here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u200b\u200bThe 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.\u200b<\/p>\n
Full details on training dates and available settings are on Anna Freud\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou, NATP Strategic Co-Lead and Programme Director at Anna Freud and Associate Professor at University College London, said:\u202f\u201cWithout counting those not formally diagnosed, autistic people are massively overrepresented in mental health services, yet many don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we deliver the final set of NATP courses, \u200b\u200bwe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 who is also a content developer for NATP \u2013 said:\u202f\u201cAfter major life changes, my mental health declined, and troubling autistic sensory seeking and cognitive needs arose. I couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
“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 \u2018symptoms\u2019 by truly getting to know the person and their needs. That\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellie Tidy, Child Wellbeing Practitioner at Islington Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) was trained through NATP. She said:\u202f\u201cThe 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 \u200bthat young people can access during therapeutic sessions\u200b\u200b to feel more comfortable\u200b, and we have developed a form where they can share sensory and social needs before appointments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the future, we aim to focus more on co-production. We\u2019re 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 \u200bautistic \u200byoung people will help us to better support them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here<\/a>.\u202f\u202f<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"November marks the deadline to sign up to the \u2018Train the Trainer\u2019 course, to support staff to provide workplace training to improve support for autistic people. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":5567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-workforce"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5569,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565\/revisions\/5569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}