This November, the Autism AIM service is celebrating its’ 10th anniversary! To mark it, we are writing a series of blog posts, looking back at how we have progressed and what we have achieved. In this post, we reflect on our biggest successes over the past decade.

An infographic with stats about some of Autism AIM's biggest achievements.

In the 10 years that Autism AIM has been running, we have supported nearly 3,000 autistic adults in Leeds alone. This has been through:

  • One-to-one support, through peer support, post-diagnostic support and mentoring
  • Information and signposting, in-person at our hubs, over the phone, via email and video call
  • Advocating for autistic adults, whether through one-to-one advocacy or in forums and meeting with services such as the NHS and Leeds City Council
  • In peer-led groups, including our monthly Women-Aligned Group

Hub sessions

Since January 2015, we have run over 600 Autism Hub sessions. The vast majority have been at the Lovell Park Hub in Leeds, but the wider AIM service has also run in-person Hubs in:

At the Hubs, we have provided one-to-one support from ourselves and partner services, as well as offering information, signposting and an autistic-friendly venue for autistic adults to meet each other and socialise at their own pace.

Award-winning

In 2023, we picked up a couple of big awards. Firstly, the Autism AIM – Mental Health Equity Project and Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust won the Partnership prize at the Celebrate as One Awards for their sensory audits of mental health inpatient settings.

Secondly, the whole Autism AIM service won the Outstanding Service prize at the 2023 National Advocacy Awards. Both prizes reflect the hard work we have done to help autistic adults across Leeds, Bradford and Craven get their voices heard.

Autistic-led

Finally, one of our biggest achievements is having a staff team made up almost entirely of autistic people. We also have a steering group made up entirely of autistic adults.

Being co-led by autistic adults is very important to AIM. Having the input of autistic people into how we deliver all parts of our work means we are better placed to work with the people we are there to help. Our ethos is basically autistic people helping autistic people!