Grieving family of non-speaking autistic man Chris Finnes campaign to keep his global inspiration alive

Chris Finnes from Birmingham was 24 when he breathed his last on February 18, 2023.

He was surrounded by his devoted family - who now want to keep his legacy alive. But, what legacy can a 24-year-old have? Turns out, a lot.

Chris was non-verbal and autistic - and he became an inspiration for people across the world. Not being able to produce sound to express himself didn’t stop Chris from reaching out to others.

With training in Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), Chris learned to communicate his thoughts. RPM was created by Soma Mukhopadhyay - who developed it for her autistic son Tito. Chris’ mother, Sue Finnes, started teaching him the method in 2011 after meeting Soma - an educator from India who is based in America - when she visited the UK for a few sessions.

As the method helped Chris, Sue started sharing his progress and challenges on social media. Sue, who once was a senior training manager at Lloyd’s TSB, used her skills to teach RPM to other families with autistic children and eventually formed the not-for-profit Community Interest Company ‘Unlocking Voices – Using RPM UK CIC’ with family friend and RPM teacher Alexandra Hopwood and others.

Now the family, from Sutton Coldifeld, wants to create a foundation in Chris’ name to continue to tell people across the globe about his inspiring progress. They have already raised thousands through a JustGiving campaign in the days since his death. And the young man’s legacy is already living on as his organs were donated to help others.

Alexandra told BirminghamWorld: “Once the family started to use RPM they found out that Chris did have a lot of language - and through RPM he learned how to spell it out.

“He couldn’t speak, but all his thoughts - all of his amazing language - was inside and he just couldn’t verbalise it through speaking, previously. He just didn’t have the motor skills to be able to get it out. But through this method, he learned to express his thoughts.”

There has been some controversy about RPM since there is no scientific research about it but it has many supporters and is credited with benefitted many non-verbal autistic people.

Alexandra explained that Chris was able to write poetry, interact with the people around him more clearly  - and the hope is that the videos that he and his mum made together will continue to help others across the world through a dedicated foundation.

When Chris passed away at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham the community he helped reached out to help to carry on his inspirational work. Unlocking Voices hopes to raise £30,000 to set up the foundation in Chris’ name to support the causes that were close to him and his family which, in addition to autism, include epilepsy research, organ transplants and improving facilities at the Queen Elizabeth hospital for families that need to be there around the clock. They have raised £20,000 in days and the total continues to rise.

Chris’s mum and dad tell of his inspiration in their own words

Chris’ mum Sue explains why it’s so important for more research into autism and why organ donation was so important to her son

Sue Finnes told BirminghamWorld: “Autism is challenging enough, but when he developed epilepsy at puberty that was another blow to us and that gave him so many setbacks that he had to overcome. There’s so little research into this and why? Who’s actually looking into this?”

Chris was hospitalised after a seizure. Sue said his life was prolonged to enable his organs to be donated to help others. In his last moments, his family stilled their grief and instead of him having to hear his loved ones crying - he heard his beloved nursery rhymes and songs.

Sue said: “We stood around his bed singing for two hours.” His father, Stuart, added: “And what was particularly great, one of the things that I really hadn’t expected was the level of empathy that we got throughout. The hospital staff treated Chris with so much respect. They were magnificent. You cannot tell me that the NHS is not absolutely world class, in terms of the service.”

Even in death, Chris helped people as his organs were donated. His liver and heart have already been donated to people giving them a second chance at life. His father said: “We wanted Chris to know that he was loved, we wanted him to be happy and we wanted him to have purpose because we think it’s important for everybody to have a sense of purpose in life.

“And although Chris was obviously dying. We wanted to continue the things that were important to him. It was important to Chris to help the autistic community. We were already in that mindset of wanting to continue to help others and continue with his wishes.

“We had families across the world asking us about flowers and donations. We don’t really want flowers because we’ve already got plenty and we’d rather contribute towards his legacy.”

Chris’ family and friends are crowdfunding on Just Giving to start a foundation in his memory and you can donate too. Just click here: Crowdfunding for a foundation in memory of Chris Finnes