Autistic people are more likely to experience homelessness, and may have fewer means of avoiding homelessness. Autistic individuals may face additional challenges to resolving their homelessness, for example by experiencing barriers to accessing and engaging with homelessness services. This project aimed to develop an Autism and Homelessness toolkit and training package through stakeholder workshops.
Many autistic individuals do not feel they receive the help they need from services. Evidence shows that a low level of autism awareness by service providers is a significant barrier for autistic individuals to access these services. Because individuals experiencing homelessness are more likely to have physical and mental health conditions, and to experience exploitation, violence and abuse, this double challenge faced by autistic people of becoming and remaining homeless is a key issue requiring urgent attention. The research team’s long term objective is to increase access to services for autistic individuals through staff autism training, with the ultimate aim of reducing periods of homelessness.
This project was awarded as part of the Autistica Social Care Grant Development Awards supported by CareTech. The purpose of these projects is to allow researchers to develop a better understanding of a topic and community needs in relation to it. They can then use this knowledge to form an application to the NIHR Research for Social Care Funding Call.
What are the researchers doing?
The researchers conducted three workshops with diverse stakeholders, including autistic adults, clinicians, staff from homelessness services and service users. They also distributed a survey to providers of homelessness services to determine the need for staff autism training and potential updates for the current Autism and Homelessness Toolkit.
The stakeholder workshops and surveys helped establish elements to be updated within the Toolkit and priorities for a training package, focusing specifically on 1) additional practical recommendations for the provision of support to autistic people experiencing homelessness; and 2) female-specific guidelines.
They are continuing this work by interviewing autistic women about their experiences of homelessness, hoping to shed light on a population with no prior research.
The project was co-produced with autistic individuals, including autistic research team members and involvement groups. The researchers also partnered with autism charities, local authorities and homelessness charities.
The researchers have developed a grant proposal to continue this research through NIHR’s Research for Social Care funding competition.