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Caring for an adult with autism

Rob Jackson


I am considering an offer to help care for an adult with autism for a local family.

This will be a paid, part-time position working approx 15 hours a week.

The family has asked that I work on a self-employed basis.

While I have worked on a voluntary basis with children and adults with learning difficulties on a voluntary basis for many years, I am not a 'professional' carer, in that I have no qualifications in the field. The family is aware of this.

The care involved will be largely activity-based (sports and games, art, reading, cooking, shopping, learning ABA, socialising, transport to activities) and there is no specific need for personal care or medication.

I wondered if:

1
there might be an off-the-peg carer's contract I could use

2
whether insurance might be necessary and, if so, whether I would need to provide that insurance or the employer?

Many thanks Slight smile

  • in reply to Rob Jackson

    Glad to help! Wishing you an enjoyable new relationship!

  • in reply to JuniperFromGallifrey

    Thank you so much for that Juniper, a real insight for me. I will certainly take what you say on board. The directness of speech in particular. I did my degree thesis many years ago on art therapy, so your thoughts on the positivity of art are very pleasing too.

    Thanks again Slight smile

  • in reply to Rob Jackson

    Art is one of the best resources and tools at your disposal. Allow their son to gravitate to what he feels he connects with and to 'get lost' in it for extreme stretches of time. Do not fail to expose him to higher forms of the medium and practice.

  • Follow anyone and everyone #ActuallyAutistic on Twitter. connect to Aucademy.co.uk You'll be a pro in no time. 

    Autistic "brain wiring" is so different that it should be like learning a foreign language & foreign social protocols. A neuro-typical individual will rarely if never Intuit autistic needs. Always be far more direct and pragmatic than feels comfortable or is socially 'polite'. Always assume the best in the other and seek to understand needs. We are not competitive by nature so we do not understand when someone is using language to Command rather than Connect. Many of us do not need fawning (see psychological definition), we don't virtue signal and we rarely assign meaning meaning or association to things. It is always far more important to ask HOW a thing / exchange is functioning rather than what it means. Meaning is pointless if a thing / exchange is malfunctioning. 

    ABA is based on an Entirely Different set of Motives and Intents - and entirely different set of rules. In some cultures it is an act of aggression to look someone in the eyes. This is massively important: Interruption is an act of cruelty on a brain which is wired to hyper-focus. Constant changes, a lack of fair warning, surprises or anything requiring Improv Skills, for an autistic, equate to being in a prison camp, subjected to waterboarding. This is as abusive as Sleep Deprivation as a torture tactic. NeuroTypical brains enjoy constant change or smash edit entertainment because they're not wired to hyper focus, and also not impacted as deeply and psychologically by their external environment. This doesn't ever change with exposure it just creates more mental health problems.  Various new research has shown Autistic brain-wave oscillations are different and intaking information intensely, with extreme depth, requiring basic human-friendly principles of Respecting space, Diligence with Time and Intentionality with words/actions, Vigilance and follow-through. As for sensory impact, if you've ever read about or talked with someone who's micro-dosed on mushrooms, that is the only way to experience how our senses and emotions are impacted and how rich our internal imaginations can be. 

  • Thanks for the answers. In my relative ignorance of ABA, I'm quite surprised at the strong feelings voiced against it. The family mentioned that they and their son have been using ABA and that it has helped in his ability to communicate. I've since heard similar reservations about ABA from a local special needs school teacher too.

    What other, more positive, communication teaching aids are there available?

  • in reply to Dawn

    It sucks. It's entirely designed to make an autistic person more 'convenient' to NTs while completely ignoring the copious evidence of its negative effects in the long term 

    Anyway, if they're asking for that and you're untrained, I'd say it looks a bit dodgy

  • in reply to Fibonacci Squid

    Shares it's origin with the conversion therapy they used to use to deny LGBTQ+ folk their sexuality and which has mercifully now been banned.  ABA to me seems like the NT world just trying to knock the autism out of us because that makes them feel better irrespective of how much damage that does to the autistic person. 

    The only time it looks to me to even have the smallest grain of ethical application is as a last resort if you have to address a behaviour like not eating.  But that would be for an extreme situation where it's eat or die, I'd think.

  • in reply to Dawn

    Also, I'm fairly sure even those who use it require training for it. In fact that's the main justification I get given for why it's not an abusive practise, that they have to study it a lot

  • I don't know much about self employment, but why do this family want 'ABA'?  That's been known to do autistic kids more harm than good.