, we are still in progress with regards to compiling and centralizing a list of key contacts within this network. We have had to scale back some of our ambitions with regards to launching The Autistic Press this year; however, we still have a few publications in the pipeline, and the conversion of many of our existing publications into eBook and other formats on the horizon. Perhaps the biggest hurdle we face during the period 2016-2017 is developing and implementing a robust and comprehensive fundraising strategy. Fundraising strategy development is currently in progress and should be complete by early to mid fall of this year, and this should enable us to revisit some of the goals we have been unable to achieve thus far.