An eight-year-old girl blows past the streets between home and school. It’s October 2025, almost Thanksgiving weekend, and she’s been training for months. By now, she’s a familiar sight to her neighbours. She and her mom zip around the community together, all of that hard work culminating into one moment—running the 5k at the Royal Victoria Marathon.

“This is what it’s all about,” Lauren Goodmanson says, reminiscing on the memory. Goodmanson works for Canucks Autism Network (CAN) as the Regional Manager for Vancouver Island. “It was a really touching moment to be there with some CAN members, cheering her on and seeing her smile.”

Goodmanson spends most of her working hours behind-the-scenes, overseeing programs, training seminars, and new volunteers. She cherishes the moments that she can attend family or community events, and see the relationships that have been built between CAN team members and families.

In 2025, the Canucks Autism Network entered their first team into the Royal Victoria Marathon under the name “WeCANMove,” a clever play on the organization’s acronym.

Founded in 2008, CAN offers both in-person and virtual programs and events to help autistic individuals thrive. They operate separately from Canucks Sport and Entertainment, but Canucks For Kids acts as one of their major funders. The largest portion of their funds comes from CAN-led fundraising events such as the Annual CAN Pro-Am Hockey Tournament. According to their registration, there are 20,000 autistic individuals currently accessing CAN.

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Hockey games at the ice rink have a cool chill that I repel with cozy clothing, and the smell of sweat hanging in the air. It’s gross, but nostalgic. I feel right at home with the rambunctious crowds, loose popcorn scattered around my boots, and the occasional stained seat.

To someone else, that description sounds like hell.

It inescapably smells of body odour, you have to compress your skin in layers of undershirts, overshirts, sweaters, and jackets, people around you are chatty or screaming, and the bleachers are dirty. That’s without even touching the ice.

There are plenty of elements in sport and recreation that can be incredibly overstimulating or dysregulating, ranging from environmental factors to routine changes.

When signing up for CAN, either the guardian, or participants who are over the age of 18, fill out a survey. Details like the participant’s diagnosis, interests or goals, whether they need any physical support, or if they use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to help them communicate, all help to build a profile. From there, the support worker is able to better foster that participants goals, and cater to their specific needs.

As Goodmanson puts it, “When you’ve met one person that’s autistic, you’ve met one person that’s autistic.”

For example, one autistic individual might appear withdrawn, but another might be hypersocial. One might have a special interest that they spend a lot of time on, while another might have more sporadic interests with varying levels of attention. There are a million different ways that autism might present in an individual, and just as many ways to support them too.

“We frontload what the session is going to look like by reviewing the schedule and answering questions,” Skylar Armstrong-Ashley says, a CAN support worker for around five years now. “Personally, I love bringing over token boards that are related to their interests and letting them choose what tokens they want.”

Token boards are a method of positive reinforcement. Often, a participant will come into a program with a goal in mind. For the Swim program, this could range from dunking their head for the first time, floating on their back for a certain amount of time, or that they are seeking more peer-to-peer interaction. At the end of the token board, there’s one last square captioned: I’m working for…

So, if a participant is able to fulfill a stepping stone to their goal five times, then they can win a reward of their choosing. It’s all about building trust—trust that the support worker can help the participant, but also trust in the participant that, yes, they absolutely are capable.

“We make sure that all of this is coated in fun, security, and understanding,” Armstrong-Ashley says.

Back in 2014, Goodmanson attended a CAN training session. She wouldn’t take on her current role as Regional Manager until September 2021, but she was intrigued from that first training experience.

“I wanted to be a part of this community,” she says. A few years later, a job posting came up after graduating with her Master’s in Educational Psychology from UVIC. It was just the right timing. Goodmanson’s smile is totally infectious, and the pride that she feels in her work is evident.

Both support workers and participants are always learning from each other. Everyone has their strengths, interests, or areas where they might need a bit more support. That’s all part of the job.

“We’re always welcoming new team members, especially volunteers,” Goodmanson says. Support worker positions depend on the season and the available programs, but volunteers are always sought after. For anyone interested, her email is lauren.goodmanson@canucksautism.ca. “I always love chatting and connecting with people!”

When I ask what her favourite program is, she takes a moment to think about it.

“They’re all good,” she laughs. “But I’ll highlight Swim.” This program is well-loved by herself, and a favourite amongst CAN support workers.

“It can be a really self-regulatory activity,” Goodmanson tells me. Being in the water can feel really good on one’s body, and being primarily based on Vancouver Island, it’s a life skill too. Progress is seen across all of their programs, but there’s something different about the Swim program. “[Seeing participants] confidently taking their support workers’ hand and getting in the water, and trying different skills or putting their head underwater for the first time? Sometimes that’s a goal for the whole program.”

Goodmanson smiles. Swimming is an activity that a participant can take with them for the rest of their lives, and that’s the dream with CAN—accessibility to life lessons, enrichment, and unforgettable experiences.