Holistic crisis intervention

Despite the commitments in the Long Term Plan and ‘National strategy for autistic children, young people and adults: 2021 to 2026’, sadly we are not seeing the improvements planned: across England the demand for autism assessments has increased by over 25% with over 86% of families waiting longer than 13 weeks, leaving many families feeling unable to cope or manage their child’s needs while waiting for support. Even with a diagnosis, these family’s needs often escalate to crisis point involving a wide range of already stretched professionals including emergency services, community mental health teams and GPs, and in the worst-case scenario resulting in in-patient admissions. It is reported that in 2021 around one in seven of autistic people in a mental health hospital were aged under 18.

This is where the interventions for autistic young people and their families provided by Kids can support in your area, complimenting other services in the community, stepping in when families, young people or professionals working with them identify that they are in danger of reaching a crisis point.

For four years we have been delivering these interventions in Wakefield (Wakefield Autism Support Programme or ‘WASP’). Evaluation of the first 18 months of the service evidenced that of the 100 families who described being in crisis when they reached us, only 6 felt that was still the case after 12 weeks accessing our services.

By April 24 we will have worked with over 900 families and we will bring knowledge and evidence from WASP plus evidence from our other models in order to expand this offer. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you.

What does the service do?

As a tier 2 service taking referrals from professionals including Keyworkers, SENCOS, Paediatricians, CAMHS, Health Visitors and Early Help, we offer a person-centred programme over an initial 12 week period. Interventions are for both parent carers, young people and often the wider family, including siblings. Interventions are tailored to meet the needs and support can be extended if needed.

The service can:

• Reduce the need for this cohort of CYP to be referred to a core or specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and thus resulting in a reduction in waiting times.
• Support families when approaching crisis who are newly diagnosed on assessment waiting lists.
• Support positive behaviour management for CYP.
• Reduce likelihood of hospital admittance and/or intervention by other specialist services.
• Support keyworkers as a stepdown resource.

In our initial evaluation at the 18 month stage, 75% of families reported that after receiving support they felt more confident about managing as a parent and saw an improved relationship with their child, 70% were better able to stay calm when things went wrong and 78% felt better able to understand their child’s behaviour with over 82% feeling they were therefore better able to manage the behaviour of their child.
When families were asked about the possible outcomes had they not been able to access the service, an overwhelming 84 % felt their situation would have deteriorated.

Kids are trusted by families and professionals, not least because many of our staff have lived experience of parenting an autistic child. Indeed many have themselves experienced their family being at crisis point through the unmet needs of their child. Our Neurodiversity Lead and founder of our first crisis intervention service is herself one such parent. It is through this extensive knowledge of the lived experience of our families that we are able to recognize and understand that as an organisation we need to be agile and flexible in our response.

Our services develop dependent on the ever changing needs of our families and we evolve accordingly. As a voluntary organisation we can build trust with harder-to-reach families and can provide truly person-centered holistic support. All staff working on this model receive high levels of clinical supervision and are supported through the AMBIT approach, aligning with NHS professionals.

How we do it?

Each family will access the intervention pathway most appropriate for their individual need following triage. The support offered can encompass support for parent/carers, the child/YP or both dependent on identified need at triage. Support can be virtual or in person.