Are you looking to build your presentation skills and share your experience as an autistic adult? This course is being offered as part of a project which is recruiting experts by experience to help deliver autism training in mental health services. This is for England only.
Apply for the free training by 13 January.
The National Autistic Society are part of a crucial project to help develop autism training for staff working in adult inpatient mental health units, alongside autistic people families and carers. This is a result of the NHS Long Term Plan, which highlights the need to train health and care staff in autism.
This training, funded by Health Education England, will be delivered by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, in partnership with our charity. It will ensure that if an autistic person is admitted to a mental health unit, they will be supported by someone who has received specialist autism training.
We fundamentally believe that the vast majority of autistic people are best supported in the community. But we also know that there are still over a thousand autistic people in inpatient mental health units, and it is likely that more still may be admitted in the future. For this reason, alongside campaigning for more and better community social care and mental health services, we want to ensure that anyone who is in a mental health hospital is supported by someone who understands autism and knows how to adapt their support to autistic people's needs. We hope improving professionals’ understanding will lead to better care, reduce inappropriate admissions and make sure autistic people do not stay in hospital any longer than they need to.
Autistic people will of course be at the centre of the design and delivery of the training and we are currently looking for more autistic people who have had experiences of mental health services to get involved. If you are interested, you can apply to attend our training course.