Autistic and OK – a local authority perspective
Since launching the programme in February 2024, the Autistic and OK programme team has been working with local authority teams across the UK to deliver training to key staff members who support schools in their area, as well as engaging with SENDCo forums and regional conferences. Through this collaboration, local authority staff are empowered to support schools to deliver the programme in their settings and to embed Autistic and OK into their practice.
Derby City Council have been working with schools in their area to help improve attendance rates and wellbeing for autistic students. Here, one of their staff members reflects on their experiences so far.
"Autistic and OK was initially explored as an option to provide schools with a framework where staff could create conversations about understanding neurodivergence and some of the common myths and misunderstandings children and young people have about being autistic. For autistic pupils who have needed an EHC plan, this has been part of the educational psychology service as way in which pupils can develop a sense of belonging, meet autistic peers, and develop their self-advocacy to talk about their experiences and strategies to support sensory and emotional regulation.
In Derby City, we have recently launched a Health Needs Panel and emotionally based school non-attendance pathway. We recognised a high proportion of the referrals to this panel were for autistic children and young people or those awaiting an assessment, particularly secondary school pupils, who have found the transition from primary to secondary school challenging. This was often for a multitude of reasons, such as increased sensory input, difficulties in managing interactions with different staff and sustaining positive friendships. Within this, we noticed many of the children and young people did not talk positively of their autism diagnosis, did not want their teachers and friends to know about their needs or did not have a peer group they felt comfortable being their true selves around.
We felt Autistic and OK would be an excellent resource to support this emerging need, to instill a sense of belonging and foster connectedness between autistic students and provide them with an opportunity to meet autistic peers. It would also allow them to develop their knowledge around the four main topic areas (anxiety, depression, OCD, and bullying), discuss their experiences and explore strategies that could work to support them in school.
We created a leaflet outlining a brief explanation of the resource and asked schools to contact us if they would like to embed the Autistic and OK programme into school with our support. This support included facilitating an ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ meeting and half-termly check-ins to provide any further support or guidance.
The ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ meetings explored:
• what neuro-affirming practice they already implemented to support their autistic students (discover)
• what they would like their ideal support to look like for autistic students (dream)
• what they could realistically develop within the next year and what Autistic and OK could develop into or alongside (design)
• and how they are going to implement Autistic and OK in their schools (deliver).
During the delivery phase, we explored how we could implement the delivery of staff training, the assemblies, where the sessions would take place, when they would take place, how long for, how we would recruit KS4 facilitators and KS3 attendees and which adults would support both of these groups to engage and attend. We have supported schools to think flexibly and support them to find solutions to any identified barriers.
One of the specialist secondary schools I have supported to deliver Autistic and OK this year were very ambitious about how they would like to develop this programme. Staff said they would like to share practice with mainstream schools by delivering training and provide coaching for staff. The students would also like deliver assemblies discussing Autistic and OK, as well as share the realities of life as a neurodivergent young person and what neurotypical people can be aware of and how they could support their autistic peers. They would like to bust any myths about attending a specialist school. Their eventual goal is to deliver something to the adults working in the local authority education team.
This is very exciting, and we can’t wait to see how their work impacts on the understanding of the students across Derby City."
About the author
The Autistic and OK programme team has been working with local authority teams across the UK to empower schools to deliver the programme in their settings and to embed Autistic and OK into their practice. Derby City Council is one of many local authorities who have been working with schools in their area to help improve attendance rates and wellbeing for autistic students.
Find out more about how local authorities can support the programme here.
