5.2 Support for employment
The NAS has some support centres across the UK and an outreach team that aims to assist with preparing for work, for instance by building on social and practical skills, confidence and experience, as well as CV writing. However, because it is a charity, such support centres are few, and many people do not have access to them. The NAS also offers advice and training for employers on understanding autism and how to manage people with autism.
There are also commercial companies that help autistic people into meaningful and productive employment. At Specialisterne, which started in Denmark and now operates in 13 different countries, employees are found work as business consultants on tasks such as software testing, programming and data entry for the public and private sectors. Auticon has bases in London and Munich, and works on similar principles. Their employees are all on the autism spectrum and work as consultants for various clients, with a job coach who gets to know the consultant and their capabilities, assesses the work environment for any reasonable adjustments that could be made, acts as a mediator and may initially help the autistic person with travelling to and from the job.
Autistic people have many skills to offer in the workplace, and simple respect and friendship from fellow employees may be as important to well-being as specific support measures. In this clip Alex talks about his very positive experiences of working part-time in a bookmakers:
