Autism training for careers and employability professionals
As part of the ‘Supporting Autistic Individuals into Apprenticeships’ project, in partnership with NCFE, we were able to host a training session for Careers and Employability Professionals in April 2022. The training was facilitated by Ambitious about Autism – and it included lots of good practice, tips and used interesting case study videos throughout.
The training included lots of useful suggestions, and we have picked out a few of our favourites:
Autistic Voice
Video case studies were used during the training session to demonstrate the experiences that some autistic individuals may face. These videos helped ‘bring to life’ the experiences that were discussed and they were very well made and enjoyable.
The following video shows autistic individuals describing what autism means to them:
Young people explain autism | Ambitious about Autism - YouTube
One Page Profiles
The training session suggested that creating one page profiles might help make stressful situations more accessible for autistic individuals. For example, the person conducting an interview could produce one that they circulate in advance of the interview. This way the individual attending the interview knows a little bit about who the person is and what to expect.
Additionally, there were lots of practical tips that attendees could take away from the session and easily implement e.g. "Before your first appointment, find out what the candidate’s preferred method of communication is" and “make sure you speak slowly” to help individuals understand you better.
Myth-busting
There are a lot of misconceptions about autism in the world and during this training participants were asked to complete a ‘true or false’ exercise on some of the most common myths. This helped provoke discussions and everybody attending learned some new things!
If you’d like to find out more about the range of training Ambitious about Autism have available please check here: Our training courses | Ambitious about Autism.
If you enjoyed this content or found it helpful please consider signing up for a free account. Members can access our full library of articles, including those published in our quarterly member magazine, and receive regular updates from our team. CACHE Alumni members can also watch video episodes of our award-winning podcast, POD-CACHE, attend online conferences and best practice events and receive discounts on a range of lifestyle purchases, such as gym memberships and grocery vouchers through our member benefit scheme, CACHE-Back.
------------------------------------------
This content was produced as a part of the Supporting Autistic Individuals intoApprenticeships project. This initiative is a partnership between the Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network (GMLPN) and NCFE, hosted on the CACHE Alumni website. The project aims to bring employers, training providers and referral agencies together to provide bespoke training and mentoring support for autistic learners, which will help them progress onto an apprenticeship or other form of employment or training. GMLPN is a network of over 100 Independent Training Providers, Colleges of Further Education, Schools and Universities. NCFE is one of the largest awarding organisations in the UK, and a specialist in vocational training and qualification development. To find out more about this project please go to https://gmlpn.co.uk/increasing-opportunities-for-autistic-individuals/or email[email protected].