Disability Liaison Officer program
- From December 2023 to November 2024, disability liaison officers helped about 1,600 autistic people access essential healthcare services. The disability liaison officers provided tailored support.
- Disability liaison officer teams in multiple health services launched the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program. The program aims to improve support for people with hidden disabilities, including autistic people, when accessing healthcare.
- The disability liaison officer team at Austin Health relaunched their Autism care plan. The plan is now in the health service electronic medical records.
- The Disability Identifier project tested a co-designed disability identification question in the electronic medical record system. This project helped people with disability and autistic people share their care needs. Parkville precinct hospitals and Austin Health disability liaison officer teams led the project.
Building workforce capacity
- The Mental Health Workforce Disability Capability Uplift program provides valuable learnings. These insights can boost the confidence and skills of mental health workers. This helps them care for people with disability, including autistic individuals. These insights will inform good practice guidelines for the broader health sector. National Disability Services and VALID were key partners in this work.
- In 2024, the Mindful Centre delivered 43 workshops to mental health clinicians. That was a total of 79 training days. The workshops included:
- core autism training
- intermediate skill workshops for working with people with multiple mental health conditions
- advanced workshops in specialist assessment tools.
- The Royal Children’s Hospital developed guidelines called Autism and developmental disability: management of distress/agitation. It advises staff on how to respond to autistic children who use the emergency department.
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