Established by The National Autistic Society (NAS) and its affiliated local societies, with support from the Department of Health, Autism Accreditation has been the foundation upon which much of the successful expansion of quality services for people with autism has been built.
The mission of the Autism Accreditation program is to improve the quality of provision for people with an autism spectrum disorder:
by providing a unified standard of excellence in both policy and practice
by presenting a systematic framework for continuous self-examination and development
by ensuring that services registered with the program are given guidance and support in order to meet the established criteria required for accredited status.
Autism Accreditation:
provides an autism-specific quality assurance program for over 300 organizations throughout the UK and across the globe: clients include local authorities, NHS trusts, education authorities, local autistic societies and private companies
actively seeks to help like-minded organizations throughout the world to use our expertise, in order to develop national standards on a franchising basis.
The Autism Accreditation award provides a seal of quality and provides peace of mind when choosing a place for a relative or friend.
The Autism Accreditation program is a continuing accreditation process.
It supports and advises services in the interpretation of the Autism Accreditation standards and advises them on creating quality action groups to assist the process.
They are advised on carrying out a self-audit process against our standards, using set criteria, until they are ready to undergo a formal review.
Criteria
The evidence is evaluated using autism - specific criteria, which are applied to each area of the organization reviewed. In order to achieve accreditation against Autism Accreditation standards, an organization must provide evidence that:
it has a specialized knowledge and understanding of autism
the knowledge and understanding of autism consistently informs the organismic, the resources and management of the organization
the knowledge and understanding of autism consistently informs the individual assessment and support plan for all pupils/service users
the knowledge and understanding of autism consistently informs all aspects of practice.
