Leadership and engagement: learning disability and autism
An aim of the Scottish Government’s Towards Transformation Plan in 2021 was to be better at empowering people with a learning disability and autistic people to shape services and policy development.
The Leadership Framework was the term used for a different way of doing things at a national government level. Lived experience groups worked together to decide how to improve policies and practices that directly affect their lives. These groups designed resources to help improve how health practitioners support and understand autistic people and people with learning disabilities.
This site summarises what happened and some of the tools used throughout the process. These resources can be adapted for anyone doing participation work with these communities.
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Leadership Framework 2021-2024 report
This report aims to capture the story and key learning points of the development of the Towards Transformation Leadership Framework. It is intended as a resource for people seeking to work in a collaborative, person-centred way with autistic people and people with learning disabilities, putting them at the centre of addressing the challenges they face accessing services and support.
Effective collaboration report
A report describing the experience of the Scottish Government Neurodivergence and Learning Disabilities Unit working alongside autistic people and people with learning disabilities to implement the leadership and engagement approach outlined in the Towards Transformation Plan.
Working together Easy Read
Easy Read version of the report describing the experience of the Scottish Government Neurodivergence and Learning Disabilities Unit working alongside autistic people and people with learning disabilities on the leadership and engagement approach from the Towards Transformation Plan.
Leadership Framework – all stages
This document outlines the stages involved in the Towards Transformation Leadership Framework from conception to what was accomplished.
Leadership Framework Stage 1 Summary – Understand and define
A summary of the first stage of the Leadership Framework.
Leadership Framework stage 2 summary – Prioritise
A summary of prioritising themes for the Leadership Framework.
Leadership Framework stage 3 summary – Design
A summary of the design stage of the Leadership Framework.
Leadership Framework learning disability working group summary
A summary of the work of the learning disability working group.
Leadership Framework GP working group summary
A summary of the work of the GP and practice staff working group.
Leadership Framework autism informed services working group summary
A summary of the work of the Autism Informed Services working group.
Group agreement template
Group agreement describing how the groups worked together. This was based on The Assembly's group agreement for members with learning disabilities.
Meeting guidelines template
Guidelines based on feedback from autistic people and people with a learning disability about how to make both in person and online meetings successful and accessible.
Establishing trust examples
Examples of how staff built a trusted relationship with the autistic and learning disability Drivers.
Information pack template
A template designed to help populate an information pack for people taking part, based on working alongside autistic people and people with learning disabilities.
Collaboration checklist template
A list of things to think about when planning a piece of work to help establish a clear purposeful way of working.
Process monitoring framework template
This process monitoring framework could be used to help embed a human rights based approach into pieces of participation and engagement work.
Test of change template
This template uses an adaptation of the Plan-Do-Study-Act improvement methodology to capture the findings and associated learning from tests of change.