What does it mean to thrive as an autistic youth, especially in Northern Ontario or Indigenous communities, where support can be hard to access and even harder to relate to?
“Telling Our Stories” (TOS) is a groundbreaking, community-engaged research project, led by Dr. Patty Douglas, that’s flipping the script on autism research and services. Instead of focusing on deficits or trying to fit youth into rigid systems, TOS asks: What happens when we listen to autistic youth—and let them lead the way?
The Challenge
In rural and Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario, autistic youth face more than just a lack of services. They often encounter:
- Culturally mismatched care
- Underfunded programs
- Systems that don’t recognize their strengths or reflect their lived experiences.
These mismatches can lead to distress, exclusion, and missed opportunities for communities, youth and service providers alike
The Vision: Photovoice & Co-Design
TOS is using Photovoice—a powerful method that invites youth to share their experiences through photographs and storytelling. It’s participatory, empowering, and centered on what they see as important. Through this approach, youth don’t just become research participants —they become co-researchers, artists, and advocates.
Click here to learn more about Photovoice
But this project goes beyond storytelling. Over the next three years, the team will:
- Analyze the existing research on autism and youth thriving in Northern and Indigenous communities.
- Map current youth services and identify where the biggest gaps lie.
- Co-design new, culturally relevant supports with youth and community partners.
- Share insights in academic journals, community talks, art exhibits, and policy briefs.
- Scale up the project to three new communities interested in the project
What Makes This Work Different?
TOS is built on neurodiversity-affirming and Indigenous frameworks—approaches that celebrate different ways of thinking, moving, and experiencing the world. It resists deficit-based thinking and instead focuses on what helps youth flourish in their own contexts.
It's also about driving systemic change. Through collaboration with Queen’s University and five community partners—including Algoma Family Services, Autism Alliance Canada, Autism Ontario, Finding Our Power Together, and the Re•Storying Autism Collective—TOS seeks to shape everything from local programming to national initiatives such as the Federal Autism Strategy and “Ontario’s Journey to Belonging”.
A Research Project with Heart
Led by Dr. Patty Douglas and a diverse team of researchers—including Elizabeth Straus (University of Guelph), Nicole Ineese-Nash (Toronto Metropolitan University), and Nicole J. Bobbette (Queen’s University)—TOS will mentor and train 36 emerging scholars and students, with a strong emphasis on centering Indigenous and autistic voices throughout the process. The aim is to fundamentally reimagine how autism and youth services are understood and delivered, particularly in communities where one-size-fits-all solutions fall short.
This project is about more than research—it’s about justice, joy, and reimagining what’s possible when autistic youth lead and are seen, heard, and celebrated.
Telling Our Stories is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
