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Good morning.
For those of you who haven’t met me, I’m Jim Mullan, the Chief Executive of Amaze.
I’ve been delighted to join an organisation that has the heritage and the track record that Amaze has with respect to supporting the autistic community in Victoria.
And I’m delighted to join such an enthusiastic, energetic, committed and expert team within the organisation.
This has been a tough year. COVID has interrupted all our lives in lots of significant ways and I need to express my real thanks to both our team and our steakholders for sticking with us and chewing through the year that has been.
And although the year’s been difficult, we still have a range of activities that have grown across the year to support our community and I’d just like to take the opportunity to highlight some of those.
One of the real highlights this year has been the launch of Autism Connect.
Autism Connect is a national advice line for autistic people around the country.
There are two really pleasing features around that: One has been the growth and use of the advice line that we are seeing in all states around the country and we look forward to that growth continuing in 2022.
But the other factor has been the feedback that we received from autistic people and their families, and professionals accessing the service and commenting to us about both the quality of the service and the quality of the support that the advisors provide online.
This is incredibly pleasing and we look forward to continuing this high level of support through the next year.
We’ve also been very active in the advocacy space this year.
I think particularly, we should highlight the work that we were involved in with the wider disability sector around the proposed changes to the NDIS and the introduction of Independent Assessments.
I think the success of that campaign provides a template for all of us with respect to how we should approach future campaigns like this and demonstrates what the sector can do and achieve when it acts in consult.
I am also particularly pleased about the work that was done here in Victoria around ensuring that during lockdown and restricted schooling that there was still an opportunity for young people with disability to attend and participate in school.
I thank our partners who worked with us on that and also thank the education department who were clearly listening and attentive to our needs.
Clearly vaccination has been a significant issue for all of us this year and our work with the health department and partners around creating a series of resources to support and improve vaccination rates across the community has also been a pleasing area of our work this year.
I’d like to thank all our partners who worked with us, all of the health partners we worked with all the community who have helped us design the resources that have been required to ensure that the widest possible range of members of our community can go into the process with a high degree of effort and a greater degree of certainty about the outcome at the end of it.
An initiative that kicked off this year and you probably hear of more next year is our work around the development of Autism Positive Employment.
I think one of the things we have recognised through pandemic is that remote working and working in a different way and in a hybrid way presents a real opportunity for all autistic people to participate in a wider world in a very different way and also for the wider disabled community to think about what participation looks like.
However, to achieve this, it’s gong to be important that we provide the right supports and work with willing partners in the corporate sector in Australia and we begin to prepare resources that will support not only the recruitment of autistic people into employment but will also work with managers so they understand the kind of supports that should be in place for this new intake hopefully of autistic people into the workplace but also to then think about the elements that surround career development and progression which I think is important for both employers and for our community.
We’ve also had a very successful Hoodie Up campaign with over a hundred organisations and individuals participating.
And we’re really looking forward to where this campaign can go next year.
This will be our 4th run at this and each year it becomes more popular, more successful.
One of the hallmarks of great organisations is almost invariably the work with great partners and that’s certainly been the case with Amaze.
The support from the corporate sector has been from organisations like Bunnings and Coles, ACMI, Parks Victoria, St Kilda Football Club, V/Line trains and Transdev.
We’ve also been fortunate to work with great partners from our own sector and I couldn’t do this without mentioning Yellow Ladybugs, I CAN Network, the Association for Children with Disability, Aspergers Victoria and Autism Awareness Australia.
But we are a charity and finance is key. Whilst we’ve had wonderful support from government partners both at a national level and state level, I do need to make special mention of the commitment that some of our foundation partners have had with respect to our work.
Need to mention the Veith Foundation who supported now a couple of initiatives here.
Their commitment to our work has been 100% steadfast and I think it speaks to the family experience and the understanding of the challenges of autism and we are delighted to continue our work with Paul, Carla and the rest of the family.
I also need to mention Giving for Tomorrow who provided us significant support over the last couple of years.
The CFMUE and the ETU who have both provided us direct financial support not alone around the work but particularly around the organisation of events.
I came to Amaze with the commitment to drive meaningful change and work with our community to achieve this.
I’m delighted to be part of an organisation that has such a passionate group of individuals working with me in such a collegial fashion,
To work with the network of stakeholders who support our work,
But most importantly to work with our community who are engaged and I’d like to thank that community for the goodwill and faith it has and Amaze as an organisation will attempt to never let you down on that front.
It’s been a tough year, and we’re all looking forward to the break, so on behalf of Amaze, I’d really like to thank all of you for your support of the past year and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year
And I look forward to catching up with you all in 2022.
Thanks,
Jim Mullan.