Both the president of the Aruba Autism Foundation Carolina Thiel-Span and vice president Roelien Hofman attended the meetings at the Advocacy Leadership Network Biennial Meeting 2023.
During these meetings, various points were raised such as:
· The importance of the relationship between advocates, researchers and providers
· The importance of partnerships between governments and organizations working on development areas related to autism
· Education systems
· Evaluations and diagnostics
· Innovation in the digital area of health and autism
It also reported on various studies, in particular the “Global Report on Children and Young People with Developmental Disabilities” by WHO and UNICEF which outlined the future of medical and social care for this group including autistic people. WHO’s Caregiver Skills Training was an important point where attention was focused on the implementation of this program in different cultural contexts. UNICEF also reported on the Global Digital Health Consortium as well as the innovation aspect of digital health and of course the importance of data.
In addition to this, all participants were able to share knowledge about different initiatives in different countries, and the FAA informed about the activities we are working on and the projects we want to start developing and all the things to consider when starting to develop a plan.
FAA is pleased to have been able to attend and looks forward to continuing to develop materials and projects with the support of partners around the world who are working on a number of interesting projects and are ready to support FAA and Aruba in this.
