Northern Ontario Autism Alliance in Sudbury hosts family fun day

On Sunday, Northern Ontario Autism Alliance hosted a sensory fun day for families of children with autism.

Julia Ritchie is with the Northern Ontario Autism Alliance and a mom of two children, both of whom are on the autism spectrum.

Ritchie said after a long two years of dealing with the pandemic, a family fun day for both parents and children was needed.

“It’s been a really long two years and we’ve missed getting together with other families, other autism families, and typically we do a lot of political advocacy but we thought we’d do something fun,” said Ritchie.

Although there was lots of fun to be had, Ritchie said with the election coming up, it’s time to start serious conversations.

“The Conservative government that we have in power now has only had 600 kids of the 50,000 kids waiting for service enter into service in the past three years,” said Ritchie. “It’s not OK and we need to make sure that politicians know that for this upcoming election it won’t be acceptable.”

Sudbury MPP Jamie West was also in attendance and he said seeing the autism community come together and showing support is important, especially since families aren’t getting the services they should be.

“Doug Ford promised you’d never have to protest outside Queens Park and there’s been countless protests outside Queens Park and it’s actually gotten worse than it was before instead of better,” said West.

“Quite frankly, it’s the community in Sudbury that has been very vocal and my job is to amplify and echo their voices.”

Jana Hall, another mother in attendance, said it’s great to have the support of local politicians such as West, adding that funding is needed now more than ever.

“My oldest, Miller, is just at the next level where he is turning six and so there’s now a lot less funding for him and so it’s really scary to not have any security or the need space funding set up yet," Hall said.

"It’s financially hard."