PDA Day and Action Week 2023
Thank you to everyone who joined us this PDA Day and Action Week (10th – 16th May) in working towards better understanding, recognition and support for all PDA people and their families.
It’s not too late to join Team PDA and help make a difference…
Understanding PDA and the different approaches that help is transformational in leading to positive outcomes, but PDA people and their families still face barriers to accessing the right understanding and support for their needs. This can and does lead to poor outcomes.
We’re working hard to tackle this, and would be incredibly grateful for your help. This page shares lots of different ways we can come together as a community to make a big difference this PDA Day and Action Week and beyond and you can find out more by signing up to join Team PDA today.
‘Being Understood’ Survey
On PDA Day, we launched our new ‘Being Understood’ Survey to gather up-to-date information about people’s experiences of PDA.
The survey was open to PDA people (age 17 years or over) and parents, carers and partners of PDA people and was an important opportunity to work together to gather up-to-date evidence that can help PDA people and those who care about them be better understood.
The survey has now closed – thank you to everyone who took part. We’ll be sharing our findings later this year.
Informing others about PDA
Here are 2 new email templates that can be personalised and used to inform people and professionals about PDA and our practice guidance on identifying and assessing a PDA profile. We hope they will help everyone to be better understood and supported:
Email template for informing others about PDA and the approaches that help – includes our What is PDA? information sheet and links to our website where the recipient(s) can find out more about PDA – feel free to add any other links or attachments that would benefit your situation.
Letter/email template: Identifying & Assessing PDA – Practice Guidance – it would be helpful if everyone could send this to their local autism assessment centres, clinical practitioners and autism teams so the guidance is distributed as widely as possible. You could also use the template to inform clinicians about the practice guidance when requesting a referral or support.
Team PDA social media & email graphics
Help make PDA more visible and let everyone know you’re part of the team by sharing these social media and email assets. To download an image, please click or tap on the image you’d like to use and then save it to your device.
The more people who join us, the bigger the difference we can make together so please invite others to join the team too with a link to this page.
Community fundraising
Every year we support thousands of PDA people and those who care about them, often when no one else can. More and more people need our help every day and it’s only because of the incredible community around us, who help us raise vital funds, that we’re able to keep helping.
Is there a fundraising activity or challenge that inspires you? Do you own or work for a company looking for a charity to support?
The difference hearing about PDA can make
To close PDA Action Week 2023 we shared the short but powerful videos Team PDA members sent us about the difference hearing about PDA made to them. Thank you to everyone who shared their experiences for this video, highlighting how important it is for PDA to be recognised and understood and the life-changing impact this can have for PDA people and those who care about them.
Please feel free to share what difference hearing about PDA made to you in the comments on YouTube or on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn posts.
How telling your story can help
It would be brilliant if lots of us shared stories over PDA Action Week (10th – 16th May). Personal stories are a powerful tool for creating awareness, building understanding, and inspiring action, and just as importantly hearing your story could make a real difference to others in the PDA community who share similar experiences.
Whether you want to talk about your experience of PDA in general or around a specific topic such as school, work, mental health etc. and whether you share your struggles and/or your triumphs, what you have to say matters.
Find out more about how to share your story.
Connecting with others in the PDA community
Connecting with others who you can relate to and vice versa can be a powerful way to feel less alone and it’s a great opportunity to share stories, approaches, and resources with one another that can help. It’s harder for the PDA community to meet in person than for other people so we want our social media channels to be a space for the community to share what works and show solidarity with each other online in the way we would with friends in real life.
If you have any questions or challenges you’d like the community to help with, please let us know and we’ll anonymously post them on our social media pages over the coming months, starting in PDA Action Week (10th – 16th May). And please share what works for you, and what doesn’t, in replies and responses to the questions we post.
PDA Panda ears
Fun fact – our ambassador is the PDA Panda because, just like giant pandas, PDA people need specific support to thrive and the P-A-N-D-A mnemonic is a quick reminder of helpful approaches.
As a fun way to show support and raise awareness of PDA, here’s a template for PDA Panda ears that you can make and wear with pride on PDA Day. It would be brilliant if lots of us could share selfies or family/group photos wearing our panda ears on social media on PDA Day (10th May) with the #TeamPDA and #PDADay hashtags.
Thank you
Your help will make a positive difference for PDA people and their families and we’re incredibly grateful for your support.