Helping kids with intellectual disability through puberty

our CHALLENGE

How can we help the parents and carers of children with autism or intellectual disability to navigate puberty?

Being the parent or carer of a child with autism or intellectual disability can be unpredictable; even more so when they start entering puberty. But resources were virtually non-existent. Our brief from Family Planning NSW was to create a first-of-its-kind platform that helped guide parents and carers through this challenging period.

THE IDEA

Welcome to Planet Puberty

Entering puberty is like entering a whole new world, where new rules apply. So we created a new world of our own: Planet Puberty. The idea took a light-hearted approach to what can be a category overburdened with worthy messages.

The site

A whole world of information and resources

The educational platform includes a website, webinar series, posters, podcast and social videos. The suite of resources was co-designed with people with disability and their parents and carers, perspectives that were critical in guiding the development of the project at all stages.

The GHO team exceeded the expectations of everyone here at Family Planning NSW.

Ee-Lin Chang, Senior Health Promotion Officer

SOCIAL VIDEO

Normalising the experience of puberty

In posters and videos shared through Family Planning NSW’s social channels, we seeded key messages from the site about topics like periods, privacy, and personal care.

ACCESSIBILITY

Designing for all users

As well as validating design decisions with the co-design team, we applied Userway, an automated accessibility solution for ADA and WCAG compliance; chose accessible colour palettes, fonts and font sizes; and enabled downloadable ‘easy read’ PDFs across the site.