Autism related training videos for GPs and other health professionals

23/07/2024 by Help for Psychology Adult, Autism, Blog, Diagnosis, GPs, News, NHS 0 comments

Last updated: 20th November 2024

Many of our blogs focus on children and young people, as this is the area where we have worked extensively over the years. However, autistic children become autistic adults, and many continue to experience challenges in their everyday lives. They often remain misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and poorly supported.

Back in May 2022, I was approached by Cathie Long. Cathie is an autistic/ADHD late-diagnosed lady, who carries out fantastic work advocating for families as an independent social worker. She and I have known each other for many years and often present webinars together on topics close to both of our hearts – the fact that many undiagnosed autistic women are being diagnosed incorrectly with a personality disorder, and the terrifying fear that many parents of autistic children have of being accused of fabricated and induced illness, when seeking assessment and support for their children. This is particularly the case if they do not present in a stereotypically autistic way, or have accompanying medical challenges.

‘raise awareness of issues facing autistic adults’

Cathie spoke to me about having secured funding from Health Education NHS England to produce some training videos for GPs and other health professionals to raise awareness of the issues facing autistic adults when seeking to access healthcare. She asked me if I would be a part of this, and told me that she had been able to pull together an impressive group of people to contribute to these videos – ranging from people with lived experience, medical and health professionals, and academics.

Of course, I was delighted to be asked to do this and sometime later, we all met up at the offices of Sunshine Support, who provided us with the facility to make these videos and made sure we were all fed and provided with coffee and tea throughout the filming. The videos were filmed over the course of two days.

Fast forward two years and the results of these two days of filming are finally available for health professionals (and the general public) to access, view, and use, to raise awareness of a number of vitally important issues.

The delay in getting these videos into the public domain occurred because Health Education NHS England was unexpectedly disbanded. However, these videos now appear on the NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB (NHS BSW ICB) YouTube channel. They are as follows:

I am immensely proud to have been involved in these wonderful videos. They cover so many topics that are so frequently unexplored or overlooked.

‘the misdiagnosis of girls and women’

I am especially proud of having had the opportunity to talk in these videos about two topics very close to my heart – as previously mentioned, the fact that many undiagnosed autistic women are being diagnosed incorrectly with a personality disorder, and in the final video, to have had the chance to talk about losing my own autistic son at the age of 35. (This appears in the video on ‘The importance of diagnosis understanding’, at about 34 minutes and 35 seconds into the video, if people would like to listen).

My own experience, and that of my immediate family, several of whom are neurodivergent, is the main reason for our organisation’s existence.

As I say in the video, if raising awareness amongst GP’s and health professionals of autistic communication styles helps one autistic person to access the right medical, psychological, and financial support, then it is all worthwhile.

As a grieving parent of an Autistic son, this was one of the hardest things I have ever been asked to do. I thank everyone at Sunshine Support and the whole of the team producing these videos for their support. Please do share these videos widely.

Other articles on our website which relate to some of the topics within the videos can be found here:

Missed and Misdiagnosed

Autism, Personality Disorder: Misdiagnosis and Stigma

The Need for Better Diagnosis

The Need to Better Understand How Autism Presents