Looking for autism care and support?
What is autism?
The National Autistic Society defines autism as a “lifelong developmental disability that affects how people communicate and interact with the world. One in 100 people are on the autism spectrum, and there are around 700,000 autistic adults and children in the UK”.
Many autistic people in the UK live independently. Achieve together, and Alderwood LLA support autistic people who may require specialist support; this may include young people moving from their family home as they reach adulthood, from residential colleges, or people who have experienced a number of ‘placement breakdowns’ and inpatient stays.
We provide this support in our supported living settings and/or homes across England and Wales. We also provide outreach support. We’re proud to have been supporting autistic adults and children for over 25 years, using the latest research-based best practices and techniques to ensure everyone achieves their full potential.
The population of people we support who are autistic includes many people with significant sensory processing differences, people with Pathological Demand Avoidance, and specific and rare diagnoses such as Autistic Catatonia, as well as milder conditions.
How we can help
Autistic people may display a range of strengths and abilities that can be directly related to their diagnosis. However, not all these attributes are always obvious. Our team of expert practitioners works tirelessly to ensure that we all look beyond these challenges and focus on the positive qualities that autism spectrum conditions can bring.
Our highly trained teams support autistic people with social communication and interactions, coping with, and managing social anxieties, managing emotions safely, and making sense of the world around them.
Because everyone is unique, we offer so many options of support – and that’s what makes our approach special.
Here are some of the ways we can support you or your loved one with an autism diagnosis:
- Specialist support and accommodation for adults with autism, from transition age (16-25) through to older years
- Dedicated Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) practitioners to help manage behaviours that may challenge
- Advice and guidance on funding, accommodation options, and more from our expert referrals hub open 7 days a week
- Assessments, referrals, and placements experts complete a thorough assessment and transition plan that feeds into the initial support plan. Our Service Managers then work with a number of teams and MDT, family members and more to formulate the overarching support plan
- Access to purpose-built resources and activities, sensory spaces, and experiences at home and in the community
- Innovative communications systems and models for inclusive verbal and non-verbal interactions
- Update for our families and the winder professionals community with monthly e-newsletters
- Support for emergency placements and respite accommodation
- Guidance on living independently with an autism diagnosis
Browse through our Autism Support and Employment Opportunities guides below
Read the the Autism Support Guide
Providing person-centred support
Our aim and vision are to enable people we support and encourage their autonomy, independence, and inclusion through a ‘do with, not for’ approach. Each person we support is at the centre of their own initial assessment before they embark on the transition from their previous setting and support and are fully involved in co-producing their care and support plan. We establish from the start what information formats the person, their family, carers, and wider circle of support prefer and find most easily accessible.
Care and support plans are developed in the format most easily understood by the person supported, team members, and agency staff, be that large print, easy read, pictorial, or in an alternative language, including British Sign Language and Welsh.
We consider all aspects of person-centred planning through our Wheel of Engagement. The wheel focuses on inclusive communication, intensive interaction, employment and education, relationships, and more. It uses the SPELL Principles (Structure, Positive approaches, and expectations, Empathy, Low arousal, and Links) to ensure a structured approach to support, paying attention to the environment that the person lives and spends time in and the quality of the relationships, engagement, and rapport with the supporting team, and other support/services the person may need to access.
We always adopt the Reach standards, which centre on ensuring adults can:
- Choose where they live, who they live with
- Choose who supports them and how that is provided
- Choose their friends and relationships
- Choose what help they need to make changes in their life, how to access the community, how to keep healthy and safe, and experience the same rights and responsibilities as others
Our specialist teams
Our teams provide the best specialist support because we commit to professional development and ensure our teams have access to forward-thinking, evidence, and research-based learning in relation to many aspects of autism, including supporting autism in females and sensory processing differences. Our approach to coproduction allows for truly person-centred support, with a focus on inclusive communication, intensive interaction, employment, education, and relationships.
Our experienced teams support autistic people with significant sensory processing differences, pathological demand avoidance, or specific and rare diagnosis such as Autistic Catatonia.
Meet Dan, an in-house specialist in Autism Spectrum Conditions here at Achieve together.
“As an organisation we recognise that every person is unique, we are all individuals with our own likes, dislikes preferences, and goals. Our teams are highly knowledgeable and trained in how best to provide person-centered support for individuals with autism and other life-long diagnoses. The focus is based around generating an understanding of the difficulties that Autistic people can face in terms of their social interactions, and ability to communicate and perceive the world around them. It is our goal to empower people to manage various social anxieties, and their emotions and live safely as part of their local community.”
“ Our teams are committed to providing the best care and support for autistic people. In order to achieve this our staff teams are highly trained to understand that each person with autism is a unique person and that the way they may perceive the world around them can be different. Autistic people need those supporting them to be trained to understand that social interaction, communicating with others and understand emotions can be a challenge and our teams are here to offer support and guidance to live a meaningful life.”
Dan Turner, Autism Specialist at Achieve together
Want to find out more?
To find out more about our specialist support, call 03301 755 332 or email referrals@achievetogether.co.uk.