A neurodiversity-affirming approach to working with Autistic adults in your practice or clinic, delivered by Autistic professionals to professionals who work with Autistic adults. 

This course is designed to equip helping professionals with the knowledge and skills to recognise Neuordivergent traits, to adapt and to work in a supportive manner with their Autistic clients. It offers participants practical skills-based training with a strong theoretical overview. All facilitators are Autistic themselves. 

The program will be delivered online over zoom.

Places Strictly Limited to 25 Participants so early booking is advised.

Who the course is for: Helping professionals such as Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, GPs, Nurses, Coaches, Play Therapists, Art Therapists, Drama and Music or Dance Therapists.

I’m one of the above listed professionals but is this course for me?

Here are a few questions to help you to discover if this course is for you:

Have you started to become aware of the high prevalence of Autistic adults emerging within your client/patient group?

Would you recognise if your client was Autistic or is your outdated idea of autism getting in the way of this?

How well are you acquainted with the paradigm shift away from the medical model and into Neurodiversity?

How familiar are you with the current issues facing Autistic people?

How confident are you about adapting your workspace, communication style & therapeutic approach to facilitate your Neurodivergent clients?

Are you aware of the high prevalence of mental health problems amongst Autistic people?

What Professionals who attended the course have to say:

Course length: 10 days over 6 months (October 2023 – March 2024)

Course Dates:  

Sat 14th Oct , Sat 21st Oct, Sun 5th Nov, Sat 11th Nov, Sat 2nd Dec, Sun 14th Jan, Sat 10th Feb, Sat 24th Feb, Sun 3rd March, Sat 9th March

Trainers: Evaleen Whelton and Eoin Stephens with guest trainers to cover other specialist areas.

Course outline:

Day 1 (Saturday): Introductions, current knowledge, neurodiversity paradigm, Autistic communication, double empathy, Autistic communication in therapy

Day 2 (Saturday): Understanding the Autistic experience – what it is to be Autistic, sensory, stimming, history of autism, autism industry

Day 3 (Sunday): What “being autistic” is not – trauma, responses to trauma, masking, 

Day 4 (Saturday): Specific therapy issues – making your practise accessible, anxiety, depression, suicidality, complex PTSD and developmental trauma

Day 5 (Saturday): Further specific therapeutic issues – assessment, diagnosis/discovery, special interests, OCD, addictions, eating disorders

Day 6 (Sunday): Intersectionality – ADHD, other Neurodivergent intersections, LGBTQIA 

Day 7 (Saturday): Therapeutic approaches – person-centred therapy, other therapeutic approaches + demo and practice sessions 

Day 8 (Saturday): Further therapeutic approaches – cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance & commitment therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, etc + practice sessions

Day 9 (Sunday): Supervision, practice considerations, further CPD, networking, directory, marketing your business etc

Day 10 (Saturday): Presentations of individual learning summary

There is currently a massive increase in adults either realising they are Autistic or being diagnosed as Autistic. Growing-up not knowing we are Autistic can take its toll on our mental health and overall wellbeing. Finding out we are Autistic brings a healing in itself. But it can also open old wounds and mean that we need significant support in building self esteem, dealing with anxiety, trauma and a host of mental health and identity issues. Finding a Neurodiversity-affirming therapist can make all the difference to an Autistic adult and their recovery.

There is a shortage of helping professionals who use Neurodiversity-affirming approaches towards late-identified  Autistics and also Autistics identified in childhood but who have now reached adulthood.

This course has two main goals:

1. To train and up-skill helping professionals to meet the needs of their Neurodivergent clients
2. To develop a directory of helping professionals who we can recommend. We are inundated with requests for adult support and we have nowhere to direct them to that does not have an intensive waiting list.

The aim of our program is quite simple- to train and create a network of helping professionals who can meet the diverse needs of the Autistic adult clients.