This month we’re asking our autistic community members What Do You Want? What Do You Need? We’re featuring their answers all April long, right here. Today we’re having a conversation with engineer Star Ford, whom we spoke with earlier this month about the Ocate Cliffs project. Please read, listen, and share. There’s a lot of stuff out there aimed at or against autistic people — therapies and services — but there is a big disconnect between that and what we really need. The industry churns by its own internal incentives and since we’re generally not paying, we’re not driving — usually not even asked. I think most of us can feel what we don’t like, when an intervention is done to us, and many can also articulate what we don’t like. But fewer people can articulate why we don’t like it, and almost no one can articulate the alternatives. I’ve…
Tag: Star Ford
This month we’re asking our autistic community members What Do You Want? What Do You Need? We’ll be featuring their answers all April long, right here. Please read, listen, and share. Today we’re having a conversation with autistic advocate Star Ford. Star is the program manager of Ócate Cliffs, a planned mountain retreat for groups of 20-60, located near Ócate, New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. A group of autistic people are building this retreat center from the ground up. What was the inspiration for Ócate Cliffs? It ties together many threads in my life from separate origins. A huge one is the experience of being in autistic space and other retreat settings, including Autreat, where I felt incredibly whole and accepted instead of broken and stressed. Other inspirations are my love of the mountains and environmental issues, as well as architecture and building. What is the mission…