Announcement regarding the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism for H

Following on from the announcement of the delivery partners in July of this year of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism for Health and Social Care Workers, there has been a process by which Autistic representatives were able to apply from the NHS England Learning Disability and Autism Advisory Group to join the Strategic Oversight Group led by Skills for Care, Health Education England, and the National Development Team for Inclusion. 

After an application and interview process, Autistic UK is proud to announce that one of our Directors, Julian Morgan, as a member of the NHS England Learning Disability and Autism Advisory Group and the NHS Citizen’s Advisory Group, was appointed as one of two independent Autistic members of the Strategic Oversight Group.

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Julian will be attending his first meeting of the Strategic Oversight Group at the end of October, and is looking forward to being able to put our wider Autistic community’s views and concerns forward to those responsible for its implementation and evaluation. 

To this end, Autistic UK will be continuing its focus groups and surveys so that Julian is fully informed and up to date with the wider Autistic community’s wishes and concerns. Through this we hope to ensure that your voices are heard directly by those who need to hear them. Our next survey will be shared across our platforms in the next few days, with the questions being based on the answers received in our initial survey. The report generated from our initial survey has been passed on to the Implementation and Evaluation Partners via NHS England.

As one of Autistic UK’s founding principles is that we do not seek to speak for Autistic people but provide a platform for their voices to be heard, we encourage all of you who read this to grasp this opportunity to have your views put before those decision makers responsible for the creation, implementation and evaluation of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism for Health and Social Care Workers. In turn, we will also use the discussion points from the Strategic Oversight Group meetings to inform our future survey questions. In particular we are seeking answers from those whose voices are normally not heard, especially those of you who also have a learning disability and those with high support needs.

We will also be putting out surveys which focus on intersectionality, for example, LGBTQIA+ and Black and other Ethnic Minority communities. This is to ensure that health and social care inequalities faced by those further marginalised groups are specifically highlighted, and that feedback isn’t based on one subsection of the Autistic community.

This will also include input from the official partners regarding the areas which they would like to consult with you on, which should give our community an idea of their understanding and focus. These will always be put out separately and be clearly identified as questions being asked by those organisations. Please be assured that all of your answers to these questions will be passed on anonymously, but word for word.

As ever, the results of all of these surveys will be published on our platforms as soon as they are available.

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