Leeds has agreed a strategy for improving services for adults with autism. This is an important step towards making things better for people on the autistic spectrum in the city.
Autism is quite a common condition. About one in every hundred people are on the autistic spectrum – that’s around 7000 people in Leeds. People with autism can have a wide variety of support needs and any one individual with autism can have areas where they function well and other areas where they may need support.
The strategy asks partner bodies to work together to enable people on the autistic spectrum to have the supports which will allow them to live their lives successfully.
The Leeds strategy has been developed following earlier national work
- The Autism Act (2009)
- The National Autism Strategy ‘Fulfilling and Rewarding Lives’ (March 2010).
- Autism statutory guidance (Dec 2010)
The main things recommended in the Leeds strategy are:
- A partnership board to lead on the work that needs to be done
- A diagnostic and assessment service
- Good quality assessment
- Transitions and Partnership
- Information
- Universal services
- Joined up commissioning.
Underlying everything is the need for both specialist training and awareness raising which are key to enabling a broad range of services to support people on the autistic spectrum.
In our consultations people on the autistic spectrum told us they need access to and support from universal services – areas such as employment, education, leisure, housing and health. We think it is important to make all resources helpful for people with autism.
The Autism partnership board will be responsible for influencing and guiding partner bodies and evaluating the progress of the strategy. The membership of the group will consist of representatives of all the key agencies and interest groups who will be able to help bring about improvements in the wellbeing of people with autism.
People with autism and carers will be a key part of the partnership board – we will have two reference groups to support people with autism and carers to have an input into planning, development and monitoring of services.
The strategy documents are now available to download on this page.
We held a launch event on the 19th Jan. Over 170 people came from a wide range of different agencies including a lot of people on the autistic spectrum and carers. The programme for the day and the presentations are available to download on this page. The report from the training discussion will be available at a later date.
If you would like more information or have good ideas that you would like to share please contact Helen Gee on 0113 2476060 (helen.gee@leeds.gov.uk).