How autism friendly are housing and supports for young autistic people
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How Autism friendly are housing and supports for young people with Autism Conditions?
IRAS ID
183181
Contact name
Julie Beadle-Brown
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Kent
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 30 days
Research summary
Individuals with Autism have difficulty with social; communication, interaction and imagination. Autism effects how each person relates to others and their environment in different ways. The 2011 UK census estimated that 1.1% of the population are diagnosed with Autism, Recent policy advises that all workers in Social Care Services must have an appropriate level of awareness of the specific needs of people they support. Despite this, Autism awareness is still limited. The SPELL framework (Mills, 2008) is an approach which may help. SPELL is a training programme developed by the National Autistic Society to help practitioners identify underlying issues and reduce any disabling effects. However, the evidence base for this approach is limited. Specifically, no study has addressed whether the SPELL framework makes a difference to the lives of individuals. It is therefore difficult for organisations to grasp the possible benefits for the individuals they support.
This study aims to explore this gap in research and evaluate the existing quality of Social Care and home-based environments for children and young people with Autism.
This study has four main aims (i) to build upon existing research and explore the environments of people with Autism (ii) To describe the quality of life of people with Autism (iii) To describe the nature and quality of support that people receive from staff (iiii) To compare the findings with good practice suggested within the literature.
Observational data will be collected from teams supporting around 20 individuals diagnosed with Autism. Each individual will access a residential provision, a Special Educational Needs School and for a portion of their week will reside with a family member. Data will be collected at each of the different environments. This study will be carried out in collaboration with the service provider Action for Children over a 5 month period.REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
16/IEC08/0015
Date of REC Opinion
19 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion