The Local PictureDr Suchi & Liz Staples

Scoping Exercise

In 2009 we asked Pauline Martin to write a report about adults with a learning disability in Walsall who have Autism

If someone has Autism but not a significant learning disability they may not receive a service form the learning disabilities team, and therefore may not receive services at all

Scoping Exercise

We know that numbers of people diagnosed with autism in Children’s services are much higher across all disabilities

We know that not many staff in Walsall have any specialist knowledge, training or experience around autism

We do not know exactly how many people in Walsall have been diagnosed with autism

Recommendations Pauline’s report made some suggestions as to what we

should do next:

A steering group should be set up. Membership should be drawn from across all services.

Encourage other public services i.e. Police, Ambulance to become involved in the steering group

Write a local strategy suitable to the needs of Walsall.

Develop a register/database to inform long term planning.

A service specifically for ASC should be set up.

(This service would not take the place of other services already in place but act as advice to other services and only accept referrals of people with ASC who do not have any service at present.)

A programme of training should be tailored to the needs of existing services.

Healthy Lives

The Healthy Lives group is part of the Learning Disability Partnership Board.

They held an Autism specific meeting to look at Pauline’s report and the new National Strategy.

They decided that we needed an event like this to get everyone together so that any actions are not just for people with learning disabilities

They will continue to support this project in any way they can

Support

There are lots of other groups in Walsall who provide support for people with autism

There are day centres, support groups, carer networks, online forums etc

Lots of people with autism are happy with the services that they get

However there is no overall co-ordination of all these activities