In order to be eligible to join our community your young person must meet the following criteria: ​

• Be a young person aged 10-17

• Reside in one of our funded areas

• Be autistic

We are currently only accepting new applications from young people aged 10-17, living in one of our funded areas which are:

• Greater Manchester (unfortunately we are currently closed to new members from GM as we are at capacity, but will reopen to new members when we can - we do not operate a waiting list)

• Bedford Borough

• St Helens

• Liverpool City Council

• Sheffield City Council

• Lancashire County Council - only for registered members of their Break Time scheme. (Please note that we do not provide 'short breaks', but are in addition to that service, so we do not use any 'hours')

• Waltham Forest

We also accept applications from siblings of current members that live outside these areas. ​ Previously we have accepted membership from across the UK and when we secure further funding, this will 'unlock' more spaces for members in other areas. However as we do not operate a waiting list, or have any current timescales of when this might be, if you would like to keep up to date on when we are accepting members from other areas, it is best to follow us on social media, as that is where we would post any updates. Parents are also not able to self-fund places. If you would like to offer support with securing funding in your local area, please email development@spectrumgaming.net

​ Young people do not need to have an official diagnosis to join our community, but must fulfill one of the following criteria: ​

• They have an autism diagnosis

• They are on the waiting list for an assessment/ diagnosis

• They self identify as autistic

​ Spectrum Gaming is a very openly autistic community where autism is discussed all the time. Therefore your young person may find this confusing if they join but they are not aware that they are, or could be, autistic. ​ If your young person meets the above criteria for joining you can fill out an application form here. ​ Please note: Our community is only for young people who are aged 10-17. Unfortunately we do not support adults, and are currently not expanding to this age range. ​ We also do not have any current plans to expand membership to beyond the UK.

Our founder didn't receive his autism diagnosis until he was 20, so it would be quite hypocritical if people could only join Spectrum Gaming when they are diagnosed!

Young people need to fulfill one of the following criteria to join our community:

• They have an autism diagnosis

• They are on the waiting list for an assessment/ diagnosis

• They self identify as autistic

It may be worth noting that we are a very openly autistic community where autism is discussed all the time. Therefore your young person may find this confusing if they join but they are not aware that they are, or could be, autistic.

Our new Community Centre is based in Bury, Greater Manchester. Currently sessions and activities on offer there are only open to young people who are registered members with us. Membership of our Online Community, and other face-to-face meet ups, are open to autistic young people in different parts of the UK if they live in one of our 'funded areas'. To see if your young person is eligible to join the community, please check out the other FAQs! :)

While we are currently only accepting new members from areas where we receive dedicated funding, we would love to be able to support young people in other areas too!

Opening up places to young people in other areas depends on the funding our charity receives. If you are a parent, the best place to keep up to date with when places are available is to follow us on social media, as we do not operate a waiting list. Please also note that you cannot self-fund a place as a parent.

Please email development@spectrumgaming.net if you are a funder/ commissioner or someone who would like to hear more about what we can offer - then we will be in touch as soon as we can.

Unfortunately we are not aware of any other communities like SG for autistic young people.

Unfortunately no, we do not support adults and do not have any plans to expand beyond our current age range of 10-17.

Joining an openly autistic community might feel quite difficult if you have negative feelings towards autism. For some young people it might not be the right time for them to join SG, but for others it could help them to foster a more positive autistic identity.

We have written some information which may help when talking to young people who are struggling with their autistic identity, which you can read here: Talking to Young People about Autism. Introducing them to other positive autistic role models and information like this may help them to feel more curious about joining the community.

We also understand how overwhelming it can be to join a community like Spectrum Gaming if you are feeling anxious about social situations. Therefore, we have created special 'New Members' areas of our Discord servers, which have members of our Young Staff Team called 'Helpers' who help new people to settle in and find their way around. We also have lots of information on our website about how our community works (Under 13, Teen and Minecraft) and also a 'Getting Started Guide' which you can find in our parent info.

Our Discord and Minecraft servers are all completely private spaces, in order for us to make them safe for young people to use. They have quite rigorous verification measures in place:

Every young person must be verified, to prove they are who they say they are and they are joining with the right intentions before they are able to join. We do this by either having their identity verified by a professional who knows them, or by having a quick 1:1 video call with the young person themselves.

Once young people are in our community:

- Everything within our servers is completely private: No one can join without being added by a member of staff.

- We have a set of rules that must be agreed to by members to make sure the community is welcoming for everyone.

- Every message within our Discord and Minecraft servers is logged, so the staff team can see every message that is sent.

- If young people are worried about anything, they are able to contact a member of staff who will respond as soon as they can. On Minecraft, young people can type ‘/support’ then their issue to notify members of the staff team, who can come along to assist.

WHAT WE CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

While we fully monitor our private Discord community, sometimes members make their own private group chats once they have developed friendships. We are unable to monitor group chats so young people who join them do so at their own risk. However, we will get involved if something happens in a group chat that causes discomfort or tension in our private server. As an extra measure, young people are not allowed to direct message other members or invite them to group chats without asking for permission from them within our server first.

Another rule we have is that server members are not allowed to send invites to other discord servers so our members are as safe as possible (we cannot guarantee the safety of our members in other servers).

UNDER 13 DISCORD SERVER:

In our under 13 Discord server, it is parents who will need to create accounts and join the community, in order to comply with Discord's Terms of Service. Parents are also asked to monitor the private messages of our under 13 members, in order to help keep them and the community safe.

OTHER PLATFORMS:

Our other platforms, such as our Parent/Carer Facebook group and Twitch channel, are more open. Even though these are also moderated spaces, there are less rigourous checks in place with regards to who can join or chat etc. As a result, parents *must* take responsibility for ensuring other people they connect with are appropriate.

There is further information about both parent/carer and SG's responsibilities in our Parent Info Section here.

Our Online Community predominantly takes place via our private Discord servers, which are basically like private forums for our registered members only. Discord do a great job of explaining what it is on their page for Parents and Educators here.

Our Minecraft server and many of our face-to-face meet ups are for the full age range of members (10-17), however for Discord and some meet ups they are split in to 10-12 and 13-17. Our separate Discord servers for different age groups are in place to comply with Discord's TOS, due to this we are unable to allow younger community members onto the 13+ members server and vice versa.

Some young people may require more 1:1 support and supervision in order to engage positively with our online community. Unfortunately as we are unable to offer continuous 1:1 supervision of individual young people, parents/ carers may need to supervise their access to our community.

In addition to this, if you are a parent of a member of our Under 13 Community, you are required to be logged into the same account they use to access our server, and MUST supervise and monitor their private messages and group chats. You can read more about how to do this in our Getting Started Guide.

It is a good idea to read through our Parent Info section first and then the application form can be found on that page.

Before a young person can be added to our community we need to verify their identity. When you fill out our membership application form, you will have two choices of how you can do this; either by you arranging a professional to email us to confirm your young person's details, or by arranging a 1:1 video call with a member of our staff team.

Verifying via email:

We can verify your young person if we receive an email from a professional with an official email address confirming your child's name, date of birth and home address. The professional cannot be someone who is related to the young person.

Suitable people may include:

• Local Authority

• Local School

• NHS / GP

• Mental Health Services

• A professional from a reputable service or charity (e.g. MindJam).

Once you have completed our application form, please ask your professional to send an email directly to us at verify@spectrumgaming.net with you cc'd in (with the email you entered into the application form) confirming your young person's full name, date of birth and home address. Once we receive this email it usually takes around 5 working days for us to process your application. We will then send you an email with all the instructions on how to join the servers.

Verifying via video call:

During the application form you are given the option to select a video call with a member of our staff team to verify your young person's identity. Please note that it is important that your young person is available for the call as well, however they do not need to speak to the staff member, we can just chat with you. You should receive an automatic confirmation email with the appointment day and time on it at the time of booking. If you have not received a confirmation email then you may not have successfully booked a call.

If you have any questions about your application during the verification process please email verify@spectrumgaming.net and a member of the team will be able to help :)

PLEASE NOTE:

If you have not completed verification after 6 months from submitting the form, we will delete your application in line with our GDPR policy, and you will need to reapply.