Recently, we came to the end of receiving three years of funding for some of our work from The National Lottery Community Fund. Over that time – January 2022 to March 2025 – we have achieved a lot, supporting hundreds of people through our peer-led groups, mentoring and one-to-one peer support. 

We have also supported and trained many volunteers in a variety of roles, all of whom made a big contribution to the whole Leeds Autism AIM service. In this blog post, we look at how many people we supported thanks to the Lottery, as well as some of the positive outcomes of that work. 

Peer-led groups 

We have been running online Peer Support and Women-Aligned Groups, with sessions taking place once a month. The numbers attending the groups have gone up dramatically: 

  • Cumulative attendance rose from 78 in the first year of funding to 324 in the third year 
  • Some sessions of our Women-Aligned Group get more than 20 members 
  • The groups being online help to make them accessible for many autistic adults who find travelling to an in-person group or event difficult 

In an independent evaluation of our groups, we did a survey for people attending them. 98% said they would strongly recommend Leeds Autism AIM, whilst 100% said their lives would be worse if they hadn’t accessed support from our service. 

One-to-one peer support 

In the past three years, we have provided one-to-one peer support, offering clients up to four appointments with us to: 

  • Help them know more about their autism diagnosis 
  • Develop strategies for managing day-to-day 
  • Provide information and signposting to useful services and support 

Throughout that time, 188 people received one-to-one peer support from Leeds Autism AIM. In the same evaluation of our service, we found that 80% of clients accessing this service had a better understanding of their autism, with the same number also saying they felt more confident to self-advocate. 71% said they felt more able to set and achieve personal goals. 

Mentoring 

Our mentoring service was also funded by a grant from The National Lottery Community Fund between 2022 and 2025. In that time, 52 mentoring matches between volunteer mentors and autistic adults were made. 30 volunteer mentors were supported, many of them being autistic themselves. 

All our mentors were trained, with 52 attending training sessions. A total of 24 sessions were held. Many of our volunteer mentors had found they were able to use the skills gained in their role elsewhere in their lives. 

“It gave me confidence, being in the mentoring role, that I could improve as a mentor through time”, said one volunteer mentor. 

Volunteering 

As well as supporting volunteer mentors, the Lottery funding enabled us to set up a volunteer peer support worker role. 16 of them were trained over the three-year period, all of whom were autistic themselves. 

The funding supported us to keep our Steering Group going, with 23 members past and present supported. Other roles were supported too, including event volunteers, group co-facilitators and supporters at our Autism Hub sessions. 

In total, 83 volunteers were supported, contributing 1,806 hours of their time combined. They all helped to keep our service going alongside our staff team. 

Massive thanks go to the Lottery for helping to fund what we do. Thanks also go to our staff members and volunteers past and present for supporting the people we work with.