About
Autistic people deserve access to high-quality health and mental health care that enables them to lead healthy and fulfilling lives.
The Roadmap aims to address the breadth of issues faced by Autistic people in the Australian healthcare system. It outlines the path to improve the physical and mental health of Australia’s growing Autistic population.
The Roadmap forms the fourth pillar of Australia’s National Autism Strategy 2025–2031 (the NAS). The NAS sets out the broader vision for a safe and inclusive society for all Autistic people.
National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People 2025–2035
National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People 2025-2035 – Easy Read
Goals
The Roadmap aims to:
- Improve support for Autistic people, their families and carers, in health and mental health services
- Improve the quality, safety and availability of Autism Affirming health and mental health care across the lifespan of Autistic people
- Build better connections between health, mental health, and other service sectors, including the NDIS
- Improve autism education and training for health and disability professionals
- Strengthen research and data on health and mental health of Autistic people and their families and carers.
Development
We developed the Roadmap in close consultation with Autistic People, the autism community, academic experts, and health and mental health professionals. This included a national co-design process and public consultation.
Health Roadmap Working Group
The Health Roadmap Working Group:
- provided advice and oversaw the Roadmap’s development
- ensured the Roadmap’s was developed in an inclusive way.
The working group included a diverse range of stakeholders, including Autistic people and representatives from the autism community.
Read more about the working group, including the members.
Public Consultation
Public feedback on the draft roadmap was sought from mid-August to the end of September 2024.
Webinar
We held a webinar on Thursday 22 August to explain more about the draft Roadmap and answer your questions.
Autism Health Roadmap Public Webinar
Co-design
We selected Autism CRC to lead the co-design work, along with a national group of autism specialised partner organisations, for the roadmap in September 2023.
Autism CRC is a national independent collaborative research organisation focused on autism across the lifespan.
The project included 5 workstreams with Autistic leadership throughout. The streams were:
- focus groups and interviews
- a stakeholder reference group
- review of existing datasets about autism
- review of consultation findings from the National Autism Strategy
- a national health and mental health co-design summit.
The co-design summit included:
- 50 people meeting in Brisbane
- 25 people participating online.
Autism CRC:
- analysed the project findings
- prepared a report with 25 recommendations
- provided these recommendations to us and the working group in February 2024.
Read the Autism Health Roadmap co-design project reports.
Contact
