After a year of work addressing the needs of autistic adults experiencing suicidal ideation, our Autism and Suicide Prevention Project (ASPP) has come to an end. It was funded by a grant from Public Health England, managed by Leeds Community Foundation.

It ran for a year and provided one-to-one peer support for autistic adults in Leeds. The one-to-one sessions covered areas such as understanding autism, communicating needs to professionals and services and developing self-advocacy strategies.

Who we supported

In the year that ASPP ran, 61 people made a referral into the service. Peer support was offered in-person, in online meetings, by phone or via text, ensuring we were able to meet the access needs of our clients.

Issues explored during peer support sessions included:

  • Understanding emotions and feelings
  • Ways to manage challenging feelings and emotions
  • Communicating needs and/or history to services and professionals

After receiving peer support, many clients reported that the understanding of their autism and how traits interact with mental health and wellbeing had increased.

Partnership work

Another part of ASPP’s work was partnerships with Leeds Mind and Leeds Beckett University. This involved reviewing the support offered to autistic staff and people accessing their services, working on an improvement plan with them.

Another aspect of ASPP’s work involved partnerships with Leeds Mind and Leeds Beckett University. We developed a Review and Improvement Plan audit to assess current staff confidence in supporting autistic individuals experiencing suicidal ideation and to evaluate the ongoing training and support available to staff.

Facilitating a collaborative workshop enabled our team to develop a comprehensive improvement plan. Through this process, we were able to identify any barriers autistic individuals may face when accessing the services and establish targeted actions to address and remove those obstacles.

We continue to work in consultation with both service management and staff from both organisations to help implement changes. Feedback from both was positive.

Free resources

Recently, we published some free resources from ASPP. They include a Safety Plan document with strategies for staying safe before a crisis and two guides for professionals on suicidality and risk amongst autistic adults.

We completed 52 self-advocacy resources with clients for the project’s duration, including some we have made for other parts of Autism AIM’s work.

The resources can all be accessed by clicking on the button below. They can be accessed at any time.