Scottish Strategy for Autism: outcomes and priorities 2018-2021

Choice and Control

What you told us:

• That awareness of autism needs to be raised among professionals and services that encounter or work with autistic people.
• That professionals across various areas need more training in autism and in understanding how autism impacts upon a person's life.
• That more needs to be done to support teachers and school staff to support autistic pupils.
• That more needs to be done to support families.
• That older autistic people face a number of challenges and barriers that increase as they age.

What we will do next:

• We will increase investment and build on the work done by NHS Education for Scotland ( NES) on the autism training framework. We will work with NES, the Scottish Social Services Council, Health Boards, Local Authorities and Integration Authorities to analyse gaps in training across Scotland's health and social care workforce and deliver targeted training to improve the understanding of autism across the workforce.
• Scottish Government will continue to support the work of Scottish Autism and the SWAN Network in the promotion of the Right Click resource for women and girls to improve the understanding of autism in females across professionals. ^[17]
• Scottish Government will work with the Care Inspectorate to improve services for autistic people. The Care Inspectorate will appoint an autism champion and involve autistic people in service inspections.
• We will with work the Scottish Offenders with Learning Disabilities Network ( SOLD) to improve autism awareness across the Criminal Justice System.
• We will build on education resources, such as the Autism Toolbox, to ensure teachers and the education workforce have access to resources designed to help them better support autistic children.
• We will work with universities who deliver teacher education to explore how we can increase awareness of autism in teacher education.
• We will explore what needs to be done to ensure autistic parents are better supported.
• We will establish what needs to be done to support the aging autistic population.
• Scottish Government will work with partners to consider how autism research is translated into practice, and explore the introduction of a Scottish Autism Research Consortium. ^[18]