Autism Acceptance Week 2022

Wednesday 23 March 2022

Newcastle Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Newcastle City Council (NCC) have joined up to create fantastic opportunities for our SEND Young People in the city.

This year has seen the new SEND Voice Traineeship established enabling two young people to be supported into the world of work in a Job Carve role.

This ongoing project offers a role to SEND young people in the city for a year in paid employment, benefitting from tailored mentoring and support throughout the traineeship and beyond.

This year’s trainees both have Autism and have individual skills and qualities that have instigated learning for all of us.

The trainees have learnt about how large organisations work, how to work on tasks and projects, how to work as a team and manage new situations.

The two trainees shared their experiences of how the project has benefited them:

One individual said, “I have learnt how to problem solve and get the help I need when IT goes wrong”.

Another trainee explained that the job “has definitely made me more confident around work, more rounded as a person and much better in zoom meetings”.

The CCG and NCC have benefited by learning about how our Autistic young people experience the world and how our systems and processes can be daunting and what we can do differently.

During Autism Acceptance Week we would like to share some of our learning with employers and organisations about the benefits of embracing difference in your workplace.

We have learnt to do things differently:

Internship instead of a formal interview.
Carving a role so that two people with different skills and qualities can do one job.
Our Human resources Team have been proactive and supportive through every stage.
City Learning colleagues tailoring support to make training inclusive.
Daily 1-1 support and mentoring for Trainees so they are enabled to learn at their own pace.
Valuing and including trainees across both organisations.
Celebrating successes and learning from mistakes.