Have your say
You can have your say on the draft autism health roadmap until 27 September 2024. Find out how to get involved.
About
The roadmap aims to address the breadth of issues faced by Autistic people in the Australian healthcare system. It will outline actions to improve the physical and mental health of Australia’s growing Autistic population.
The Australian Government is investing $1.5 million to develop the roadmap. This funding will support Autistic people, including through:
- a collaborative co-design process
- a thorough analysis of topics to be addressed in the roadmap.
The roadmap focuses on ways to progress the health and mental health outcomes, and is associated with National Autism Strategy, which is being developed by the Department of Social Services.
National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People – Consultation draft
Governance
The Minister for Health and Aged Care is responsible for developing the roadmap, including its final endorsement.
Health Roadmap Working Group
The Health Roadmap Working Group:
- provides advice and oversees the roadmap’s development
- ensures roadmap development is done in an inclusive way.
The working group includes a diverse range of stakeholders, including Autistic people and representatives from the autism community.
Read more about the working group, including the members.
Development
Development of the roadmap will be completed by the end of 2024.
During all stages of development, we will prioritise the involvement of the autism community. We will provide specific details about consultation and involvement as the roadmap develops.
Get involved
To have your say:
- take the full survey – this asks for views on the exact draft wording in the roadmap, using technical language that is more familiar to health professionals and policy makers
- take the short survey, either in writing, or by audio or video recordings – this is aimed at people less familiar with technical language, and might be more suitable for people who need support
- take the Easy Read survey – this uses simple words and visuals to tell you about the roadmap so that you can tell us what you think about it
- email your feedback directly to us.
Consultation is open until 27 September 2024, 11:59 pm AEST. We will not be able to accept late submissions.
Webinar
On Thursday 22 August the department held a webinar to explain more about the draft Autism Health 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
