FASD Webinar

Results from the FASD Changemakers
Lay of the Land Survey #2
Equality vs. Equity

Thursday, March 18, 2021

10:00am – 12:00pm PDT / 1:00pm – 3:00pm EDT


Webinar Description:

The Adult Leadership Committee (ALC) of FASD Changemakers has done it again! Following the official publication* of their Lay of the Land Survey #1 which focused on the health of 500+ adults with a diagnosis of FASD, they have now completed a 350+ question Lay of the Land Survey #2: What Really Matters – Life as We Live It of 450 adults with FASD. This new survey focuses on areas of everyday life for respondents.

This new survey focuses on areas of everyday life for respondents. Panelists will present some of the new findings, after demographics, across a wide range of life experiences including, but not limited to, those from education, employment, finances, housing, family relationships, parenting with FASD, criminal justice and victims of crime, drugs and alcohol, needed services, meaning, purpose and satisfaction with life, and adverse childhood experience (ACEs). The ACEs scale was modified by the ALC to obtain additional information around circumstances. The ALC then asked similar and expanded questions in relation to what they termed Adverse Continuing Experience – Adult (ACEs-A) in individuals over age 18.

What did the adults who filled out the survey tell us about:

  • How their memory difficulties play out in real life
  • Being a victim of crime
  • Foster care?  Adoption? Birth home?
  • What they think about diagnosis
  • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) including sexual abuse before age 18
  • The rates of adverse/traumatic experiences after age 18
  • Having children
  • Why employment is so difficult
  • Attending post-secondary education
  • Being homeless
  • Living in poverty
  • What has gotten better and what has gotten worse

Where possible, the results from the two groups will be compared. A question & answer period will follow this panel presentation.

* “The lay of the land: FASD as a whole-body diagnosis” was published as a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Social Work and Addictive Behaviours, edited by Audrey L. Begun and Margaret M. Murray.