OAR News

Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month is a good time to get involved in your community and help spread accurate, useful information about autism.  You can accomplish this goal by volunteering with OAR as an autism materials distributor. Autism materials distributors receive educational materials about autism from OAR staff to distribute to local community members, which may include teachers, neighbors, families, and first responders. By equipping members of their communities with resources that address everyday questions and challenges, autism materials distributors reduce stress and help to ensure a high quality of life for autistic individuals.

OAR’s useful, high-quality, evidence-based resources reach thousands of individuals every year, in no small part because of the dedicated work of our autism materials distributors.  In order to help these volunteers expand their reach, OAR new toolkit of resources can help distributors to expand their reach. The new Autism Materials Distributor Toolkit includes:

• Background information on OAR’s mission and impact
• A full rundown of OAR’s resources with short descriptions that volunteers can easily share with interested parties
• Strategies for effective outreach
• Sample emails and social media posts that volunteers can customize

OAR hopes that, with the use of this toolkit, volunteers can more easily prepare for and conduct outreach, increasing the number of people that they can impact and giving them more time and energy to focus on connecting with their community.

Through their efforts distributing OAR’s resources, autism materials distributors directly help families navigate their journey through autism and help teachers confidently address the needs of their autistic students, build a welcoming classroom environment, and reduce instances of bullying through peer education. If this sounds like it’s a good fit for you, sign up as a volunteer with OAR today!