Autism Programme

The current Autism Programme at NDTi emerged through the Care Education and Treatment Review process

The autism programme is led and shaped by Autistic Associates with lived and professional experience of neurodiversity, which is still very much misunderstood in health, social care and education settings.

The Autism Programme at NDTi emerged through the Care Education and Treatment Review process. Hospitals and ATUs couldn’t make the reasonable adjustments needed to support the sensory needs of autistic experts by experience on the visit. The team shared their concern for the people living 24 hours a day in these environments and asked us to consider how their needs were being met. Our work reviewing sensory environment of inpatient services, advising teams on how to improve sensory environments and change their practice to accommodate the needs of autistic people began.

We don’t believe that hospitals are ever likely to be places where autistic people can thrive. Our work is aimed to support a more comfortable inpatient experience when it happens, and so facilitate a quicker return home. We work with any service that is willing to hear our reflections and implement changes – including hospitals that have a poor reputation. However, we can’t guarantee that our recommendations will be implemented.

The autism programme doesn’t have any core funding. This means that any work we do needs to be commissioned. Due to the high level of enquiries and the significant interest in the support we offer, we are not able to respond to individual enquiries unless funding is in place.

Work themes include:

We were appointed by Health Education England, Skills for Care and the Department of Health and Social Care to be the independent evaluation partner for the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Learning Disability and Autism Training trial...

Who we work with

The autism programme works with hospitals, support providers, commissioners and authorities who engage us to improve the support they provide to autistic people. We support teams to understand autism as a sensory and social processing difference. All our work involves autistic people who share their personal and professional experience.

We believe that hospital environments are unlikely to be able to provide the right environment for autistic people to thrive and that people should be better supported in their community. But while autistic people continue to be admitted, we will work to improve the support and physical environments in these challenging locations. We believe this will improve people's quality of stay and help them get home quicker.

Sometimes the services we work with are doing well and want to do better, but often they are services that have been identified by autistic people, their families, commissioners and regulators as requiring improvement. We believe that the sensory environment reviews, training and development support positive change but our involvement and intervention cannot guarantee that change will happen.

We also work with support providers and housing associations in the community to improve the housing and support for autistic people.