Our Back Story - Centa Co day centre to AutiQuest!

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AutiQuest's project comprises a mixture of autistic allies and actually autistic individuals and our passion is to support autistic adults achieve more in their lives, particularly with regard to gaining and maintaining employment. We have a strong understanding of BOTH autistic individuals, built over many years, and business and HR imperatives when it comes to employment.

We are playing our part directly by employing autistic individuals to help train interviewers on how best to interview them. We have also helped autistic adults gain employment through our partners.

AutiQuest provides training on how best to support autistic employees by providing accommodations as well as how best to interview them so that they give a proper account of themselves and hopefully get that job. We have also given talks to companies such as IRC Global Executive Search in the City of London and for Odgers Berndtson Global Executive Search and Talent Consulting (video talk at their global diversity event). 

The owner of AutiQuest has personal, close experience of autism for most of his life, having supported autistic adults for 20 years and has seen how autistic individuals have been overlooked and excluded. 

AutiQuest is not a charity but a private company. A proportion of profits is donated to autism organisations. We have a contract with our local authority who refers us clients to support, our clients being autistic adults and adults with learning disabilities. 

We are anti-stereotyping and pro-supporting. Autistic individuals should not have to change to suit others. Rather, others should understand autistic individuals and support them. That's one reason why we train interviewers on how to understand and interview job candidates with empathy so that they can give a good account of themselves and get those jobs - the under-employment of autistic individuals is not acceptable. 

We believe in developing and providing better tools for autistic individuals.  AutiQuest guided by supporting autistic individuals for who they are and does not believe in curing or changing them in fundamental ways.  This is based on our view that autistic people should be respected for the diverse individuals they ARE. We set up the AutiQuest Steering Group for this purpose.

Autistic individuals (through our AutiQuest Steering Group) are involved in the decision making of AutiQuest regarding our products and services - our best input comes from their input. Many of our App's features were added owing to autistic individuals' amazing input. They, after all, have the "lived experience". Special thanks to the autistic proprietor of meltdowntracker.com who created the super, detailed hand drawings for our Autism Focused Interview Tips App.

 Special thanks also to talented autistic voice-over artist Alex Rochon (alexrochon.ca) whom we employed to produce our sound track (watch out for future audio resources)

We recognise that many adults are struggling with the condition without the necessary support. We also know that many autistic adults  feel misunderstood. For example, when someone with autism tells someone that they have this, often the other person remarks.."I guess you can draw really complicated things very well!". The fact is that many with autism do not have this "hyper-skill". This makes them feel even more isolated. Autistic individuals are fed up with being misunderstood. So before you can support people, you must understand the problems that they, specifically, have. AutiQuest always tries to approach autism support from this angle. 

admin@autiquest.com