Staff urged to sign up for course co-produced with autistic people to improve mental health care
November marks the deadline to sign up to the ‘Train the Trainer’ course, to support staff to provide workplace training to improve support for autistic people.
Staff working in mental health services in England are being urged to sign up for a ‘ground-breaking’ series of courses that provide training to improve care for autistic people as it reaches its final months.
The National Autism Trainer Programme (NATP) is delivered by Anna Freud, a mental health charity for children and young people, in partnership with AT-Autism, a non-profit UK autism training, clinical services and consultancy provider, for NHS England. Both organisations share a commitment to creating lasting positive change for autistic people, as well as their families and staff working with them.
The programme – which closes in November – supports staff to deliver training within their own workplaces to improve support of autistic people.
Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here.
Research indicates seven out of 10 autistic people develop a mental health condition such as anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). They are more likely to require mental health services than non-autistic people, but they don’t always get appropriate care. For example:
- Mental health problems are often misdiagnosed among autistic adults, who are more likely to be given a sequence of diagnoses for their mental health problems and to disagree with the diagnosis they receive.
- On average, autistic adults spend about 5 years within inpatient mental health services once admitted, compared with 39 days for non-autistic people.
- Autistic people are up to seven times more likely to die by suicide than non-autistic people.
Since launching in 2023, more than 4,000 professionals across England have been trained through NATP and more than 600 are registered for the remaining places so far.
The programme has been co-designed, co-produced and co-delivered with more than 110 autistic people to improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of professionals within mental health services in supporting autistic individuals. This includes challenging stereotypes about autism, building understanding of mental health conditions in autistic people and developing neurodiversity and trauma-informed and experience-sensitive approaches to their care.
Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here.
The course is open to eligible NHS England staff who currently work or may work with autistic people, including those without a diagnosis, in inpatient and community mental health services.8 Staff from residential special schools and colleges, and children and young people health and justice services, can also sign up.
Full details on training dates and available settings are on Anna Freud’s website. The charity, which has been supporting children and young people for 70 years, is working to close the gap in children and young people’s mental health. NATP is helping to achieve this ambition by closing the gaps in the skills and knowledge needed to support autistic people of all ages within mental health settings.
Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou, NATP Strategic Co-Lead and Programme Director at Anna Freud and Associate Professor at University College London, said: “Without counting those not formally diagnosed, autistic people are massively overrepresented in mental health services, yet many don’t receive appropriate care. This ground-breaking programme was established to help spread a new understanding of autism across the country. We are training staff within mental health settings to better support and recognise autistic people through experience-sensitive and person-centred care.
“Seeing the changes that the thousands of staff trained through NATP so far have implemented in their own workplaces has been a joy. From recognising and making adjustments for sensory and communication differences to developing environments where autistic voices are listened to and respected, so many working cultures have become more neurodiversity-informed and inclusive.
“After we deliver the final set of NATP courses, we will work closely with experts by experience, NHS England and partners to provide recommendations for a sustainable national model that promotes neurodiversity-informed practices within mental health services.”
Alexis Quinn is an autistic campaigner and author who, after attempting to seek mental health support following the birth of her daughter and death of her brother, was detained in 2012 under the Mental Health Act for almost four years. Alexis – who is also a content developer for NATP – said: “After major life changes, my mental health declined, and troubling autistic sensory seeking and cognitive needs arose. I couldn’t sleep, and I was more sensitive to touch, light and sounds. I also found I needed to move around all the time and became fixated on researching death processes. People around me became worried and I went to my GP for help. I thought I would be able to find somewhere to share my experiences and distress and have these supported.
“Instead, I faced countless barriers to accessing health care services. Some of these were environmental and some were caused by staff not understanding me. For example, I found the GP’s waiting area noisy and tried to move around to cope, but I was told I needed to sit down or leave. On one occasion, the police were called, and I was so overwhelmed, I had a meltdown. Not long after, I was sectioned and labelled mentally ill. I was given medications that caused scary and severe side effects, all of which compounded the distress I was experiencing.
“None of this needed to happen. If you understand autistic people, you can make reasonable adjustments such as providing a double appointment. You can also listen beyond the observation of autistic ‘symptoms’ by truly getting to know the person and their needs. That’s why NATP is so important. The course offers a neurodivergent-friendly approach to thinking about and supporting autistic people. Designed and delivered by the population it seeks to serve, it trains staff to recognise, understand and empathise with difference, and adapt care for neurodiverse people accordingly.”
Ellie Tidy, Child Wellbeing Practitioner at Islington Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) was trained through NATP. She said: “The training provided incredible insights into the experiences of autistic people, including helping us understand the importance of an experience-sensitive approach. We now have a box of sensory tools for face-to-face sessions that young people can access during therapeutic sessions to feel more comfortable, and we have developed a form where they can share sensory and social needs before appointments.
“We have also adapted some resources, including our adolescent anxiety interventions, to better reflect the potential cognitive styles of young people. To achieve this, we incorporated learnings from NATP, including on masking – a strategy used by some autistic people consciously or unconsciously to appear non-autistic – and alexithymia, when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions. We are also expanding and improving our way of working with neurodivergent children and young people beyond the clinic, including advocating for better adaptations in other settings such as at home and in school.
“In the future, we aim to focus more on co-production. We’re currently working with autistic young people and their families in the service to gather feedback and find out which adaptations work well and what could be changed. Listening to the voices of autistic young people will help us to better support them.”
Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here.
