The value of external resources: some services can meet needs

This subtheme describes people’s positive experiences when services were able to meet needs, and the value of such services. All of the children and young people talked about positive experiences of support that they had received in school:

Interviewer: Okay. Do you get any help at school? CYP1: Yes. Interviewer: What kind of help do you get? CYP1: When I'm stuck on my work. Interviewer: When you get stuck? CYP1: Yeah. Interviewer: How do people help you? CYP1: They explain it to me. Interviewer: Who explains it to you? CYP1: my teacher, and then my teacher assistant… They help me figure out what I'm meant to do.

CYP4: I think I recently I had to do a little bit of a thing where like... you had to see if you had to have like 25% off of your exams put a 25-minute extra I think, so the recent thing [SENCo] has done.

All parents had experience of attending an autism parent support course (e.g. Early Bird or Cygnet) provided by the NHS following diagnosis. Overwhelmingly, parents found these courses to be very helpful in a variety of ways:

Interviewer: What was the most helpful thing?

Parent 6: the Early bird course. The very first one... there were elements where they had to come to your home and see how you interact with your child and guide how you play with them to increase their social skills, and those were the bits that I did, and I found that really useful… and then they'd give you some structured ideas that would help increase their skills. Yeah it's amazing.

Parent3: The cygnet course I can’t fault that that was great. There was a lot of wealth of information on that.

Parent4: what I really liked about the early bird course is it didn’t dumb it down, like they kind of gave you a lot of respect as a parent to kind of understand the complex information.

All parents interviewed also had positive experiences of receiving support from the local parent forum (which is provided by a charity):

Parent7: This place [local parent forum] has been a godsend… what [they] provided me with is more than what anyone else has provided me with… Meeting other parents, information, knowledge, open... a place where you can come if you've got problem, that is client-centred… they gave me an environment where they can listen to me…

Many of the parents also discussed positive experiences of specific support from CAMHS:

Parent3: But I mean they [CAMHS] gave me the support, I was phoning them up in tears literally saying it’s not you, it’s the school. We know what the school’s like. You know but they did give me that support, I’m never gonna fault CAMHS for that.

Parent7: CAMHS has done what they said they would do. They’ve been a bit clear about what they do and their service has been accessible and accessible by phone as well… They listened to... they had a solution that my daughter said wouldn't work and they listened to her. So yeah, that was good.

Although parents’ narrative around schools largely focused on a lack of post-diagnostic support, it is important to acknowledge that there were some examples where parents had had positive experiences of support from schools:

Parent6: school is brilliant, they've got a home school communication book, which can go in both directions… we get reports back in the book about what he did that day… it's all really good because that is their focus... any time I've raised an issue they've dealt with it really quickly.

Some parents also talked about the support they had received from individual members of school staff:

Parent7: Fortunately for me a SENCO at the school was brilliant. She was fantastic. She is definitely client centred. The first meeting she was at everyone changed their attitude because she wasn’t prepared to let people think the way they were thinking, including the school even though she's based in the school. She had done a passport straight away... The SENCO has been brilliant since she's got involved. She's been brilliant.

For school staff themselves, there was one overwhelmingly positive source of support which came up in all interviews – the local specialist school outreach service:

SENCO2: I think the Bridge are amazing. Absolutely amazing. I know teachers in other boroughs that just they have absolutely no autism outreach and so they’re sort of on their own and the Bridge are just there you know drop of a hat they’ll come and help and they’ve supported us massively with some really high need pupils… They just help us progress that child to get through the class, day to day work… They just give you the confidence to feel like you’ve made the right decision, they’ll come in and be like ‘you are doing the right thing’ and you feel great… Giving you practical resources, you know?... they are just an absolutely incredible resource um and I think that every local authority should have one.