Scottish Autism

Staff development is key to our success in supporting people with Autism, their families and carers and other professionals. We highly value our staff and heavily invest in opportunities and scope for staff to develop through access to gaining qualifications such as Scottish Vocational Qualifications, Academic Research, Extensive in-house...

Staff development is key to our success in supporting people with Autism, their families and carers and other professionals. We highly value our staff and heavily invest in opportunities and scope for staff to develop through access to gaining qualifications such as Scottish Vocational Qualifications, Academic Research, Extensive in-house induction programme, conference attendance and participation, Self-assessment at organisational or practice level and continuous professional development prospects to enable staff to develop their own skills and professionalism which in turn helps increase staff confidence, inclusion, responsibility and ownership. We involve our staff in our change management program and keep staff informed though a wide range of communication channels. We created our own practice improvement model named Autism Practice Improvement Framework (APIF). It has RADAR methodology at its core and involves many of our staff and links directly to our knowledge management.

We use our knowledge management to make sound strategic business decisions about our growth and we plan well ahead. We understand and respond to the political landscape challenges. We collaborate and network with a large number of professionals nationally and internationally. We listen and respond to the needs of individuals with autism and...

We use our knowledge management to make sound strategic business decisions about our growth and we plan well ahead. We understand and respond to the political landscape challenges. We collaborate and network with a large number of professionals nationally and internationally. We listen and respond to the needs of individuals with autism and their families and carers and we maintain excellent professional relationships with other providers, Commissioners, Local Authorities at local and National level and The Scottish Government.

To deliver services effectively and improve practice, Scottish Autism use their wealth of knowledge of autism to improve the understanding of autism amongst carers and professionals. The organisation’s vision and mission has the individual with autism at its very core and it works with children, young people, adolescents and adults, pre and post diagnosis as well as with carers and other support providers. We have established excellent relationships with Scottish Local Authorities, The Scottish Government, other providers and other key stakeholders.

We are scrutinised by many regulatory bodies including The Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland, The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and the Scottish Government to name a few. Our journey towards excellence began in 2011 when we adopted EFQM to start our continuous improvement cycle...

We are scrutinised by many regulatory bodies including The Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland, The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and the Scottish Government to name a few. Our journey towards excellence began in 2011 when we adopted EFQM to start our continuous improvement cycle and embed its philosophy into practice. EFQM is our overarching Quality Framework that assists us to drive forward our business improvements to achieve excellent results. . We can demonstrate our improvement cycle and excellent results to all of our regulatory bodies, customers and stakeholders by our success in achieving:



Committed to Excellence Award – 2013
Recognised for Excellence 3 star award – 2015
Recognised for Excellence 4 star award – 2017

Harnessing Creativity & Innovation Award – 2017
Quality Scotland Ambassadors Award – 2017


We share our knowledge and expertise with parents, carers and other professionals through initiatives like our Knowledge Share Seminars, Right Click programme for Parents to support their child or teenager and Women & Girls, Advice Line and various other projects such as Get Set 4 Autism. Our Centre for Practice and Innovation (CPI) is the focal point for all our knowledge management related activity. A range of activities within the CPI include practitioner research training and project planning and we have a number of research and practice associates linked to the centre from the UK, Australia, Denmark, Belgium and the United States. They support us to think and plan strategically about the direction and focus of our work. The success of the Centre relies on us building effective partnerships with the autism research and practice community. We have successfully attended and delivered our knowledge of autism as key note speakers at conferences around the world.