Dr. Fiona McCaffrey:

At the centre, we have a series of quarterly research bulletins that summarise the research in specific areas. That is the sort of research we like to introduce to the system because, in many cases, education professionals do not have time to familiarise themselves with the new research.

Moving towards a neurodiversity-affirming approach within schools is something of which we are very much in favour. Within that, being child-centred is about trying to understand the perspective of the child, managing the environment and, where possible, taking a co-producing approach. Co-production is something we are introducing in the centre at the moment and it involves consulting more with children or young people and their families about what sorts of supports they need. It is about asking young people what they want and finding ways of engaging with them and asking those important questions.

Our approach, then, is based around co-production. It is strengths-based, child-centred and involves working on the differences, not the deficits. Those are the sorts of approaches we are very keen to introduce into the education system. In my opening statement, I talked about a survey we did. One third of the autistic children and young people who responded to that survey said they wished to be better understood. That certainly is something to take on board. In addition to that, we work with a transdisciplinary team of specialist occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and specialist teachers. Within all our professional backgrounds, we all understand there will be new developments and approaches that are coming along. For us at Middletown, the focus at the moment is very much on empowering and co-producing approaches and trying to introduce them into education.