Autism Parents and Carers Education and Training

Health Education England recognises that families and carers of autistic people are an integral part of the workforce who should be able to access high quality education and training to enable them to support and maintain the wellbeing of their autistic family member(s). To facilitate this, we aim to commission a national programme of autism education and training that is equally accessible in all regions of England and can offer a range of education resources to families, carers, and personal assistants. We are seeking to create a programme that will be co-designed, developed and delivered in conjunction with families and autistic people. The aim is to offer consistent and flexible access to high quality resources and training across a range of autism related topics that help promote/support the health and wellbeing of autistic people and their families/carers through a single point of access. We also anticipate the programme would encompass support for people who are accessing the resources/training to maximise uptake and impact. Support for families may be through telephone access, coaching, provision of locally offered training or by delivering regular training and support through local access points. This will be a significant investment by HEE over the next three years and it is recognised that there may be many smaller providers with autism peer education expertise who may wish to collaborate with other organisations to develop a national offer and we therefore propose to undertake a market engagement event as set out below. This Prior Information Notice (PIN) is to advise prospective providers of the Commissioners intention.

It is our intention to hold a market engagement event on the morning of Thursday 9 June from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., to discuss our plans and consult with parties interested in potentially bidding to deliver a national autism peer education programme.

The event will take the form of an online presentation and discussion organised through MS Teams and will outline our current thinking, the anticipated procurement process, general discussion, and requests for information. The process will also provide an opportunity to network with others and to signal your interest to HEE in working collaboratively with any other organisations.

Please RSVP by Friday 3rd June 5pm with the name, title, and contact details for attendees (a maximum of two attendees per organisation) to:

Sasha Lucie-Smith Project Support Administrator Learning Disability & Autism Programmes E: [email protected] The commissioner reserves the right not to proceed with the Procurement, or any part thereof, or change the requirements as necessary at any time. It is the intention of the Authority that the procurement will be conducted as an Open Procedure under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.