Over 40,000 sign our petition to save autistic children’s futures

On Tuesday, we went to Westminster to tell Nadhim Zahawi, Secretary of State for Education, that he has to act now to save autistic children’s futures. 42,237 campaigners signed our petition calling on him to make autistic children a priority in the upcoming SEND review.

We want to thank every single person who signed and shared our petition. We are amazed by the response that we’ve had and we know that it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our campaigners. We know how important this issue is to you, and we will not stop campaigning until all autistic children and young people have the support they need to fulfil their potential.

You can read more about what happened at the petition hand-in in our news story.

This campaign is in response to shocking findings from our School Report 2021. After surveying 4000 autistic young people, children and their family members we found that:

• A quarter (26%) of parents waited over three years to receive support for their child
• Three quarters (74%) said their child’s school place did not fully meet their needs – this has almost doubled since 2017
• Only one in four parents are satisfied with the special educational needs support their child is receiving
• Less than half of autistic children are happy in school.

It’s not fair that parents are being left exhausted by a system that is broken. And it is not fair that autistic children’s futures are under threat, because their school does not have the capacity to support them.

The Government’s upcoming SEND review is an opportunity to change this. That’s why we took our campaign to Westminster – to send a clear message to Nadhim Zahawi that he needs to fix the broken SEND system.

42,237 of you supported that message. We’ll let you know when Nadhim responds.

Together, we can create a world that works for autistic people.

Thank you,

Beth Robertson
Campaigns Manager
National Autistic Society