Autism and Social Communication Team (ASCT)

The ASCT supports maintained and mainstream schools and academies. The team promotes the educational, social and emotional development of autistic children and young people and those with Social Communication Difficulties (SCD). The team provides individualised advice, support and consultation.

We are a small specialist team of Advisory Teachers and Specialist Learning Support Assistants who enable, challenge, and advise both maintained and mainstream schools and academies to be inclusive so that the best outcomes are achieved for autistic children and young people and/or those with Social Communication Difficulties (SCD). The team provides individualised advice, support, and consultation to schools on a termly basis.

The ASCT supports and challenges schools through:

• Consultation and Review Meetings (CARMs), including, where appropriate, observations
• Weekly Specialist Learning Support Assistant Advice Surgeries and Weekly Advisory Teacher Advice Line (both online).
• A variety of training for school staff and parents including; Autism affirming, Comic strip conversations, Social stories, Lego based therapy, Sensory processing differences, Practical classroom Strategies, Autistic girls, Anxiety, Pupil voice
• Programmes for parents including the National Autistic Society’s EarlyBird Plus programme, Exploring Autism and CUES.
• The ASCT’s Autism Affirming Award
• Training for Trainee Teachers and Newly Qualified Teachers.
• Termly online training

Referral forms and information can be found in the side bar. Please email your completed referral form to us.

Safeguarding autistic children and young people from extreme ideologies

Two free resources have been created for parents, following a Crawley Borough Council funded project, produced in partnership with WSCC professionals and a range of experts on inclusion, Autism Spectrum Conditions and radicalisation:

A Parental Guidance Booklet – Safeguarding young people with Autism Spectrum Conditions from extremist ideologies – This Guidance Booklet provides key information and guidance to those parents with young people who have an Autism Spectrum Condition, around safeguarding them from extremist ideologies. The objective of this resource is to equip parents with the confidence and effective strategies to have meaningful conversations with and develop the resilience of young people going forwards. Consequently, they will hopefully be able to effectively recognise and counter extremist points of view.

A Parental Toolkit – Safeguarding young people with Autism Spectrum Conditions from extremist ideologies – To be used alongside the guidance booklet, this is a ‘Toolkit’ of practical resources and templates that parents can use with their young people with Autism Spectrum Conditions to encourage awareness and critical thinking skills around key themes related to radicalisation and extremism. The aim is to foster transferable life skills that a young person with an ASC can draw upon in future to build personal resilience to any concerning images, beliefs or people that may lead that young person into harm.

Last updated 29 September 2023