Autism: Stories on the Spectrum with Rachel Vanderploeg-Wiesel

This week on Unpacked we are chatting with Rachel Vanderploeg-Wiesel, Knowledge Management Specialist at Alberta Health Services, wife, mama and autism advocate. The Unpacked Team chats with Rachel about their family's journey with autism. Rachel's son, Henry was diagnosed when he was four years old and since then they have spent time learning all about the way Henry sees the world. Autism, refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviours, speech and nonverbal communication (description from CDC). Rachel shares the story from diagnosis to today, the emotions and ways they communication with their friends and family. Rachel talks tips, strategies and misconceptions and how she and Henry are documenting their story on their instagram account. They hope to spread awareness and help us all to learn a little bit from the way Henry, like many others in our world, see things from a unique perspective that we could all benefit from. Rachel is a passionate mama who works tirelessly to empower Henry (and all her children) to show up as themselves and uses that energy in everything she does.

Unpacked is a podcast exploring life as messy people. It’s conversations with counsellors, leaders, storytellers discussing the experiences of being human. We talk about the strength that comes from big messy failures and vulnerable moments so we can learn to live more authentically. Subscribe and leave us a review!

Links
-Follow Rachel and Henry @the_whole_spectrum
-Neurodivergent rebel: @neurodivergentrebel
-My autistic soul: @myautisticsoul
-Why everything you know about autism is wrong | Jac den Houting | TEDxMacquarieUniversity - YouTube