A series of regional hubs have been established to deliver autism training to early years and post-16 education providers. The centres will deliver the latest part of the Autism Education Trust’s schools training programme, which has been funded by the Department for Education.
North Yorkshire County Council, Birmingham City Council, the NAS with Thomas Bewick School, and Leicestershire County Council have been appointed as the four training hubs to deliver the early years training. Post-16 training will be provided by Birmingham City Council, The Kent Association of Further Education Colleges, Ambitious About Autism with Ealing and Hammersmith and West London College, and NORSACA.
Materials for the post-16 training have been developed by a team of post-16 specialists headed up by Ambitious About Autism, while the early years materials have been developed by a team of early years specialists led by Genium. The hubs will be piloting the new materials from January 2014.
The Autism Education Trust’s training programme, launched in February 2012, is the largest ever face-to-face autism training programme for schools in England and aims to raise the level of autism knowledge and improve practice among all education professionals and school staff. The programme offers nationally delivered face-to-face training for professionals working across all education settings. Training is delivered in three levels. General awareness training is provided in Level 1, which is free to attend, while Levels 2 and 3 focus on more specific strategies and developing the organisation’s capacity to meet needs. In its initial phase, over 12,000 participants from more than 53 local authorities took part in the Level 1 training.
