The Cardiff and Vale IAS hold 2-hour forums in Cardiff Central Library on the first Monday of every month. The forum aims to provide a place for autistic adults to meet and share experiences, whilst also learn about local services and receive information which might be relevant to them through guest speakers. Some examples of the speakers we have had include, Four Winds (a mental health charity), MIND, Library Services, Innovate (gardening project), Community Care & Wellbeing Service, and Valley & Vale Arts.
Over the past couple of months, the numbers for the Cardiff forum have been increasing and the IAS are currently having approximately 20 people attend each session. Due to the increase in attendees, the IAS reviewed the structure of the forum and decided to make the second hour less formal, thus increasing the opportunity for socialising. The IAS were hopeful that this would increase the numbers of people who felt able to socialise and boost their confidence of socialising in smaller groups of people.
This new format was trialled in March 2020. In the second hour of the forum, the room was split into smaller groups of people. Everyone socialised throughout the entire hour and nobody chose to leave. With slight encouragement from staff, everyone in the room spoke to one another.
Since November 2019, a small number of people (3-4) had been meeting in Costa following the forum (although the offer had been for everyone from a confident attendee). After the March forum, the offer was extended again and over 10 people agreed to go to Costa, including an autistic adult who had very rarely spoken in the forum and never without prompting from staff.
