Introduction from [removed by moderator]

My name is [edited] and I am a support worker [removed by moderator].  I was late diagnosed at the age of 37 as being autistic and now have found employment supporting other autistic people.

My employment history has been quite varied and as such I have worked in retail, 12 years in the Royal Navy in a clerical role.  Following my service I tried working as a bus driver but found interacting with passengers a challenge.

I changed areas again after this and decided I would look to become a registered nurse.  I worked as a community care worker and in nursing homes supporting people with brain injuries and challenging behaviours. I studied an access to higher education course in nursing and healthcare professions prior to completing a three year undergraduate degree in nursing at the University of Southampton.

I graduated with a 2.1 in September 2019 and immediately moved to the North West and started work as a registered nurse.  As a nurse I have worked mainly in acute medicine within NHS trusts, I was employed in the NHS until October 2023 when I took the decision to step back from nursing.

My own diagnosis came in 2021 when I was also struggling with severe PTSD from my experiences on COVID wards.  I needed to re-evaluate my own career plans and as such I sought out employment [removed by moderator] in supporting autistic people as a support worker.

It is my eventual goal that I will return to academia to complete a masters degree in autism studies and eventually a phd (research) in how best to support autistic people within a clinical setting and look towards how co-production with autistic people can help guide and inform healthcare settings to improve the experience of autistic people accessing healthcare.