The plan outlines seven priorities including employment, access to education and improving support within the youth justice system, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Autism spelt in Scrabble tiles — credit Peter Burdon via Unsplash

Enfield Council has set out its five-year strategy for autistic children and young people.

The draft strategy outlines seven priorities including supporting more autistic people into employment, providing needs-based support, fair access to education, and improving support within the criminal and youth justice system.

The approach, which was developed by multiple autism partnership and voluntary groups, was discussed at a thriving children and young people scrutiny panel yesterday (Wednesday 4th).

The groups included Enfield National Autistic Society and Adult Autism Partnership Group, which comprises experts and professionals from social care and health.

The Children and Young People’s Autism Partnership Group also supported the development, and comprises autistic people and members of the adult’s group, with collaboration across education, health, social care and the voluntary and community sector.

Rachel Walker, head of Enfield Advisory Service for Autism, a council-funded outreach service also helping to shape the strategy, said they were finding a lot of autistic young people were “particularly struggling” to return to school after the pandemic.

She said: “We’re hearing phrases like ‘I know what it is to be able to learn and feel safe at the same time’ referring to when they were learning at home. So we know that they find a school setting a frightening place to be quite often.

“So what we’re trying to do is listen to those lived experiences and see what we can do to change the school environments. Also, change hearts and minds in schools, to help adapt to the needs of those young people.

“That’s the heart of what we’re doing, we’re hearing those stories from parents regularly, we’re hearing the challenges that teachers are facing and we’re trying to bring them together.

“A lot of young people tell us ‘I didn’t know somebody could change that for me, I didn’t know I needed to tell somebody I was struggling with that’, particularly in our secondary schools.

“I think because we’re all working together, hopefully this new strategy will cement that, we’re quite excited about this next phase.”

Christopher Reddin, a service development manager for learning disabilities and autism, said: “We’re excited for the strategy, there’s been a lot of consultation, partnership between adult’s and children’s groups, and that’s a continuing dialogue.”

Chair Maria Alexandrou asked about ‘bumble bee classes’, an additional resource for children with autism the council was developing for its mainstream offer.

Lavender Primary School in Enfield Town is one such school that has implemented the classes. Iwona Rybak, a special educational needs co-ordinator at the school, said “dedicated staff” were trained to work with children with autism and “knew the children really well”.

Rachel confirmed there were a “number” of these provisions already in place and about “eight” primary schools had them.

Peter Nathan, director of education, said it was “proving extremely popular” and the council was engaging with and coming across “even more” schools that would be developing provision.

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