What is Autism Connect?

Autism Connect is a service provided by the Autism Alliance, with support and funding from the Department of Health. It is a social networking site for people with autism and their families. Users can post updates about themselves and their lives as well as sharing information about services, interventions and their own experiences.

Who can see what I post?

Lots of the information on the site is public, such as the Q+A section and the service directory. This means that anyone can see it, including people who are not users of the site. We have allowed these sections to be public because they could be very helpful to other people who may be looking for support and advice.

There are some sections of the site, such as your profile and the profiles of other users, which you cannot see unless you are logged in. This helps to keep you and your information safe. It means that people who are not members of the site will not see the more personal things that you post on the site.

When you post updates, you can choose whether you want things to be public, which means anyone can see them, or to your circle. This means that only people who are in your circle can see that particular update. Remember, any user of the site can add you to their circle so they are not necessarily people you know.

What is the Service Directory?

The service directory is a collection of information about different business, services and organisations that offer something that is helpful to people with autism and their families. You can add your own service providers to the directory, to share your knowledge with other users.

You can also rate and review the services and service providers to let other people know whether they are useful or not.

What is a moderator?

Moderators are users of the site who work on our behalf to check what people post and help to make sure that people are following the rules.

Can I be a moderator?

Active users will be approached and asked if they would like to be a moderator. We will not take applications from users but will instead approach users who regularly post helpful updates, answer other users' questions and add and rate services in the service directory, in a useful way.

Who can I add to the Service Directory?

You can add anyone who provides a service, to our directory. Once you have added the person or company as a provider, you can add services to their page. We have a list of categories that might describe what the provider or the service does. You can add any service that offers something for people with autism. This can be specialist autism services or just local businesses that understand people with autism and offer an autism-friendly service.

Why haven't my rating and review been added to the site?

If you gave a low rating to a service then it will not appear on the site straight away. It will be sent to us first, for us to read it and check that it is a helpful review. We will not post bad reviews or ratings that do not give lots of information and good reasons for why the rating was low. We will contact you if we choose not to post your review, and explain what you can do to make your review more helpful. We know it is important to express your opinion and to show services that have not been useful to our users but we want to make sure that reviews explain fully what was bad or what went wrong.

I have forgotten my password, what should I do?

Don't worry, it is not unusual to forget your password and it is easy to choose a new one.Visit the website and click on the "login" link in turquoise in the top right hand corner. This will take you to the log in page. Under the text boxes where you normally put your email address and password, there is a turquoise link that says, "forgotten password?" click on this. This will bring up a box where you can type in your email address, type in your email address. You will then be sent an email with a link; you will need to click this link to reset your password. When you click on the link you will be taken to a page where you can type in a new password. You will then be able to use this new password to log in as normal. If you do not receive the email to your email inbox after 5 minutes, check that it is not in the "Junk" folder of your email. If you still have not received it and it is not in the "Junk" folder, contact us.

Do you support everything that is posted on the site?

No. Anything that is posted on the site is only the opinion of the person that posted it. We want people to feel safe to post their thoughts and opinions but we do not necessarily agree with everything that is posted. Anything that is offensive or does not follow our code of conduct will not be allowed by us and will be removed as soon as we know about it. You can help with this by reporting anything that is offensive or that does not follow our code of conduct, to us.