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The Autism Reality Experience offers an innovative and immersive training opportunity for neurotypical individuals to step into the neurodiverse world. Through hands-on experiences, participants gain insight into the sensory processing challenges encountered by individuals on the autism spectrum. A unique opportunity to foster understanding, inclusivity and most importantly empathy.
How do you think this visual experience will impact your job role?
- Real insight into the experiences of others
- Gives me an idea of what others go through
- It made me think really hard about how I would interact with certain prisoners
- Better awareness and knowledge
- Has made me realise a lot more about their experiences and has helped me better in help others
- I will be more aware of how a caller feels (Samaritans) and may be better equipped to explore concerns
- It will give me much more understanding when listening to an autistic caller (Samaritans)
- To stop think and consider others
- It has opened my eyes and given me a much broader understanding that no book or talk could have ever done
- Certainly has, more awareness of others and how they cope.
- Fantastic way of understanding how others feel
- Being more aware about how fast I can sometimes speak
- Better understanding when communicating with new prisoners on induction. More awareness of how to conduct myself and the environment we are in when talking.
- Make me more aware of the struggles others have, makes it easier to help others who are struggling or to notice the signs.
- To make me more aware of people on the spectrum. I struggle with my senses and picking things up too.
- Understanding different needs of people with autism
Group feedback Hollesley Bay
Head of Education Work and Skills at HMP The Mount:
I would like to say how informative the event was last week.
Mark delivered the reality experience with professionalism and diplomacy - some participants were affected more than others. In addition his presentations was of the highest standard not only informative but he brought the information to life using he personal experiences and anecdotal stories - he had us all enthralled.
Everyone who took part, experienced things differently, some more intensely than others, but all agreed that it was a “brilliant experience in a few minutes to gain an insight into an autistic life” Many of the uniformed staff said the recognised possible autistic behaviours in some of the men, that they would now be more tolerant of, as a result of the training.
Please pass on our gratitude and we would definitely like to offer it to more people at HMP The Mount
I am so pleased to see how well this training is being received at all of our sites, thank you.
Group Feedback HMP the Mount
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ARE for Prisons
The Prison version has been developed with the support of HMP Cookham Wood youth offenders’ prison. A special recognition of Officer Christopher Cooper and Governor Andy who helped to make this version happen. The prison version has now been widely rolled out to over 40 prisons throughout the UK and soon an adult Prison version will be developed with the support of Chelmsford Prison.
For most of the population the thought of being placed into a prison is one of the most terrifying experiences that we can imagine. Unfortunately, the reality today is that 87,900 people in England and Wales, 8,000 in Scotland and 1,900 in Northern Ireland are spending time in the prison population. Criminal Justice Inspectorates suggest that the Neurodiverse in the prison population may be as high as 19%.
With the Prison service is recognising that a very large proportion of offenders in their care are either diagnosed with or recognised as being on the autism spectrum, it is vital that they receive the highest quality training possible. The Autism Reality Experience has had a profound impact on the staff that work within the Justice system and prisons are recognising the importance of this training. Chelmsford Prison are the first to commit to the ‘facilitators’ training programme, which enables them to train all of their staff at a fraction of the cost.
The Prison Version is ideally suited for:
- Prison officers and senior management
- Prisoners to support them to empathise with autistic people within their prison
- Any person that works within the justice department including government ministers
- Any company that supplies products, services or support to prisons
- Families of prisoners and officers.
