Over 4,500 stores have signed up to the National Autistic Society’s Autism Hour. Autism Hour is the UK’s first major week-long event where shops and businesses across the UK will dim their lights, turn down music and share information about autism for 60 minutes on the week of 2 October.

The National Autistic Society is encouraging autistic adults, children and their families to attend Autism Hours in their local area by using the interactive map which shows which shops and businesses will be taking part throughout the week. The map allows users to zoom in to where you live, filter by category and start planning your visit.

Marks and Spencer, Clarks, Superdrug, John Lewis, Toys ‘R’ Us, Sainsbury’s and Mothercare are also among the 4,500 individual stores that have signed up, and Lloyds Banking Group will be supporting by educating their colleagues about autism during Autism Hour to support customers.

Mark Lever, Chief Executive at the National Autistic Society, said:

“The National Autistic Society is proud to be launching the first ever UK wide Autism Hour event and is thrilled that it’s involving such a vast number of shops and businesses.

“A National Autistic Society survey found that 64% of autistic people avoid going to the shops, and 28% have been asked to leave a public place for reasons associated with their autism. We are confident that the National Autistic Society’s Autism Hour will provide an opportunity for autistic people and their families to use shops and services that the general public take for granted.

“We are encouraging autistic adults, children and their families to head to the interactive map on our website so they can plan visits to local shops and businesses and enjoy a break from the overload of too much information.

“It is incredible to see that over 4,500 stores across the UK are taking part in this new event and we hope to build on this year on year.”

More than 1 in 100 people are on the autism spectrum which means that someone sees, hears and feels the world in a different, often more intense way to other people. Autistic people often find social situations difficult and struggle to filter out the sounds, smells, sights and information they experience which means they feel overwhelmed by ‘too much information’ when out in public.

The National Autistic Society’s Autism Hour is supported by shopping centre owner intu and will take place in 14 of their shopping centres across the UK including intu Trafford centre, intu Lakeside and intu Metrocentre. Staff at intu centres already receive training to provide autism-aware customer service and autistic people also benefit from guides that allow them to plan and prepare a visit to each intu centre.

Care workers in the London borough of Haringey are to be given the time and support they need to do their work, through a new ethical charter.

Haringey Council has signed up to UNISON’s ethical care charter, which sets out a series of commitments to protect the rights of home care workers’ and give them greater freedom to focus on the needs of the people they care for.

Under the charter, Haringey is committed to replacing zero hours contracts with guaranteed hours, and to make full payment for travel time between home care visits.

The new code means the commissioning of home care visits will always be shaped by what is best for the person being cared for and the care worker, not by the need to meet a certain quota of visits or complete care duties in a set timeframe.

Haringey Council cabinet member for finance and adult services Councillor Jason Arthur said:

“I’m proud to have signed UNISON’s ethical care charter. We’re committed to ensuring that Haringey’s residents get the best possible care, and to making sure that those who choose to devote their working lives to caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities get the right professional support to do so.

“Haringey has a proud tradition of union support and we are committed to protecting the rights of our residents, and of those who work on behalf of the borough.”

UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said:

“Making this commitment to decent employment conditions for care workers is vital for improving the quality of life for the people they look after.

“UNISON’s ethical care charter is leading the way in highlighting the importance of care work and in fighting to win the pay and conditions they deserve.”

UNISON’s ethical care charter has three key elements covering visits, quality of care and pay. It includes abolishing time limits on homecare visits, giving care workers the freedom to provide appropriate care and spend sufficient time talking to clients and paying care workers for travel time and expenses. It also covers giving vulnerable people the same home care worker wherever possible, providing home care workers with training opportunities, paying the London living wage (currently £9.15 per hour), and giving home care workers sick pay.

Misty mornings, ripening blackberries, windfall apples and the golden, orange and red hues of falling leaves provide dazzling displays of autumn colour on the nation's beautiful waterways. The Canal & River Trust has handpicked 11 sites across the country that provide special places to visit and to wonder at nature's farewell to the summer.

Pull on your wellies and woollies and get set for some great woodland walks by the water. Prepare for conker fights, leaf-catching competitions and scrunching through deep drifts of leaves as well as some splendid seasonal views of our historic canals.

Leeds & Liverpool Canal, Farnhill, Nr Kildwick, North Yorkshire

As the mill towns drift into countryside follow the Leeds & Liverpool Canal as it snakes from Bingley towards Skipton. At Farnhill there's a sheer wooded cutting that provides an impressive ravine to journey through. Each side of this tiny wooded valley and Farnhill Wood provide displays of beech, oak, silver birch and sycamore interspersed with some evergreen holly bushes.

Getting there: park along the Main Street in Farnhill, just off the A629 to Skipton, BD20 9BW.

Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal, Brecon, Wales

Meandering through the Welsh countryside the isolated Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal is the most popular attraction in the stunning Brecon Beacons National Park. It is one of the Canal & River Trust's most beautiful and peaceful waterways following the line of the lovely wooded Usk Valley. Travelling west towards Brecon a wooded bank of beech trees provide a golden backdrop to huge landscape views of the Usk Valley. From here it's a short walk to the basin in Brecon where there's a café for a cosy lunch. The navigable section of the canal runs for 35 miles from Brecon to the Pontymoile basin. Its location makes it a haven for wildlife and a favourite with nature-lovers, walkers and cyclists.

Getting there: park roadside where the B4558 crosses the canal and River Usk. Brecon, South Wales LD3 7UY.

Kennet & Avon Canal, Avoncliff Aqueduct, Avoncliff, Wiltshire

Surrounded by woodland the Avoncliff Aqueduct is a stately spot to view the beautiful turning colours of the Bath Valley. The woodland here is made up of a rich variety of trees and includes oak, ash, sycamore, hazel and hawthorn. The aqueduct at 100m long and 18m wide provides a pale limestone contrast with the colourful displays of leaves. If you're lucky, this is a great spot to see bats flying to and from the tall arches of the aqueduct and wandering deer feeding on hedgerow leaves and berries.

West Bromwich Albion's inaugural Diversity Day will be at The Hawthorns on Saturday - and this week they are letting you how you can celebrate the event with their packed day of highlights for fans to enjoy in the build-up to their Premier League clash against Watford which they hope will continue to prove that the club remains at the forefront of change through football.

There will be a range of activities highlighting the club's equality, inclusiveness and togetherness as they try to inspire and help their community both close to home and abroad.

You can get a flavour of Albion's work beyond the hallowed turf of The Hawthorns and stay with them all this week at wba.co.uk to learn more.

Find out about new supporters' clubs which highlight the Baggies' increasingly diverse backing or seize the chance to help our old favourite Jonas Olsson and his pioneering work in the slums of India.

You can also discover more, too, about such projects as Soho Albion, the Academy-funded free-of-charge junior outfit in the multicultural local ward of the same name.

And on the day itself, they've got a blaze of activity to enjoy in and around the stadium.

The Premier Legue team will be celebrating particularly the cultural traditions of their fans from the Asian and Chinese communities while the Fanzone becomes the focal point for a fusion of musical and culinary delights.

Also in the Fanzone, there will be the WBA FC Women's players who will be taking up a great new Football Dartboard Challenge. Or you can test your ability in a Blind Football penalty shoot-out.

Even the face painters will be catching the mood as they offer international flags and the 'Together We Are Albion' logo among their creations.

And they will be celebrating football's most famous barrier-breaking symbol - the club's cherished 'Three Degrees' team in which Brendon Batson, Cyrille Regis and the late Laurie Cunningham overcame bigotry and racism to lead football towards a more enlightened age.

Regis, Batson and representatives of the Cunningham family will be special Fans' Champions before kick-off on Saturday, bringing the match ball to the Premier League plinth and sending a message about Albion's place in the story of diversity.

The pounding beats of Dhol drummers will even take on the challenge of joining with 'The Liquidator' as the celebrations peak towards kick-off.

As the West Midlands-based giants say themselves; “There's never been a more important time to be together than now.”

Next year’s Wolverhampton Original Literature Festival (WOLF) has received a funding boost from Arts Council England. The city’s inaugural festival in January proved a popular event with audiences.

Following a successful bid from City of Wolverhampton Council’s libraries service, it has now secured £13,250 from the Arts Council’s Grants for Arts programme to help it grow in 2018.

The additional funding means the literature festival’s future is secured for the next five years, with money from the Arts Council England National Portfolio for organisations already in place for 2019-22.

The 2018 festival, from Friday, January 26 to Sunday 28, will follow a similar format to the first as organisers look to build it over the next five years and make it a permanent fixture in the calendar.

City of Wolverhampton Council Cabinet Member for City Economy, Councillor John Reynolds, said: “We will grow the festival over the next few years to create a unique Wolverhampton flavour.

“Themes will include music and literature, politics and journalism, and community voices.

“People at different stages of their careers will also be given a chance to perform alongside headline acts.”

Organisers are keen to hear from writers, poets and community groups who want to get involved and link in with the festival’s programme of authors and speakers, which will be announced in the coming months.

A visit to Staffordshire's Trentham Gardens is always a colourful experience between the months of October and November.

Boasting a “rediscovered” Capability Brown parkland, a mile-long lake and award-winning gardens, Trentham has - for more than a decade - been one of the best places in the whole of The Midlands for visitors to head to at this time of the year.

But the introduction of one of the largest 'pictorial meadows' planting schemes in any historic landscape in the country over the last couple of years has done much to improve its autumnal appeal still further.

Of all the places in Britain to visit for a spot of leaf-peeping, few can now compete with the dramatic “floor to ceiling” range of autumnal colours on offer at Trentham Gardens. The woodland trees, reflected in the lake, are just one element of the seasonal show that is complemented every year by The Rivers of Grass - a breathtaking prairie garden landscape of grasses and vast herbaceous perennials designed by Dutch gardening guru, and Chelsea gold-medal winner, Piet Oudolf.

But the iconic perennial plantings of Oudolf and fellow Chelsea gold medalist Tom Stuart-Smith - along with Trentham's own team - has also been expanded by the introduction of some eye-catching perennial and annual meadows, designed and planted by a third Chelsea gold medalist Nigel Dunnett who needs little introduction to the nation's horticultural fraternity.

Best known, perhaps, for his role in the plantings at London's Queen Elizabeth Park, Dunnett is now heavily involved in implementing a new range of plantings throughout Trentham Gardens.

Having provided a stunning swathe of colour since the summer the lakeside areas, for example, will continue to offer rich displays while the flowers slowly fade and the foliage tints.

Elsewhere, mellow tinted grasses offer a staggering impact, alongside the vast perennial displays throughout the garden. And a collection of Japanese Cherries, recently introduced to the western gardens, is now starting to deliver yet more colour to the gardens.

Other trees, chosen with autumn in mind, have been added to enhance the lakeside woodland walk, including 150-plus North American trees.

Some of the new tree planting will take time to light-up the skies at Trentham, but amongst the current natural appeal of Trentham at this time of year are the colours of the magnificent mature Oaks and other trees reflected in the lake - with the wonderful backdrop of Kings Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which Capability Brown included in his landscape.