Development of the National Autism Strategy
Consultation and engagement
We undertook a co-design process with the Autistic and autism community to develop the Strategy. This included 2 phases.
Phase 1 – Developing the National Autism Strategy (2023)
We reviewed all that we had heard to-date about the experiences and life journeys of Autistic people living in Australia. This resulted in a discussion paper titled, ‘What we have heard: moving towards development of a National Autism Strategy(Opens in a new tab/window).
We commissioned research from leading experts on the issues impacting marginalised cohorts. This included First Nations Autistic people, Autistic women and girls, and Autistic people with intellectual disability.
We consulted widely across the country, from September to November 2023. We held engagement activities about what people thought a national strategy should include. Over 2,030 contributions were made to the National Autism Strategy engagement process:
- More than 1,300 people were involved in qualitative discussions.
- Around 550 people made a submission by sending a written, audio or video file or by completing the guided questions online.
- Over 180 people contributed ideas to the open, online Ideas Wall.
Autistic people had the largest representation in open community events and Autistic Voices forums – about 880 people. Family members and informal carers were about 750. It should be noted that people do not fit into these cohorts exclusively—participants may be both an Autistic person and a family member/carer of Autistic peopl
Participation came from every state and territory and more than a third were from regional, rural and remote areas. Participant’s state and territory and geographic location were not collected across all activities.
A consultation report is available at DSS Engage(Opens in a new tab/window).
Visit the DSS Engage website to read more about developing the draft National Autism Strategy(Opens in a new tab/window). This includes the different stages and how we worked with communities and stakeholders.
Phase 2 - Feedback on the Draft National Autism Strategy (2024)
An online survey from April to May 2024 provided feedback on the draft National Autism Strategy(Opens in a new tab/window).
1,217 people provided a written submission or responded to the draft National Autism Strategy online survey.
Over 100 people attended targeted focus groups with the following cohorts:
- Autistic First Nations people
- Autistic people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
- Autistic people from the LGBTQIA+ community
- Autistic women, girls and non-binary people
- Autistic Children and Young people
- families and carers (including those with very high support and dependency needs)
- Autistic researchers and professionals.
A focus group was also held with the Public Sector Neurodiversity Community of Practice.
On 19 April 2024, we hosted a webinar on the draft National Autism Strategy. Over 340 people attended the webinar.