Autism Together Annual Review 2021/2022

WHAT’S NEW

We fundraised for a defibrillator

Children and Family fun day

Our River Park group won Autism Leaders List Awards

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What we do

For over 50 years, Autism Together has been providing support to autistic people, offering a wide range of residential services, supported living, day services and community support from our base in Wirral, UK.

Research has shown that specialist education and structured support can really make a difference to the life of an autistic person. Every person on the autism spectrum is unique, so we work with each individual to help them overcome any difficulties autism may present them with, enabling them to lead a more fulfilling life.

As a specialist autism provider, our organisation recognises that each person has a right to live their life as they choose.

We create a shared understanding of each person’s strengths and needs, ensuring their preferred way of communicating these is respected and implemented by all our staff.

Our support approaches and strategies are focused on developing lifelong learning, helping to develop people's skills by considering their communication needs, thinking patterns, social understanding and sensory differences.

Our values.

Positive communication

Our mission

To help autistic people develop their full potential and achieve their aspirations by delivering high quality, person-centred support.

Our philosophy remains

firmly rooted in a belief that...

We begin with what people can do, not with what they can’t, by listening to each individual and acknowledging that they are the experts in their autism.

Our support begins with the person, along with a shared understanding of what is important to them and what their strengths and needs are.

Our support approaches are individualised so that staff can meet each person’s communication needs. Staff are trained to be consistent in the way they use communication strategies with individuals.

To be person-centred

To be respectful

Promote learning

We are always glad to help the people we support make lovely gifts for their parents' birthdays and other anniversaries. Rachael (pictured) created some lovely paper flowers in a vase for her dad’s birthday.

CREATIVE ARTS

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A

CEO

Sue Stubbs

Welcome to our Annual Report for 2021/22. During the past year we continued to face numerous Covid-19 challenges. Yet again we responded to lockdowns, coped with high infection rates and staff absences.

We closed and re-opened a large proportion of our day services, redeployed staff, reacted to the myriad of Government and local authority requests and guidance, managed outbreaks in our homes and services, and reassured the people we support and their families.

Despite these challenges we have much to celebrate. Our staff team continues to make a massive difference to the lives of the people we support through their commitment, hard work and compassion, ensuring that the people they are supporting are engaged, entertained and continue to achieve their goals.

This annual report is full of examples of how, despite operating through a global pandemic, we are fulfilling our mission to help autistic people develop their potential and achieve their aspirations by delivering highquality, person-centred support. These demonstrate the fantastic achievements of the people we support across all our services, supported by our incredible staff team.

motivate people to drink more water each day, healthy recipes with easy read instructions so people we support can join in, and videos showing simple exercises that can be done at home or in the office.

Maintaining mental health is probably the most important consideration and we offer various routes that staff can follow to get any additional support they might need. However, often the simplest things are the most effective, so we encourage everyone to look out for, and be kind to each other – be that a colleague or a person we support.

While we have had to reprioritise some of our activities during the year, we have continued to make progress against our Five-Year Strategic Plan, some highlights of which are detailed on the next page. It was with huge regret that we had to make the decision to temporarily close our respite/short stay service based in The Maples. Along with other social care providers, we are facing an unprecedented shortage of staff resulting in a high level of vacancies. We have plans in place to address this and are constantly monitoring the situation.

I am so proud of my colleagues and the people they support – for their commitment, hard work and many achievements.

However, we cannot underestimate the toll the past two years has taken on the health and well-being of both the people we support and our staff. Throughout, we have provided a range of resources aimed at both colleagues and the people we support. These focus on ways to better look after our minds and bodies and range from downloadable charts to help

We have continued to maintain our strong financial position, again increasing our free reserves to give us a much-needed financial cushion for the future, while providing reassurance to our staff, the people we support and their families about the longterm sustainability of Autism Together. I am so proud of my colleagues and the people they support – for their commitment, hard work and many achievements. In the third year of this global pandemic, I am hopeful that life is getting back to normal and that we all have much to look forward to.

Progress against our Strategic Objectives

we have managed this has been a resounding success with no people we support getting seriously ill or being involved in any significant incidents.

We have responded to continued lockdowns, coped with high infection rates amongst our staff resulting in high absences.

1Provide personcentred and high-quality services for people across the autism spectrum

Yet again we have focused on keeping the people we support safe, well, entertained and engaged during another challenging year. The way

We closed and re-opened day services, redeployed staff, reacted to changing requests and guidance, managed outbreaks in our homes and services, reassured the people we support and their families.

In addition, we have achieved the following against our operational plan objectives:

our autism services

Covid and now staffing difficulties have been a significant barrier to plans to develop our services. Our CVS or day services has gone through significant changes during the pandemic, with multiple closures and re-openings of services. As services have reopened, we have implemented some of the changes we want to make to

the overall day service structure. These include phasing out of the Super Tuesday regime (where people who lived in Residential and Supported Living services did not attend), a reduction in people moving from one day service to another during the day and removal of half-day attendance across the board.

It was disappointing that we were not able to pursue the potential of opening a new day service provision in Hoylake, however it provided an

f Continued to develop the Quality Framework and have now appointed a Quality Assurance (QA) Manager to oversee this work programme.

f The people we support have been encouraged to have meaningful involvement in the service they live in or attend. The people we support forums, which closed earlier in the pandemic, have now returned and the new QA Manager will have responsibility to implement more initiatives in this area.

f The Risk Management Framework has been approved, the new risk register is active and internal auditors have been appointed to provide independent assurance.

opportunity to explore alternative models of day service support and, now that we are near capacity, the Head of Service and Service Managers are further developing these plans.

The Supported Living model has been reviewed in detail, considering the management structure, and the cost effectiveness of each location. We have changed the management structure to offer better financial sustainability and manager oversight

A very well organised trust considering how large it has become over the years. Staff and management are excellent. I am so grateful for the expertise and kindness shown to my loved one.

PARENT

3 Develop and invest in our staff

The key achievement this year has been the move to pay our frontline staff at least the Real Living Wage. We also continued to ensure that staff were rewarded through enhanced overtime rates, and sick pay, and a retention bonus. In addition, we achieved the

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following against our Operational Plan:

f Although not conducting a significant staff satisfaction survey we did check how we were doing in supporting staff, through Covid well-being supervisions. We will be conducting a full staff survey in Autumn 2022.

f Continued to develop and promote a wide range of resources to support

Invest in our assets and infrastructure

This year we have made progress in a number of areas:

f Our Property Strategy is now live and we have made good progress delivering against the action plan, especially through engagement with Riverside and developing a plan for the Raby site.

f Appointing a Health & Safety Advisor has provided new focus and supported the Health & Safety Committee that now meets quarterly.

f The IT strategy has been developed and approved.

f Our head office has been re-configured and is now delivering Day Services again.

staff with their well-being.

f Made progress in ensuring essential training is kept up to date.

f Continued the development of staff communication and engagement initiatives, under the continued challenging circumstances, by utilising arange of virtual communication tools.

5Be financially sustainable

Despite the continued uncertainties we have achieved the following:

f Exceeded our budgeted surplus to add to free reserves.

f Improved our cash position and reduced our borrowings.

f The finance department restructuring is now delivering tangible financial benefits.

f Exceeded our fundraising target.

6 Raise autism awareness, acceptance and promote autism good practice

We have continued to increase our reach and raised our profile across our social media channels and through local media and wider news networks.

f Features including Enable Magazine, Charity Today, BBC Radio Merseyside, Granada (ITV) News, Women’s Radio, Liverpool Live Radio and more.

f Worked with Dobbies Garden Centres to help train their staff to run autism-friendly Christmas Grottos. The resulting press releases from Dobbies spread Autism Together’s name right

across the UK.

f A tie-in with Grand Central Rail about the joy of train travel for many autistic people brought a range of articles in media we would not normally reach.

CHAIR

Cath Ames

As detailed in our CEO’s message, 21/22 has been another year of uncertainty and challenge, still requiring much tenacity, patience and hard work.

Sue sets out how hard this time has been, and I would like to thank and commend both her and our staff for all they have done for the people we support.

In spite of the constraints, we enter this new year in a healthy and strong financial position. Our debt position has been transformed over the last 5 years due to careful and wise decision making and astute management.

We have modernised our risk management and implemented a new risk management framework, seeking to clarify this across every aspect of our organisation.

Our property strategy continues to develop. This muchneeded plan will make the most of our diverse portfolio, safeguard the enormous legacy of the past and keep our people safe and well-housed in the future.

We are now paying our front-line staff at least the Real Living Wage and it remains a Board priority that staff know how much they are valued. Without them we would not be here.

Nearly three years into our strategic plan, it has been frustrating not to move things along as we envisaged. But as you will see from this Annual Report, so much has been done and continues to be done every day.

The Autism Together vision: “A better life for autistic people”, is what drives and motivates the organisation and the Board. We know there is more to do, there always will be, and we are poised and ready for the next chapter.

It has been an honour to be Chair of this organisation and to play a small part in safeguarding it for the future.

MESSAGE FROM THE INCOMING CHAIR IAIN CADMAN

Iain has been a trustee since 2016 and is currently Chair of the Finance sub-committee.

Iain said: “It is a privilege to become the new Chair of Trustees and I will work hard to build on the successes of the last 53 years.

“Autism Together is in a very strong position and I look forward to working more closely with Sue Stubbs and the Senior Leadership Team to ensure we remain at the forefront of quality provision for the people we support.”

Developing skills

completing various different ASDAN awards.

ASDAN is a British education charity and awarding organisation which offers people the chance to develop knowledge and skills for learning, work and life - and receive a meaningful award at the end of the journey.

GRANGE ROAD WEST FOR TRAMPOLINING

The CH&W team has slowly introduced two new ASDAN awards for people to strive for – Realising Aspirations and Supporting Aspirations. Alongside this, staff have given out more than 20 Autism Together Personal Challenge Awards to the people we support.

The Swimming Trial group are working towards Rock Hopper awards again, and we are looking to reintroduce BAGA awards with the restarted Trampolining groups too.

In the community we have returned to various activities such as cycling at Birkenhead Park and Wrexham. We have

Tranmere Rovers community football session has also restarted with a great success for the people we support.

With more and more of the people we support returning to our day services over the past year, it’s been a joy to see faces old and new at Gallagher House. So many of the people we support have told us how happy they are to be back seeing their friends again and their support staff.

Recently we opened a Creative Arts service in Bromborough, within our Oak House head office. This has opened up the service to many of the people we support who live in our Residential and Supported Living houses. We are currently upgrading the outside space there to make it more comfortable for people to sit and enjoy the woodlands which adjoin the site.

Lots of new starters have joined us and they have settled in really well. Through accessing our Creative Arts & Technology

These people we support meet with staff every two months in our head office to discuss health and safety issues. Each of them has completed safety training in fire awareness, barbecues, fireworks and electricals. The group are supported to complete weekly safety checks in their Supported Living properties and have recently started work towards gaining ASDAN awards.

wing of CVS, the people we support can express themselves through painting, learn new IT skills using packages like Krita and Microsoft Office, or spend an afternoon making models and animating them in our Media department. Like Karl (pictured below) using the Krita software to create digital art.

We have recently created a new podcast, which is recorded in Gallagher House, presented by the people we support. Each week, the presenters chat and interview each other about their hobbies and interests. It strongly features discussions on the Premier League football season with our regular presenters keen to discuss their love of Liverpool and Everton football clubs. As you can imagine there are some strong opinions about that! Rob (Liverpool fan) and Adam (Everton fan) have lots of goodhumoured rivalry about which is the better team.

Another recent project saw the people we support using craft skills to create pairs of animals for our own Noah’s Ark. Meanwhile, friends Karl and Dan created a ‘feel good’ alphabet with positive and inspiring words for each letter.

Some people understandably struggled with the disruptions of Covid, lockdowns and the impact this has had on their usual routines and timetables. We have put together Positive Behaviour Support plans and visual aids to help the people we support deal with the changes that have come about. The people we support have coped really well with all the changes, thanks to lots of positive reinforcement and praise from our support teams.

Like within CH&W, many individuals across our day services are being supported to achieve ASDAN awards. These nationallyrecognised qualifications can be accomplished for a variety of life skills. Rob and Chloe were recently awarded ASDAN certificates for work ‘Towards Independence’. Chloe also celebrated the arrival of our new arrivals at Raby Gardens last year by creating an amazing alpaca artwork (pictured right)!

Well done to everyone who has achieved so much this year.

KARL AND DAN HAVE CREATED A ‘FEEL GOOD’ ALPHABET

DIGITAL ART CREATED BY KRITA

CHLOE CELEBRATES THE BABY ALPAPCA

Achievements & Highlights

RIVER PARK TEAM COMPLETE THEIR HEALTH AND SAFETY AWARDS

This year our role at Port Sunlight River Park changed, as we welcomed a new managing agent, The Conservation Volunteers, to oversee the day-to-day running of the site.

Autism Together maintains a strong presence there by continuing to run the Heritage Centre café and kiosk, while offering workplace opportunities on site for the autistic adults we support. Eight of the people we support from our team there completed five different eLearning modules, alongside a group from our Garden Centre team. These two teams have also been working hard towards John Muir awards for improvements to the areas they work in and for doing volunteering work.

The River Park team went on to make waves by winning a national award. The Dimensions Leaders List Awards are given each year for exceptional achievement by autistic people or those with learning difficulties. Last year our team reopened the kiosk service, which had closed during the pandemic, to provide hot drinks and snacks to members of the public using the park. They completed training in health and safety and food hygiene before running the successful provision, with help from support staff. The whole enterprise was a huge success and the team were worthy winners of this prestigious award, which was presented to them, via an online awards ceremony, by BBC Radio 2’s Ken Bruce.

One of the most popular activities, for the people we support, is taking our alpacas for a walk. Over the past year our alpacas have become famous as the arrival of some baby alpacas, or crias, became a feelgood local news story, with two TV crews visiting to film the animals and interview staff.

Since then, the people we support have enjoyed bonding with our alpaca family and, with the animals halter-trained, the people we support now love walking these beautiful animals around our main field and woods.

There are many benefits to spending time with and walking alpacas. These animals can help alleviate stress and anxiety, while their gentle nature helps those we support by building confidence, self-esteem and enhancing wellbeing.

WALKING OUR ALPACAS

MAKING FRIENDS

Over the past year, our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) leader, Stuart Lyons, has been hard at work updating and implementing our new PBS organisational strategy and structure. This has been developed in response to operational restrictions relating to the pandemic and staffing shortages, which sometimes created difficulties for PBS coaches to follow-up on referrals.

Plans were made, looking towards the ‘new normal’ postpandemic, to ensure our internal PBS strategy continues to be effective in meeting the needs of the people we support and their staff teams.

The PBS department has expanded this year, with Sarah Williams joining the team in a new role as PBS Practitioner, to support the growing demand for the department’s assistance.

In other news, the PBS team has been working with our training team to finalise ATM – The Autism Together Model. This is a new, bespoke, in-house training course for Autism Together staff. We have begun rolling it out to the work force, with sessions run each week. Every course is fully booked and receiving excellent feedback from the staff attending.

With so many staff having now attended the ATM course, the department has noticed a change in trends of internal PBS referrals. There has been an increase in referrals, but these are sent more proactively, before behaviours reach a crisis point, enabling earlier intervention, which is a fantastic impact of ATM.

We have now completed external assessments and quality assurance processes for the ATM course, with BILD (British Institute of Learning Disabilities). BILD reported that we met all the required standards and have referred ATM to the Government’s UKASS panel, which is the final step in full accreditation, six months earlier than planned!

PART OF THE NEW TRAINING FOR ATM, THE AUTISM TOGETHER MODEL FOR PBS

Residential and Supported Living services have seen unprecedented recruitment and retention struggles across the board this past year. But, teams continued to cover extra shifts to make sure we could deliver vital support to the people in our care. They pulled double shifts, stayed late and came in early. We are all incredibly grateful to each person who hung on after their shift should have ended, or rearranged a family event to cover the extra shift needed.

We have worked hard and continue to work hard on recruitment. Unfortunately, our Respite service remains closed at present, but we are continuing to work on how we can achieve a safe opening in future.

We are committed to once again providing this vital service to families we know are struggling without it. However, the future for our services looks bright. We have welcomed three new Registered Managers into Residential, along with a number of new House Managers and Senior Support Workers. We look forward to their contributions as they join an already brilliant, inventive and inspiring team. For the coming year, we will continue to support people to achieve the outcomes that are important to them. We are continuing to build on our resilience and solid foundations and look forward to what the future brings.

A strong staff team who are dedicated to my daughter’s care and know her well.

A PARENT

A Pandemic Poem

BY MICHELLE SEDDON, HEAD OF RESIDENTIAL SERVICES

Facemasks were a-plenty and banana bread was king, We started to rely on each other for more than just one thing!

While people worried about a germ that could not been seen or smelled, We worried about pizza and what a closing McDonald's held…

The food from kind donations – Nando's, a local pub, Does anyone want this chicken? It's in a herby rub!

While we waited in anxious anticipation for news from number 10,

Our staff teams rolled up their sleeves, donned a mask and got stuck in.

Adapting to new routines in the void that had begun, Arts and crafts, long walks and movie nights just for fun. The local community passed by our Raby grounds “We’re on a walk!” they'd say, “Don’t mind me!”, “Just passing through!”, “Lovely day!”

The public locked down in houses, Our heroic care workers out in droves,

To cover an extra shift, shop for essentials, Or support a Facetime call. They became people’s everything, And far surpassed the challenge, Supporting and understanding Became their super power.

With letters printed out, in case a police-stop came their way, They travelled on into work, day after day. Supporting others’ loved ones, while they worried for their own, This was more than just a job, It was a calling and a way to carry on.

Office staff covered all angles, dropping off supplies, Co-ordinating where they could, Calling to offer support, and making sure all was good. Our SLT donned PPE, kind eyes above a mask, They helped us cover shifts and show that AT is here to last.

We faced it all together, we all worked as one, And in the face of chaos, we created our own calm. To my wonderful management group, your dedication has been unmatched, Your humour, your resilience – you’ve truly been a class act!

I know at night you worried, but in the day you got things done, With determination to make it through And be there for everyone.

The tears and the tantrums, the joy and the relief, This pandemic has brought it all It's time to take some time to breathe.

We made the tough decisions, we risk assessed, we shared, We didn't have all the answers but we had a team who cared…

A team who’d back us 100% and make sure we were heard. We protected those most vulnerable

We worked together safely, In the face of dodgy PPE, political scandal, And guidance changing daily!

Through the chaos and confusion, and many things I'll forget

There was one overriding feeling, Things will get better yet...

To all you lovely helpful people, I thank you from the bottom of my pumps, The pandemic brought us chaos…

But you lot came up trumps!

Supporting autistic people

Staff [are] taking an interest in their likes and interests such as walking in the woods, bird spotting and music choices. Contributing to their overall development – thank you!

FROM A PARENT

Many of our services have seen changes this past year, in terms of both staffing and locations. Our Performing Arts team said goodbye to Price's Sports & Social Club which, after almost 10 years, was handed back to Riverside Housing.

As a department they are now looking to the future and getting back to a post-pandemic normality. This includes the introduction of new spaces and groups, while reintroducing some community-based groups, such as our Community Dance group.

Along with seeing some familiar faces return to our groups and activities, we have also welcomed a number of new people we support to CVS, and this has been a real success with all the new individuals settling in really quickly and fully integrating into the sessions.

This is testament to the outstanding hard work and professionalism of our teams, who have excelled throughout a difficult and turbulent 12 months.

Performing Arts also saw recent changes to the people we support and staff teams based in the old St Matthew’s church, including welcoming a new Activity Leader, Chris Mitchell. Unfortunately, the team had to put some of our popular sessions on hold, including the Beathovens' weekly jamming session. While some members of the group have moved on or chosen to leave day services, we also saw the very sad passing of band member Vince. He was instrumental in the success of the band through his unbelievable talent as a drummer. Vince will be sadly missed by us all.

Like with all CVS groups, Performing Arts has had to adopt a more flexible approach and try to offer a wider variety of sessions. We have managed to give the people we support a change in timetable, in order to offer more variety in their working week. This has been a huge success and ensured that they continue to receive a personcentred and autism-specific service.

So, after a turbulent 12

Meet William

William is a new admission to Community Health & Wellbeing, arriving last year during the pandemic. Within a year he has gone from strength to strength. He came initially for 3 days a week, then progressed to the full 5 days and his staff team could not be happier with him. William has also been able to access the community and gain enough confidence to go on an all-day group. He has visited the River Park where he loved going for a long walk with staff and has been attending trampolining. Our staff’s hard work has gone a long way to helping him achieve these goals. Great work all round!

WILLIAM

The CVS group in Giles Shirley Hall has continued to grow both in size and in the sheer number of activities we have been able to offer. Staff realised that, due to a still somewhat-restricted timetable for most of the people we support, it was important to think outside the box and introduce some ‘non-performing arts’ type sessions. These have included groups for local walks and enjoying indoor bowling.

Alongside this, one of our activity leaders identified the need for the creation of a new band of people we support. All involved were very keen to form a musical group, playing the instruments themselves and covering their favourite songs, plus some originals of their own. From here 'The Donkey Heads' were formed!

However, like many rock and roll bands, their careers were initially put on hold due to the pandemic, as a number of the members moved from day services or had changes to their timetables, while new members joined the group throughout the year. The band have been enjoying practising and performing together this past 12 months. We wish the The Donkey Heads all the best and look forward to hearing more from them soon.

months, a new venue to replace Price's is in the pipeline, and we are close to reintroducing more community groups. We have seen new people we support access our services with great success, while good staff have moved on and others taken their place.

Over at Raby, our CVS teams have got community groups back up and running, with social activities and events taking place ranging from day trips to Chester Zoo, walks and hikes to the likes of Moel Famau, visiting our narrowboat, swimming sessions, and cycling in Wrexham.

At Raby Kitchen Gardens, we organise social activities and events for people to enjoy, whilst befriending others and enjoying refreshments together in an environment people feel comfortable in and enjoy. Throughout the year we celebrated big events with themed fun at Christmas, Halloween and for the Queen’s Jubilee, where everyone came together to enjoy food and dancing at a big outdoor party.

Our Residential and Supported Living services helped the people in their care through the challenges of the past year, by tackling them head on. Of course, our staff teams have adapted and adapted again, making sure the people we support knew what was happening and why. Staff have been amazing in reinventing routines and reintroducing activities, delicately supporting individuals to access muchloved community settings, shops, eateries and groups once again.

One important thing has been to support people to reach the outcomes they most wanted to achieve. That meant getting back to the pub, back to holiday planning, back to seeing much-missed friends and family. Seeing people out and about, enjoying their local communities once again, has been a real highlight of recent months.

Other individuals were supported to take part in snooker and darts tournaments, join local football teams and simple pleasures like enjoying picnics in the sunshine.

Also during the past year or so, there has been a 'blooming boom' with the people we support. It has been great to see

so many individuals gaining an interest in gardening which has provided meaningful activity and fresh air, lots of homegrown produce, and created tidy and attractive outdoor spaces for people to relax in at home during the nice weather.

Supported Living has seen three more successful moves during the past year. We are always happy

Raby Woodland

Everyone has been as productive as possible this past 12 months in The Woodland. We have continued ma king items to order, including bespoke strawberry planters and products for Brimstage Brewery.

Some of the parents of people we support have been purchasing log animals from us too.

Many of our items were sold by the Fundraising Team at Woodside Market events, all helping raise money to plough back into creating even more products in future.

to accommodate the changing needs of people we support as soon as new places become available.

Rachel (pictured left) finally got her wish to move and is really happy and settled with her new housemate. Meanwhile, Imogen has moved into a single storey property to meet her mobility needs, while Hannah is making new friends at Woodchurch Swimming Club.

baked treats out in the open, with us trying to make them as healthy as possible. Friday is usually our day for creating a delicious, warming pot of soup.

At Christmas, our grotto was a huge success, bigger and better than last year! Everyone received a present from Father Christmas and his elves, while we used a rather cool snow machine to really bring the whole Winter Wonderland experience to life.

PEOPLE WE SUPPORT HAVE BEEN MAKING LOG ANIMALS

All information posts around the Woodland area have been replaced. New handmade posts with a colour-coded band now mark the pathways and bird feeders.

Over the past year we've enjoyed cooking up a range of culinary delights. We are upgrading the firepit to make it more accessible for staff and people we support. The pizza oven has allowed us to enjoy various

Throughout the year we have been working hard on creating a bird hide and workshop. This is a work in progress and should be completed in the coming year. We have named this area The Crooked Oak, after the snaking oak tree there. We have installed a great new sign here too.

The ‘Eco Village’ is our new addition to the Woodland.

Storage areas have been built here to organise all materials which would otherwise be thrown away. These materials can be re-used to keep costs and waste to a minimum. New compost bays have been put in to utilise our waste.

And you cannot miss the new new Raby Gardens signage which has been installed at the entrance, which has really improved the look of the place as you come in and made it feel very welcoming.

WE CREATE DELICIOUS TREATS IN OUR PIZZA OVEN

Exciting police visit

The people we support were thrilled to get a friendly visit from Merseyside Police's Armed Response Unit, who met up with our budding police officers, AJ and Harry. The police team were fantastic and allowed everyone to sit in the car, switch on the sirens and see all of their equipment.

Supporting staff and families

As we continue to come out of the pandemic period, we have started to see a more settled picture with regards to staffing, after another challenging year.

The legislation requiring compulsory vaccination of all staff working in the care services caused significant disruption, with a number of staff leaving rather than being vaccinated.

This became a requirement in our Residential service in November 2021 and was due to take effect in Supported Living and CVS services in March 2022, until a last minute U-turn on this strategy was made by the government.

We also undertook a review of terms and conditions for most of our direct care staff. This has brought us into line with other care providers and allowed us to advertise at a higher hourly rate of pay, which has made Autism Together more competitive when it comes to recruitment.

Despite the many staffing difficulties seen nationally across the care sector, we are, thanks to the dedication and hard work of the HR team, starting to see an improvement in our staffing situation.

Our Staffing team has also worked tirelessly throughout the year, in order to ensure our services continue to have safe staff levels, despite lower staff numbers overall and often high Covid absence rates.

We have focused on the welfare of our staff throughout and have introduced a number of opportunities for staff to seek support, both internally and externally. We have been able to financially support our staff though their Covid-related absences, through grants available from the local authorities.

Very importantly, one of the ways we have been able to thank our staff has been through significant one-off bonus payments for the incredible support and care they have shown through such unprecedented times.

Our Children & Family Service took over the running of our adult socialising and friendship group in the past year. Staff are particularly proud of how the membership of the Connected group has grown over the year when it was able to restart after the last lockdown period.

This group enables autistic adults aged 18+ to come

together with like-minded individuals to share common interests, make friends, socialise and have fun.

The group is split into 2 age groups 18-30s and 30+. The membership of the younger group is especially high.

The groups decide themselves what activities they would like to do and have accessed community venues and activities including bowling, Laser Quest, cinema, crazy golf, escape rooms, walks, pub nights, meals out, and more.

The younger group has also formed its own Discord chat group to enable them to stay in touch online regularly between meet ups.

In August 2021 we held our first Family Fun Day at our Raby Gardens site. This was a great day for many of the children and young people we support to enjoy various activities, spend a day with us, and bring parents and siblings along too.

Everyone loved meeting our alpacas, goats, pigs and bunnies, while enjoying lots of sensory and creative activities. We had tremendous support on the day from across Autism Together with CVS, ATAS, Marketing and Fundraising all involved. We also enjoyed fantastic support from community partners and volunteers, including our loyal supporters the Bearded Villains. The feedback we received was excellent and we hope it may be possible to turn it into an annual event.

One of our support services that often goes unsung, but is vitally important to the running of our entire organisation, is the IT team. As with all departments, during the past pandemic-hit year, the IT team oversaw a number of innovations and updates to help make life easier for care managers and central office staff.

These included important moves towards a paperless office, such as the setting up of a digital signature system to enable the issue of paperless staff contracts.

Perhaps of most interest is the work IT has been doing in the background around future improvements to IT and telecoms systems. Much planning has been done for a new ‘wide area network’, meaning all sites will have access to our cloud-based central systems.

Meeting our values

Our social calendars are once again filling up, thanks to the return of the Meeting Together Forum. This group, made up of people we support, which meets regularly with staff to discuss issues and share ideas, is 11 years old in 2022. A party is being planned to belatedly celebrate their decaversary, one year late, post-pandemic.

One of the jobs for the Forum is to plan the monthly discos at Giles Shirley Hall. These have made a welcome return, attracting many new faces and regular attendees to come along, enjoy some food and drink and have a boogie! It really is lovely to see people enjoying themselves together again.

Another exciting innovation this year came with the visit of a Pets As Therapy dog to see some of the people we support. Louis is a very friendly dog who visited several of our services, bringing joy wherever he has been. Not only has Louis visited people who love dogs, he’s also been helping those who are not such big canine fans and have been worried about dogs.

and were pleased to have seen so many mini projects taking shape, transforming outside spaces and people working together to produce some lovely results. The Courtyard, Manor Place, The Greens and Giles Shirley Hall were just some of the places to get a garden refresh.

Seeing people working on these areas and the resulting sense of pride has been wonderful. We have also seen some much-needed work completed inside Giles Shirley Hall, providing new bathrooms and flooring throughout.

A recent innovation has been the trialling of a system allowing our staff to access documentation relating to positive behaviour support (PBS) for the people in their care.

Staff members have a direct link to the PBS information they need to see and must tick to say they have read this. Management can then pick this up in supervisions. One staff member said:

“It makes looking at paper work a lot easier.” Kevin Mulligan, manager of our Community Health & Wellbeing team, said: “It has been great to use and record the evidence of the staff team reading any documentation.”

MEMBERS OF THE MEETING TOGETHER FORUM

The people we support have enjoyed some really positive experiences, which has been brilliant to be a part of. We look forward to seeing Louis and maybe some other pets, next year.

Over the past year we have seen several successful grants won to transform some of our larger garden areas. We’re looking forward to seeing the finished projects in the coming months.

During lockdown we really saw the benefit of outside spaces,

Georgie was a new joiner to our Raby CVS service this year. After struggling through the pandemic period, Georgie was unable to attend school any more, so joined us. He now attends three days a week and enjoys a variety of activities such as swimming, bike riding, craft work, horticulture and animals. He has an amazing, cheeky and bubbly personality, and fits in really well.

Franky started to attend CVS this past year too. He ended up attending Raby CVS for 3 days of the week, as our staff worked hard to get to know Franky, his personality, and how to work well with him. He now takes part in regular activities and enjoys feeding the pigs. He has a nice quiet area to relax in, with lots of sensory equipment to interact with. He has settled in brilliantly and really enjoys his time at CVS.

Community engagement

Throughout the year, so many of our supporters have been very generous with donations, both in terms of money and items for our services. One successful example of this was through our Amazon Wishlist. In fact, since the start of the pandemic, we have received around £10,000 worth of items.

The items donated have been requested by staff and people we support across our services, from Supported Living to CVS. The team over at Raby Gardens is one area that has benefited and the team had this to say to all who had been so generous:

"A huge thank you to everyone who made a purchase from the wishlist. You have no idea how much your help means. Your fundraising and donations are also hugely appreciated.

"We have received donations this year which have allowed us to purchase a new tractor, lawn mowers, drills, strimmers and many other items. Thank you for your acts of kindness, which are so important and so appreciated."

The Gardens team also received vital donations from the Liverpool charity Calder Kids. They unfortunately were having to close their programme, but Nicky Johnston, a parent of one of the people we support, was Chair of the charity and got in touch to see if we would like any of their equipment.

A WISHLIST DONATION

Awareness Month online once again. To lead April’s festivities, they created a new event – Get Active For Autism!

The idea was to challenge our supporters to walk, run, swim or cycle 53 miles during the month, while raising at least £53. We chose 53 because in 2021 it was our charity’s 53rd birthday. The best part was, people could do this all over the UK, at a time that suited them, or even in their own homes if the weather wasn’t too good. The event was a hit and we raised £11,000!

April also saw work start on the Sensory Garden at Raby, having reached our £50,000 target to build it. This much loved, and continuously used space – with its trampolines, chill-out areas and sensory zones – has brought a great deal of joy to the people we support and staff alike. Everyone has agreed that the sensory garden has been a huge success, especially during lockdown.

Over the year, the team has built ties and worked closely with many large businesses including M&S Bank, BDO, Dobbies and The Trafford Centre. We partnered with national garden centre chain Dobbies to help them develop autism-friendly quiet grottos. We later worked with The Trafford Centre to revise their hidden disability guide to visiting the shopping centre.

We ended up receiving lots of sensory items, soft play and craft items, furniture and more. After receiving these, Nicky got back in touch and donated a large sum of money too, which helped us purchase our new tractor, new tools, wood to build new flower beds, alpaca sheds and goat houses too. Huge thanks to all at Calder Kids for their support.

This past year was a bumper one for Fundraising as they smashed their targets, reaching 138% of their yearly goal. Congratulations to the team for doing fantastic work in difficult economic conditions.

The year kicked off with a huge highlight as Fundraising worked with the Communications team to take Autism

Part of the Fundraising team’s remit is to secure funding for various projects and services undertaken throughout the organisation. One such was to allow our Autism Training and Advisory Service to provide vital Autism Advice Sessions to adults, children and families. With statutory agencies struggling with capacity, these sessions are a lifeline to autistic people.

We were also successful in securing over £23k from M&S Bank, to transform five of the gardens of our properties. The money was used to purchase garden furniture, in-ground trampolines, summer houses, greenhouses and sensory equipment.

Volunteers from M&S Bank have agreed to visit us during the next financial year to get hands on and help with sprucing up gardens, painting fences, sheds and more.

The Fundraising team’s job is not just to ask people for money, they also look for offers that our supporters may be interested in. One such is our “Free Wills” scheme. Basically this allows our supporters, staff and families of the people we support to access will-writing services, free of charge

This is particularly useful for parents, who wish to set up Trusts for their loved ones. There is an option at the end of the process to make an equivalent donation to our charity of the money they would have spent in creating their will.

In terms of events, the pandemic understandably prohibited our ability to get out into the community,

Gannett Foundation Donation

Thanks to a donation of over £5,000 from the Gannett Foundation, through the support of Wirral Globe readers, we have provided free autism advice sessions to 52 people in the first half of 2022, with many more booked for the rest of the year.

Of the sessions so far, 10 were with young autistic adults who have been referred to join our Connected club. Connected is a social group we run in Wirral to help young autistic adults avoid social and emotional isolation.

Our autism advice sessions are available to people on the autism spectrum, their family and carers. We offer these in person at our head office in Bromborough, or online if that suits people better. These sessions have different uses and outcomes, depending on the individuals involved, including:

• Coming to terms with an autism diagnosis and what this means for the individual, leading them in selfacceptance.

• Recognising their significant sensory sensitivities and putting in coping strategies through discussion.

• Allowing the place, time and expertise for someone to

however we still held a Christmas Market, over two weekends, at Woodside Ferry Village in Birkenhead.

We also took part in the Christmas Tree Festival at St Barnabus' Church in Bromborough, decorating and entering a themed Autism Together tree which helped spread a message of autism acceptance and awareness by providing information on our charity and its services.

The local community then visited and voted for their favourite trees. Our tree actually came second in the voting, as we were just pipped for top spot by Oval Ski Club with

disclose, reflect and build trust. Many of the people we talk to have experienced trauma.

• Recognising strengths and building confidence.

• People have gone on to find jobs they are interested in, and we support them in the workplace through suggesting autism-specific reasonable adjustments.

"I love it, it's my lifeline. I love everything about it - I love the people, I love the staff. I could never thank the staff enough for caring for me." Laura, who has advice sessions with our ATAS team

Financial review

With the exception of the actuarial assessed costs, the strategies put in place to improve the financial health of the organisation continue to pay dividends, resulting in net income for the year of £701k (2021: net income of £881k) after actuarial assessed additional costs relating to the defined benefit pension scheme of £691k (2021: £492).

INCOME

Income increased 3.5% compared to last year from £23,678k to £24,517k.

Income in all major service areas has improved with the exception of Community and Vocational Services (CVS). CVS has been significantly affected by Covid-19 and there has been a reduction in the numbers attending compared to pre-pandemic. Costs have also fallen in CVS to compensate the drop in income.

EXPENDITURE

Expenditure has increased by 4.5% from £22,797k to £23,816k in the year, largely reflecting the increased overall income, but also that significant pay increases were given to frontline staff in the year and a loyalty bonus was paid to retain staff.

Some of these additional costs were covered by Covid related grants, but not all. In addition, there was an increase in the actuarially assessed cost for the defined benefit pension scheme of £691k (2021: £492k). Payroll costs still represent over 82% of our income and have increased 4% against last year.

Other costs have increased by 7% from £3,442k to £3,692k which reflect the increasing levels of activity during this year of the pandemic.

CAPITAL EXPENDITURE

This year we spent £188k (2021: £470k) on property improvements and equipment. Capital expenditure remained low in the year, reflecting the pandemic impact.

CASH FLOW

An overview of the cash movements during the year are given in the statement on page 24. After adjusting for non-cash items, such as movements on the pension deficit and depreciation, operations during the year generated positive cash flow of £2,143k (2021: £1,627k).

The other contributors to cash outflow in the year has been investment in property and facilities of £188k (2021: 470k) and net cash used in financing activities of £830k (2021: net cash used of £618k) reflecting the repayment of loans.

FUTURE ISSUES

With the support of several local authorities, led by Wirral, we have been able to significantly increase the pay of our support staff now paying the Real Living Wage as a minimum. We had previously aligned to the National Minimum Wage.

In order to continue to support this, in addition to the significant increase in inflation and in particular energy costs, we need our local authority funders to reflect this in their fee uplifts in the future and will negotiate hard to achieve this.

In addition, staffing shortages have meant that we have not been able to expand CVS services, or fill voids in Residential or Supported Living, nor maximise our Respite facility even though we know the demand is there.

We continue to explore different recruitment and retention initiatives including recruiting internationally and conducting a staff engagement survey in 2022/23.

SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM, TRUSTEES & PATRONS

SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Sue Stubbs

QUALITY & SUPPORT DIRECTOR

Jane Carolan

HR DIRECTOR

Jim Strain

Angie Kemp

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

FINANCE DIRECTOR

Louise Parnell

COMPANY SECRETARY

Louise Parnell

TRUSTEES

CHAIR Catherine Ames

VICE CHAIR Edward Behan

INCOMING CHAIR Iain Cadman

Carole Battersby

John Callcott

Tony Cragg

David Evans

Nuala Kennedy

Kate O'Dempsey

Christopher Smart

Jayne Unalkat

PATRONS

Mrs Trish Chapman

Dr John Kennedy CBE, KSG, KMCO, DL