BAISIS – Addressing cultural stigma around neurodivergence and disability (Chinese market)

• Date: September 25, 2024
• Time: 12:30 – 13:30
• Cost: BAISIS member – £55, BSA member – £55, BSA/BAISIS Member additional attendee – £25, Non-member – £110
• Audience: Practitioners in schools (academic and pastoral staff)
• Platform: Zoom (online) – webinar

Course outline:

The Chinese market remains one of the largest sources for UK independent schools. To cater to the needs of our students, pastorally and academically, we need to ensure we recognise and understand cultural variations. This includes the beliefs and feelings of the child and child’s family. Members report facing barriers to family engagement around intervention and support suggested, and this limits the support available to Chinese students who need it, and can risk damaging relations between school and family, school and child and even, sometimes, child and family.

Yet we want and need to offer the best opportunities we can to all our students. This webinar will support delegates in understanding the cultural stigma associated with social and learning needs and disabilities and make suggestions for breaking down barriers and prejudice to promote better outcomes for students, and better relationships with the family.

Our speaker will share her expertise and recommendations based on her own lived experience and professional focus on autism and neurodivergence. This combined lived and professional approach provides a unique insight into the Chinese community.

Topics include:

• Understanding how specific learning and social needs, and disabilities are regarded in China
• Providing information
• Managing an emotive subject and potential language barriers.

Learning outcomes:

• Improved understanding of the stigma from some of the Chinese community around additional needs
• Recommendations to improve family knowledge and understanding
• Recommendations to improve support offered to children and their families in the specific instance of identifying a need for support.

BOOK NOW

This event is available to BSA members at the exclusive BAISIS member rate of £55. Have you considered becoming a BAISIS member? BSA members enjoy a 50% discount on BAISIS membership! Discover more with our ‘‘10 Reasons Why? guide. For further details on BAISIS, please click here, or feel free to arrange a call with our Director, Bethan Hudson, by emailing us at baisis@boarding.org.uk.

Speaker:

Hazel Lim, Founder and Director of Chinese Autism Community Interest Company est. 2022

Multiple autism award winner Hazel Lim is a prominent advocate in the fight against the cultural stigma associated with autism within the UK Chinese community.  After moving with her neurodivergent family to Swansea in 2015 to complete a master’s degree in Autism and Related Conditions, she decided to make Wales her permanent home.  Since then, she has increasingly become a leading figure in the local autism and Chinese communities there, bringing together the voices and experiences of many to create a more inclusive and compassionate environment.

Hazel founded the Chinese Autism Support Group in 2016 to provide much needed support to Chinese families, working tirelessly to raise awareness and understanding of autism particularly for those in caring roles.  Then in 2019, Hazel went on to produce the first English and Chinese Bilingual Autism booklet in the UK, providing professionals with an introductory understanding of the cultural barriers faced by people living with autism in the Chinese community.  This document has been greatly utilised and appreciated by many professional bodies in South Wales, as well as internationally.  Hazel’s work on both this invaluable resource and the support group she founded was recognised by the Prime Minister in 2021, who awarded her with a prestigious ‘Point of Light’ award.

From winning additional awards such as ‘UK Chinese Women of the Year’ in the volunteering category, The National Autistic Society’s ‘Someone Who Changed My Life’ Award, and both Womenspire’s ‘Community Champion Award’ and Womenspire ‘Champion of Champions Award’, it is more than evident that Hazel’s impact and dedication is now widely recognised, especially her unwavering warmth and impressive commitment to her cause.

Hazel’s work has often been greatly challenged by cultural barriers, the unwillingness to embrace differences, and the lack of funding available to meet the needs of such vulnerable people. Despite this, Hazel’s genuine desire to help others and her determination to ensure no child or family affected by autism suffers in silence has made a significant impact on the local autism community, and those trying to understand autism in the Chinese cultural context both in Wales and all over the world.

To further support minority families affected by autism, Hazel founded Chinese Autism CIC in 2022, a project which is dedicated to empowering all Chinese families in need across the UK.  CACIC endeavours to counter the misinformed perspectives and cultural stigma that uniquely exists within the Chinese community through providing guidance, information, education, and awareness campaigns, strongly focusing on leading by example to remove barriers, address prejudice, and foster inclusion and equality.