Read the anonymised ambassadors' Autism Partnership Board reports.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Firstly, we would like to update you on our action item from February’s A.P.B. meeting.
We were asked to respond to the questions put to us by Ann Butts in her presentation on the Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag, which is currently being developed for integration into Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s systems.
As part of our ambassadors meeting on April 25, we were able to discuss the questions in-depth and provide both answers and further feedback, which we then emailed to Ann on the 8 of May, along with an invitation for her to attend one of our upcoming ambassador meetings to discuss the progress of the R.A.D.F. development further.
Regrettably, the 8 of May was also Ann’s last day of working in the Trust, however she connected us to Andy Simpson, the Public Health & Personalised Care Manager and her successor on the R.A.D.F. development, as well as Helen Davies-Cox, Head of Personalised Care, and later with Debby Charman, the Project Manager leading the R.A.D.F. development at NHS Devon ICB.
As such, we will soon be reaching back out to Andy Simpson to invite him to one of our ambassador meetings to continue our work on the R.A.D.F., and look forward to our further work with him and our new contacts on this project.
The last three months have been both excitingly productive and momentous for the Torbay autism ambassadors, with our work beginning only moments after concluding February’s A.P.B. meeting.
We continued to discuss the idea of commemorating both World Autism Awareness Day on April 2nd, as well as World Autism Acceptance Month in April, with a poster to highlight the services available for autistic adults in Torbay, with us eventually settling on the idea of a tri-fold leaflet.
Working together, we went from the initial discussion to designing, approving, and finally having two thousand of the ‘Services for Autistic Adults in Torbay (2025/2026)’ leaflets printed by our ambassadors meeting four weeks later, on March 28.
We’ve provided everyone with a copy of the leaflet and encourage anyone who would like more to take some. A box can be found at the front of the room.
Over the last two months, the ambassadors have delivered these leaflets to every GP surgery in Torbay, to every library, leisure centre and job centre, most major community hubs, health centres and most local businesses working with and for the autistic community, as well as distributed them at Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training sessions, where we’ve had several suggestions by staff for places to deliver more, and through this hard work we have exhausted our initial supply of two thousand leaflets.
We plan to continue our deliveries and will shortly be making plans to deliver leaflets to every pharmacy in Torbay. We will also revisit the GP surgeries to double check leaflets are being displayed and restock anywhere that has run out, as well as further distribution plans I will explain soon.
Overall, this has been a brilliant project to have worked on, and a real success story for the autism partnership board. Not only has the leaflet directed new members to Torbay groups, but we’ve also had interest from other prospective autistic services looking to be included, and a lot of positive feedback from the public.
Looking ahead, we have written an accompanying article for the Signposts for Carers magazine which will be published in their upcoming July to September issue, and given how successful this year’s leaflet has been, we hope to revisit the leaflet in 2026, potentially continuing it’s production as an annual occurrence.
Another success story to highlight for World Autism Acceptance Month is my fellow ambassador H’s appearance on John Acres at Breakfast on BBC Radio Devon on April 15th, where she talked about her life and experiences, her work both as a co-trainer and expert-by-experience with Living Options Devon’s Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training, being first in Devon and Torbay to deliver the training to NHS staff, and with her advocacy and training company Hope to Inspire, her nomination and winning of the Neurodiverse Advocate Award, and continued to champion inclusion and understanding.
As John Acres said at the end of the segment, H is “doing great things”, and continues to be a shining example of the impact we as ambassadors can have.
Returning to our ambassadors meeting on March 28, we were happy to welcome Nige to continue our discussions surrounding targeted mental health support for autistic adults in Torbay, following continued development of the Suicide Strategy. The meeting was very promising, I believe Nige and Trish will be providing an update on this work later today, and we look forward to hearing more from Nige both today and hopefully when he returns to our ambassador meeting in the next few months.
On April 16, my fellow ambassadors S, G and myself were glad to join Savana, Helen, Nige and Dawn at the third Torbay Autism Strategy engagement event, this time for professionals. Savana and Helen will be providing an update on this shortly, suffice to say it was very beneficial for us to attend, and the recommendations made by those attending will be useful both for the Torbay Autism Strategy and beyond as we consider our concurrent and future work.
Following on from Laura Hill’s attendance and presentation on Torbay’s Inclusion Partnership and Inclusion Strategy, we were able to discuss and provide feedback on the Inclusion Strategy, primarily regarding the section on reasonable adjustments, and we have been assured that this feedback will be incorporated into the next version of the strategy.
Regrettably, Laura Hill, who was due to attend our ambassador meeting on April 25, was unable to attend due to illness. We hope she is feeling better, and we look forward to our continued work with both Laura Hill and the Inclusion Partnership.
We’re happy to announce that Autistic After Hours has recently hit another milestone, with the mailing list hitting it’s 100 member as of April 24. With monthly meetings and coffee mornings in Paignton, board game nights in Torquay, resuming our monthly summer coastal walks and our upcoming Autism Woodland Project Trip on June 21st, Autistic After Hours continues to go from strength to strength.
In addition to their usual offerings, Autistic After Hours is also running an Autism Hub at Paignton Library next Saturday, May 31. This will be a drop-in session from 11am to 1pm and will be providing support for any issues associated with being autistic and the impact this can have on daily life, offering a safe space for autistic people to have their concerns heard, meet and chat with fellow autistic people, be able to arrange further one-to-one sessions and be signposted to other organisations.
We also have an update regarding Living Options Devon’s Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training, which has recently begun to roll out to private social care in Torbay and South Devon. In addition to training continuing into the new financial year, these are promising next steps into the future of the training, and we look forward to reporting further progress at our next meeting.
Finally, we are proud to have details to share regarding our third Torbay autism ambassadors event, which will be taking place on Friday, the 21 of November.
With the working title of “What’s important for people to know about autism?”, we’re looking to branch out from covering one topic such as healthcare or work and education and bring attention to issues and points that are close to our hearts, while being just as important for people to know about. Some of our focuses so far include sensory assessments, reasonable adjustments in the workplace, and the importance of listening to different autistic experiences.
While the venue and exact timings are to be decided, we expect the day to be structured similarly to our last event, with speeches and stalls ran by representatives of different organisations.
In addition, in the run up to our event in November, we will also be holding six awareness stands in the preceding months. These drop-in sessions, each ran by a team of three to four of our ambassadors, will not only provide us with an opportunity to engage with the wider community, but also to promote both our upcoming event and our other works, such as the My Health Passport, the Autism Card and the Torbay Leisure Card, and now the Services for Autistic Adults in Torbay (2025/2026) leaflet.
While we await confirmation of the exact dates, we aim to run these stands at Brixham Library and the Riviera International Centre in August, at Torbay Leisure Centre and Torbay Hospital’s Main Entrance in September and at Torquay Library and Paignton Library in November.
My fellow ambassadors and I have achieved a lot in the last three months, and as our focus now returns to our continued work on the Torbay Autism Strategy, the further development of our next event, and our upcoming work with Shirley Beauchamp in her upcoming visit to our ambassadors meeting, we hope that we will have even more success stories to report in three months’ time.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Over the last three months, our main priority has been working with Savana and Helen on the Torbay Autism Strategy. Our work began soon after the last A.P.B. with the closing of the Torbay Autism Strategy Survey on Thursday the 28 of November.
Ambassadors worked with Savana on data collation, ready for our working lunch on Friday the 6 of December, where we were able to review the survey responses as a team, as well as weigh in on the application of the first four of the six priorities set out in the National strategy for autistic children, young people and adults: 2021 to 2026.
Following this, Savana and Helen attended our Ambassadors meeting on Friday the 31 of January, where we concluded our review of the last two priorities.
Savana and Helen will be providing an update on the Autism Strategy in a few minutes time, but the progress we’ve made so far is very promising, and we look forward to continuing to work together through the next steps in it’s production.
We were also happy to welcome Jane Harris to our Ambassadors meeting on Friday the 20 of December to discuss the new NHS 10 Year Plan.
We were able to hear about the progress that has already been made in Torbay and Devon towards the three shifts, moving more care from hospitals to communities, making better use of technology, and moving from treatment to prevention.
We were able to give feedback and advise on the proposals for the plan's application in Devon and Torbay in an effort to have these ideas and improvements better serve the autistic community.
We were also provided with both posters and postcards to share for Change NHS, One Devon’s public engagement on people’s experiences of, ideals for and views on the NHS, which is due to conclude today, the 28 of February.
We hope that our insight was beneficial for Jane and her team, and we’re looking forward to seeing how the new NHS 10 Year Plan develops.
Autistic After Hours CIC, co-directed by my fellow ambassador L and Helen, had it’s Christmas Celebration and 1 Year Anniversary on Saturday the 14 of December, where a record number of members enjoyed festive arts and crafts, Christmas themed board and card games as well as a full buffet.
Our monthly meetings at Palace Avenue Methodist Church in 2025 have been similarly well attended and well received, with our Saturday the 11 of January meeting being big enough to hold both a Yoga Taster Session by Nicci from Breathe Yoga in the big room and board games in the small room, and one of our members, L, running a percussion workshop at our Saturday the 8 of February meeting.
We've also continued our monthly board game evenings at Nexus Games and coffee mornings at Paignton Library, offering our members alternate venues and times for attending meetings, both of which have been very well received by our members and continue to attract new members each month.
We’ve also had two outings since our last update in November,
Firstly, we were able to take 16 of our members to Coleton Fishacre, a National Trust property near Kingswear for the day, seeing the pristine house and stunning gardens.
And secondly, we had an outing to the Autism Woodland Project in North Devon, which we will be returning to on Saturday the 21 of June for another day trip.
All in all, it’s been a great start to the year for AAH, and as we look ahead, we are currently planning our 2025 fundraising event and have many exciting plans for our future meetings.
I also have a report from my fellow Ambassador, S, on the progress of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training at Torbay Hospital, which I will read now:
“Across tier 1 and tier 2 combined 2243 healthcare staff have completed the training in Torbay. This is an amazing number for a small team with still a limited amount of training sessions offered in Torbay. While the majority of sessions are still happening within NHS settings, there are now private settings being proactive, including Rowcroft Hospice who are receiving their training today. As a charity with a limited budget, it is great to see that they value the lives and experiences of autistic people and people with learning disability enough to prioritise this training. We hope that more organisations across Torbay do the same.
There's been some amazing feedback recently so here are a few quotes:
“Involving people with lived experience is absolutely crucial to training such as this as it is easy to ignore the real human impact that lack of training can have. I appreciate the time and effort that has gone into the training and hope the likes of this training is rolled out in other sectors particularly education.”
“An excellent, interactive day! I am pleased there is a big drive for the delivery of training. It's so important we support everyone in society to the best of our abilities and this kind of education goes a long way towards doing this”
“I have learnt more about Autism in the last few hours than I have done in over 30 years of clinical practice.”
We continue to be incredibly well supported by all the hardworking team at Living Options who are extremely happy with the training teams and their delivery of fantastic high-quality training at every session. As more people receive the training hopefully this effort will start having a real positive impact on the quality of care that autistic people in Torbay receive when they access healthcare settings.”
Finally, we are happy to report that we have recruited our eighth Autism Ambassador, G, this month and look forward to meeting her following today’s APB. G is an ideal candidate and we’re happy to have her join our team.
My fellow Ambassadors and I are happy to have made such positive strides in our respective aims and endeavours, and with preliminary discussions having now taken place in the planning of our next event, the next steps in the production of the Torbay Autism Strategy soon to be underway and World Autism Awareness Day approaching on Wednesday the 2 of April, we hope to continue this trend into the next three months and beyond.