Creating a person-centred culture within the North East Autism Society: preliminary findings

Staff who care for people with autism were shown video of themselves at work. Only good bits of video were shown to staff. Good bits were chosen because the video showed that the staff and the people with autism were enjoying being with each other. We asked four members of staff how watching the good bits of video made them think and feel. In this paper, we report exactly what the staff said. We found that all staff felt more confident after watching the videos. They could see more ways that the people with autism were communicating with them. They could imagine being better at making relationships with people with autism. We think that finding positive moments of enjoyment using video is a good way to make things work better for staff and for the people with autism. SummaryThis paper provides preliminary findings of the impact of a workforce coaching intervention that used video feedback in a service for children and adults with autism. The proposed mechanism for change in the intervention was the way that video footage was highlighted through editing on the part of the practitioner and the positive coaching conversation that was used to review the video edits. Four participants who had received the intervention were interviewed after the intervention. Thematic analysis of the participants' responses during the narrative style interview was conducted. The results suggest that the participants found the intervention a positive experience that raised their confidence in their work role. They reported heightened awareness of the individual needs of the people they worked with and a new appreciation of the potential for relationship between themselves and the services' users.