Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People

Georgia Pavlopoulou is Associate Professor at University College London, psychotherapist, Director and Co-strategic Lead of the NHS funded National Autism Trainer Programme at Anna Freud and founder of UCL's Group for Research in Relationships And Neurodiversity-GRRAND. Laura Crane is Professor of Autism Studies at the University of Birmingham, where she is Director of the Autism Centre for Education and Research (ACER). Russell Hurn is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Programme Director for the CYP IAPT Programme at Anna Freud. He specializes in trauma and is an EMDR consultant/supervisor. Damian Milton works part-time for the University of Kent as a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Introduction Section 1: Integrating autistic understanding for better delivery of evidence-based mental health interventions 1. From disorder to difference: Shifting the narrative 2. Something needs to change: Making CAMHS accessible to autistic CYP and their families 3. The role of autistic agency in recovery from mental health illness Section 2: Understanding autistic mental health 4. Uncertainty and stress in autistic CYP 5. Understanding low mood, shutdown, and burnout in autistic CYP 6. Autistic Informed Trauma Practice: Moving away from Trauma as a diagnostic label to understanding what has happened to a person Section 3: Autism and intersectionality 7. Improving access to mental health services for CYP from minority ethnic communities 8. Gender, sexuality & autism in the therapy room Section 4: Working in partnership with autistic CYP and their families 9. Working with parents and carers: An empathic Low Arousal approach to distressed behaviour 10. Working with siblings of autistic CYP 11. Working with schools: A synergy approach Section 5: Developing curiosity in-service delivery and service transformation 12. When the helping professions hurt - The need to build trust and make sense of each other in the therapy room 13. Supporting autistic children to thrive – It’s Everybody’s Business 14. Supervisors as agents of change 15. Working towards a Neuro-Diversity Informed Service for CYP