The latest in the harms of Prevent training is that it links children with autism to extremism, using high numbers of referrals to ‘evidence’ this mistaken assumption. While many of these cases are not pursued further, the harms to neurodiverse children are multiplying. World Autism Awareness Day took place just last month, and we know Prevent has unjustly impacted children with autism. We have supported many parents whose children were referred to Prevent because of a behaviour linked to their autism. In other cases, schools have said that the child’s autism has been the main reason for the referral, or that they have been referred because their autism allegedly made them “more vulnerable to radicalisation or extremism”. In one case, a mother was shocked because her son who had autism had been referred for having a reaction to a situation which made him very uncomfortable. There was nothing violent in […]