Adrijana Owen

Adrijana Owen is an amazing and strong lady, married to Mervyn, they have two beautiful sons Luka and Ben. Adrijana with her friend Karen has opened three preschools local to her and spends most of her spare time to help families who are going through difficult times with diagnosis at an early age.

Adrijana not only continues with this amount of tireless work, time and effort that she puts in and helps so many vulnerable families and offers so much of her personal time in between running three businesses.

Adrijana in between all of this, continually volunteers for AKO for the events, this woman made of steel, the number of personal challenges that she has taken for our charity is overwhelming in May 2015, Adrijana climbed to the top of Ben Nevis and waved the flag for Anna Kennedy online, she took her challenges to a whole new level when she put herself forward to a 100 km Race to Stones for Anna Kennedy Online, this lady is the most extraordinary volunteer.

Winner: Melanie Whitfield

Melanie was nominated by Laura Appleby for this award for being an outstanding practitioner in positively supporting children with autism spectrum conditions and their families .

She has worked with children and young people with autism for over 20 years and has always been dedicated, creative and supportive to them and the parents .

Melanie has been instrumental in setting up and leading two autism specific education settings, the ARC provision within Leaways School and Brookways School . Both schools have been praised by students and parents for their ability to support and educate young people . Her team at Brookways school are very proud to work with her

Winner: Sarah Yasini

Sarah has been nominated by her mum Monira for this award . Even before Sarah’s brother was diagnosed she was a massive support to him . Last year Sarah’s mum had to go into hospital and have an operation which resulted in her being bed bound for a month .

During this time Sarah helped her brother with everything from get ting him up, helping him to shower, making sure he was dressed for the day ahead, getting him ready for school, cooking, taking him to swimming lessons all whilst revising for her own exams .

Sarah has written a book called ‘Autism from a Siblings and Parents Perspective’ which will be released later this year . All the monies from the book will be donated to Autism charities .

Winner: Lesley Fisher

Lesley has been nominated for this award by Emma Groom. Lesley has dedicated her life tenaciously to improving the lives of others . She originally trained as a nurse and soon specialised in working with individuals with learning difficulties and additional needs.

Lesley found her calling at Options Group in 2001, this is not just a career she has carved but she selflessly works for the lives of others for whom she is a staunch activist .

Lesley shares her knowledge and skills and has provided training to the local community, she organises training days for public services, police authorities and community workers. Lesley is a member of the CQC society and she mentors others. Lesley continues to make differences to children and adults with autism and she is a passionate advocate to ensure that everyone is living their best life .

Winner: Steve Whitmore

Steve nominated ‘Books in the Nik’ for this award, Steve is a police volunteer initiative providing books for all detainees in Metropolitan Police custody.

Focusing on children and young people with learning difficulties who find reading a book in custody helps to calm them down and relieves a stressful situation.

Over 200,000 individuals are processed through custody annually and it is estimated that 20/30% have learning difficulties or disabilities . For an autistic person the stress can be considerable, bright lights, the noise and strong smells.

The act of giving a book between police staff and detainees has been shown to create rapport and builds trust. Anxiety levels decrease and detainees are seen to relax and calm down.

Winner: Rebecca Taylor

Rebecca has been nominated by Joan Whittle, Emma Taylor and Thomas Lopeman for this award, for her all round enthusiasm and passion to helping parents, carers and young people living in her area. She is the founder of the junior autism group which she created to support individuals to have a safe contained area where children can play, parents can engage with each other and receive information services.

Rebecca has a son with autism called Joshua and everything she has achieved is because of him, she is frequently invited to clubs and groups to speak about Joshua and their journey. Rebecca was recently invited to speak in Poland at an international conference. It’s quite clear Rebecca has a lot of people that are so thankful to her from her numerous nominations.

Winner: Toby Gorniak

Toby has been nominated by Emma Venning for this award . Toby is the founder of Street Factory in Plymouth, he is a nationally respected hip – hop artist and youth worker and has just been awarded an MBE for his outstanding work in his community .

Toby has transformed the lives of many creating a safe place for them all to feel inspired, reduce isolation and be united in their community.

Toby is full of compassion and has a unique gift which comes from within and he genuinely goes above and beyond for the children he works with. He is more than just a teacher, he is an educator who has provided many opportunities for children and adults to reach their full potentials respected hip – hop artist and youth worker.

Winner: Oliver Wendt PHD

Oliver was nominated by Stephen P . Beaudoin PhD for this award. Oliver has been very successful as a faculty entrepreneur in translating research from his autism lab in to commercially viable products that have made an outstanding impact for the autism community.

Oliver has designed iPad applications called SPEAKall and SPEAKmore which help  oung adults and children to communicate and also understand concepts of language.

Ever since Oliver’s start – up company SPEAK MODalities has bought the technology to the market and has been adopted by over 40,000 families, 30 universities and autism clinics all over the world. The technology fills a gap particularly for the minimally verbal individuals with autism who are not well researched and undeserved. It is making a huge difference to many people’s lives.