Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People

This unique, collaborative book, featuring contributions from autistic and non-autistic experts, presents cutting-edge thinking on mental health and service transformation in relation to autistic children and young people (CYP) and their families. Investigating how to implement collaborative approaches to supporting autistic CYP's mental health, this book considers ways for professionals to share power and co-design models of support, promoting self-agency and supportive environments for autistic acceptance and wellbeing. Each chapter includes reflections and vignettes from autistic CYP and allies, key questions and thinking points for readers to consider. The book also includes a link for an e-library with multimedia material with the top take aways for clinicians such as animations, flyers and recorded interviews. The book will be of immense interest to individuals working with autistic CYP and their families in mental health at any level.

Georgia Pavlopoulou is Associate Professor at University College London, psychotherapist, Director and Co-strategic Lead of the NHS-funded National Autism Trainer Programme at Anna Freud and founder of UCL's Group for Research in Relationships And Neurodiversity-GRRAND. Laura Crane is Professor of Autism Studies at the University of Birmingham, where she is Director of the Autism Centre for Education and Research (ACER). Russell Hurn is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Programme Director for the CYP IAPT Programme at Anna Freud. He specialises in trauma and is an EMDR consultant/supervisor. Damian Milton works part-time for the University of Kent as Senior Lecturer in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Introduction Section 1: Integrating autistic understanding for better delivery of evidence-based mental health interventions 1. From disorder to difference: Shifting the narrative 2. Something needs to change: Making CAMHS accessible to autistic CYP and their families 3. The role of autistic agency in recovery from mental health illness Section 2: Understanding autistic mental health 4. Uncertainty and stress in autistic CYP 5. Understanding low mood, shutdown, and burnout in autistic CYP 6. Autistic Informed Trauma Practice: Moving away from Trauma as a diagnostic label to understanding what has happened to a person Section 3: Autism and intersectionality 7. Improving access to mental health services for CYP from minority ethnic communities 8. Gender, sexuality & autism in the therapy room Section 4: Working in partnership with autistic CYP and their families 9. Working with parents and carers: An empathic Low Arousal approach to distressed behaviour 10. Working with siblings of autistic CYP 11. Working with schools: A synergy approach Section 5: Developing curiosity in-service delivery and service transformation 12. When the helping professions hurt - The need to build trust and make sense of each other in the therapy room 13. Supporting autistic children to thrive - It's Everybody's Business 14. Supervisors as agents of change 15. Working towards a Neuro-Diversity Informed Service for CYP