Nearly half of all autistic children have an anxiety disorder. Without the right support early on, it can affect a person for life. That's why we've made anxiety support a priority in our 2030 Goals.
We will work with government and the NHS to prevent anxiety and promote good mental health early on. We will also carry out research to understand the experiences of autistic people in inpatient care to prevent crisis. We can stop the flow of tragic headlines and enable autistic people to live happier, healthier, longer lives.
Anxiety for me is a constant background hum that accompanies me wherever I go. Sometimes, I can mostly tune it out and focus my attention elsewhere. Other times, it consumes me, preventing me from speaking or acting.
Autistic adult
The need
Over 7 in 10 of autistic adults have one or more mental health conditions. But there are very few services, supports or treatments that are specifically designed to support them. Too many reach crisis. Long stays in inpatient care and suicide are all too common for autistic people. We need to prevent mental health problems from destroying lives, by supporting people with effective support, early on.
About our plan
We have been working with autistic people, families, professionals and the NHS to develop an ambitious but practical Anxiety Plan that can really change lives by 2030. The plan has three main parts:
Supporting Mental Health
It's important that we provide support early on, to stop anxiety from becoming a problem. Our plan sets out four ways to improve support:
Self-Directed Supports Library for Anxiety with tools that autistic people and families can use to reduce anxiety themselves.
Reducing Anxiety in Education by developing and trialling an anxiety intervention for use in schools and similar environments.
Parent/Carer Peer Support to help parents to meet and support each other through an online platform.
Mental Health Support Profiles as part of a bigger Personal Support Profile to help autistic people to understand and share their needs and strengths as well as information about health conditions, and behaviours.
Effective Interventions for Anxiety
When anxiety becomes a problem, many autistic people find that the therapies offered don't work for them. With these four projects we will help autistic people to help themselves and get access to effective support:
Anxiety Tips Hub to crowdsource everyday tips and strategies to self-manage common anxiety triggers
Trials Fund for Anxiety to develop a range of interventions to develop autism-specific targeted anxiety interventions
Research Outcome Measures Toolkit to develop accurate mental health outcome measures for autistic people
Mental Health Service Record to provide autistic service users with a method of sharing information about helpful and unhelpful services they have used in the past.
Preventing Crisis
Too many autistic people end up in inpatient settings because we have failed to prevent their mental health from reaching crisis. We have set out two projects to understand these failings and improve crisis care:
Inpatient Admissions Retrospective Study to understand who enters inpatient care and why.
Neurodiversity Mental Health Inclusion Index to ensure mental health services are inclusive and accessible in meeting the needs of autistic and other neurodivergent service users.
Louisa and Frank's story
Louisa talks about the impact anxiety has on her son Frank:
How our plan can change lives
By creating a range of evidence-based support, we can provide persoanlised help for every person, at each stage of their life. By working with mental health services, we can make them more inclusive and accessible for autistic people.
If we improve autistic people's mental health, they will get the chance to learn, work, build relationships and take part in the activities they love. Because every autistic person deserves to live a happy, healthy and long life.