Usually ACT takes the opportunity in the News Round Up to look at the all the positive events that happened during April Autism Awareness Month. We can’t do that this year. Angie and Robert Robinson died on April 2, 2014, World Autism Awareness Day in Prince Rupert. It was several weeks before their family bravely brought their tragedy to public attention. One of the most terrible aspects of the deaths of Angie and her son Robert Robinson, was that she was looking for help and no one in authority offered her sufficient hope to carry on. There was no residential placement available for 16 year old Robert locally and his mother was exhausted.

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The heartbreaking and preventable deaths of a mother and her teenage son with autism in Prince Rupert earlier this month (see Province article) has highlighted the lack of a well-developed strategy in B.C. to respond to families in crisis. On April 25^th Global Unfiltered featured a discussion on the underlining issues we face in British Columbia.

The report on the 25th followed a month-long series by Global looking at autism: treatment, causes and the impact on families, featuring many families and professionals working and living with autism in B.C. Some of the stories they featured were:

• Canada lack national autism strategy
• Despite some funding, a diagnosis of autism is a huge financial burden
• Search to find cure for autism
• Surrey art program helps one young man with autism express himself
• Jenny McCarthy backtracking on anti-vaccination, but is it too late? 
• Early diagnosis of autism improves outcomes, saves mone

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