Dunfermline Service Achieve Autism Accreditation

A huge congratulations to our team in Dunfermline who recently completed National Autistic Society’s Autism Accreditation Programme. The service is the sixth autism accredited service within Real Life Options.

Delivered by National Autistic Society, the programme is the UK’s only autism-specific quality assurance programme of support and development for all those providing services to autistic people. The accreditation aims to improve the quality of provision for autistic people by providing a unified standard of excellence in both policy and practice.

When speaking about the motivation behind completing the accreditation Katrina Clouston, Service Manager for Dunfermline Hub and An Carina says, “We’ve got a number of people we support with autism, it’s a great way to provide better support to them.” At Real Life Options we recognise that to be excellent in our field, we need to truly understand and champion the changing needs and aspirations of the people we support. Becoming autism accredited is one of the many ways that our services are constantly evolving to achieve this.

The report generated following the accreditation process identified various strengths including the communication between staff and people we support stating, “Staff demonstrated skill in adapting communication in order to meet the needs of each individual. There were many and varied opportunities provided for individuals to practice their communication skills within the local community.”

The accreditation took around a year to complete and consisted of a pre-assessment, self-audit, and end assessment. As part of the assessment staff and people we support undertook interviews with the assessor, with one person we support saying “I like the support I get here.” Speaking about the process Katrina says, “One of my favourite parts about the process was the assessment. We had positive feedback from the assessor. We had lots of things in place already but it’s been really good to highlight why we do these things.”

Well done to the team in Dunfermline!