Dr. Mary Rose Sweeney:

It was quite a long journey so there was quite a long lead-in time. I brought along a copy of the executive summary for everybody who is present, so they can read more detail on it. The question at the outset was essentially how to become autism friendly, which is a big question. We did some research to inform that and, therefore, we asked the students themselves what they wanted, what they needed and what challenges they were facing. We asked the staff how much they knew about autistic students and what their needs were in training. It was a whole-of-campus approach so we asked academic staff and support staff across every office and unit what they knew about autism and what they needed to know about it. We also asked the general student body how they supported their peers with autism. We asked the student union, the student class representatives and the student ambassadors. This was, therefore, a huge project that needed support from the ground up and the top down. That is what we had at DCU. It was great that we had all that support.

In terms of getting people on board, it is a matter of reiterating the message and repeating the needs of the students. That was not such a big ask because everybody wanted to support the students. That is what we are all there for. That started in 2016. There was approximately a year and a half of research to inform it, bring it all together and create a framework, which are the eight principles that are now synonymous with being an autism-friendly university. Each principle was underpinned by a set of a actions that were DCU-specific. Every HEI would have to look at that themselves and think about what they would need to do to underpin their principles. A lot of it is translatable and could be replicated in different HEIs, across different sector and settings. That has happened. Even a hospital contacted us after we launched this and said it needed similar principles in an emergency department where it is very busy. We have developed something quite generic but that can also be specific for each university. The lead-in time now would not be as long because we have done a lot of the foundational work.