"We’ve seen ripples of change”: the impact of the National Autism Trainer Programme

The National Autism Trainer Programme (NATP) is delivered by Anna Freud in partnership with AT-Autism and was commissioned by NHS England in 2022. Over 3 years, this train-the-trainer programme, which is co-produced and co-delivered with over 110 autistic people of all ages, has been delivering training to staff who work with diagnosed or undiagnosed autistic people. This includes professionals in inpatient and community mental health services, residential special education, or health and justice settings.

We have now delivered NATP training to over 5,000 people and supported them to work with NATP trained Experts by Experience to upskill their colleagues and improve services. Learning about the changes that they have implemented in their own workplaces has been a joy.

Here three people who have been instrumental to the success of NATP reflect on the programme’s importance and impact.

“NATP...not only brings hope, but also delivers truly meaningful results”

Ann Memmott MA is an autism consultant, researcher and trainer with lived experience. She provides autistic advisory support that delivers positive change for people in the UK and internationally. Ann has been a NATP content developer and associate trainer. She said:

“I have been involved with NATP through content development and training from the beginning. I have seen firsthand how the work has enabled a deeper understanding of autism, as well as the delight of seeing so many people whose lives and working practices are being transformed by NATP. We’ve seen ripples of change, where droplets have become a stream, the streams have become a river and the waves into an ocean of change.

“Co-production and co-delivery are hugely important [to improving the care autistic people receive]. If teams across the NHS and beyond are serious about improving autistic and wider neurodivergent lives, they must work with autistic people from the outset, and in every aspect of the process. It helps to ensure a truly ethical base [of care], and an authentic grasp of what is vital to autistic lives.

“This is why the co-produced and co-delivered NATP model not only brings hope but also delivers truly meaningful results.

“Mental health services can become places where staff and patients thrive, together. Where costs to welfare and wellbeing will be reduced through better and kinder practices, that truly embed autistic voices and experiences at every level. NATP has been such a welcome step towards those goals.”

“My team is now more mindful of how we understand, discuss, and report autistic individuals’ behaviours”

Sandra Thomas is a keyworker in the West London Mental Health Trust’s autism and learning disabilities team. She completed the CAMHS Community NATP stream in October 2024 and has attended multiple specialist refresher days to top up her knowledge on core NATP themes. She said:

“I have found inspiration and hope in the NATP community, where my role is to advocate for children and families to prevent unnecessary mental health hospital admissions. My motivation for joining the training was to promote positive change in how my team and services support autistic individuals and their families.

“The NATP course has helped me develop my role as an agent of positive change and offers a groundbreaking curriculum. The training introduces a collaborative, values-oriented approach that allowed me to share ideas and vision within my workplace. Implementing whole-service changes is challenging, but the training resources enabled me to encourage colleagues to engage with the core concepts.

“The experience-sensitive approach of NATP helped me personalise and contextualise evidence-based methods with my colleagues. One key learning was to understand and support behaviours of distress, rather than framing them as ’behaviours of concern’. As a result, my team is now more mindful of how we understand, discuss, and write about autistic individuals’ behaviours, avoiding stigmatization and restrictive practices.

“Instead of aiming to make autistic people ‘less autistic’, the training emphasised accepting and nurturing their individuality. I have seen a positive shift in my service, where the team has begun to empathise and remove emotional burdens, marking a small but significant change in care practices.”

“If NATP had been available before my hospitalisation, I may not have been detained”

Lauren Fernandez, NATP trainer and content developer, was diagnosed autistic, with ADHD at 26 and, two years later, was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.* After her experience as an inpatient, it became clear to her that changes to mental health support services were necessary to help those on the autism spectrum in marginalised communities. In 2018, Lauren founded Mask Off C.I.C, an organisation that aims to highlight the ‘invisible’ Black female perspective around ADHD, autism and mental health. She said:

“If NATP had been available before my hospitalisation, I may not have been detained. If I had been, those trained in this approach would have used trauma-informed conversations that could have prevented many escalations. This approach would have focused on understanding rather than judgment, asking, "How can we adapt this environment to make you more comfortable?" This shift would have supported my recovery.

“The treatment I endured ignored my basic needs and was inhumane, making it ineffective. But it doesn't have to be this way. The training encourages mental health staff to take a neuro-inclusive, experience-sensitive approach, that emphasises working with, not on, autistic individuals. I would have responded positively to this, rather than being trapped in restrictive practices that misdiagnosed and confused me.

“I needed to be involved in this training to prevent other autistic individuals from enduring similar experiences and being detained due to their autism. As a trainer, my aim was to support mental health professionals seeking guidance on trauma-informed practices for autistic individuals. I wanted to encourage professionals to challenge harmful narratives and collaborate with autistic individuals in a safe, respectful environment. I can now see how, by being part of the NATP team, we have started achieving a meaningful difference. NATP trained delegates have been returning to their different settings, influencing colleagues, demystifying autism friendly adjustments and creating a culture of change through collaboration.”

Find out more

We hope you’ve learned more about the positive impacts of NATP. We will be holding an online conference on 19 February 2025 and, alongside experts in autism and mental health, we will celebrate the success of the programme. Please register your place here. To find out more about the impact of the programme, read these stories.

Bookings for the training are now officially closed but our community of practice and one-to-one bespoke support meetings will continue until March 2025 - email natp@annafreud.org to book. We are here to support you in the implementation stages of the training in your settings.

If you have completed the four-day training, please complete our trainer implementation survey. The results of this survey will be extremely helpful in understanding the implementation of NATP across the country and the impact this training has had on local services.

*We responded to the publication of the Mental Health Bill in Parliament in November 2024, which we think points to a new era of improved patient dignity, voice and equity of treatment within mental health services.