About · our approach
How we work.
Every program and every support we provide follows the same approach, at every stage of life. We call it the Unified Social Model of Care. This page describes what that actually means.
What we believe
We believe most of what stops an autistic person getting what they want is not opportunity, it is being understood.
Most providers believe that what an autistic person needs is more of whatever they are missing. If friendships aren't happening, more social opportunity. If a change is hard, extra hours to get through it. If there's no job, a job at the end of it. Each gap gets its own service, and each service supplies more of the thing that is absent. It's an intuitive approach, because it matches the solution directly to the gap, and it's how most support is planned, funded and delivered.
In reality, the opportunity is already there and it isn’t converting. A child is around other children for six hours a day, five days a week, and it isn’t turning into a get-together on a Saturday. A family moving a young person into secondary school usually has a transition team attached to it already, and the young person is still walking in on day one not knowing anyone or how to ask. A school leaver is applying for jobs and hearing nothing back. In each case the thing that decides whether it converts is whether two people understood each other, and that is the part nobody is working on. A transition team can’t prepare a young person for what they’re actually worried about unless somebody finds out what that is. A careers adviser can’t guide a choice without knowing what the person values about work. Somebody with the drive and the ability to do a job well gets read as intense, critical or difficult, and loses the role over how the work was communicated rather than whether it was good. Adding more of what already isn’t working won’t change any of it.
That’s why we designed our approach around the three things that matter across a whole life. Making and keeping friends. Handling the big changes. Finding work worth doing. A family joins the program that matches their stage of life, and we work out which of those three matters most for that person right now and how much of each. When they are ready for the next stage, they move into the next program with us. The three focus areas continue and the people around them stay the same, so their care carries forward instead of starting again.
What we hold
Communication changes what things cost. It doesn't change who someone is.
Autism involves two things: differences in social communication, and a pattern of routines, repetitive behaviours and strongly focused interests. Both are real, and both shape a person's life.
We work on the first, and we are clear about what that does and doesn't do. Building social communication skills won't remove a routine, an interest, or a need for things to be a certain way, and we will never suggest it should. What it changes is what those things cost the person.
An example
Someone keeps the pencils on their desk lined up in a particular order. That order matters to them, and it isn't going to stop mattering. A colleague borrows one and puts it back in the wrong place, without thinking anything of it.
The moment boils over, and the colleague walks away feeling accused of doing it on purpose. Neither of them understands what just happened. When that pattern repeats, it costs a friendship, or a job.
The person can stop, settle, recognise that the colleague didn't know, and say clearly what they need: "I keep those in order. Could you put it back where it was next time?"
The pencils are exactly the same, and so is the need behind them. What changes is what it costs that person, at work, in a friendship, and over years.
Underneath that sits an understanding of yourself and of other people, a sense of how a response affects a relationship, and the skills to hold it together. That is what we teach.
This is a clinical position we hold, not a research finding, and we say which is which.
Three focus areas
Three focus areas, one set of skills underneath.
The focus areas are how we describe the work. They are not three separate theories of what helps. Each one runs on the same thing: being able to understand people, and be understood by them.
Making and keeping friends
Friends, and a social life that exists without us.
The skills that make friendship possible where the motivation is already there.
Making and keeping friends →Getting through the big changes
A major change that goes well.
Saying what you need, being understood by the people whose job it is to help, and enough security to choose what you actually want.
Getting through the big changes →Finding work worth doing
Work you chose and can keep.
Communicating what you value, receiving guidance, and managing the social demands of a workplace.
Finding work worth doing →The four steps
The same sequence, for every support, at every stage.
Assess
Functional assessment establishes what is actually happening, across all three focus areas.
About assessments →Apply a structured tool
Matched to the person and the stage, not to a catalogue.
Generalise
The skill moves into the person’s real settings, or it has not been learned.
Review and measure
At the close of each tool period. Where are we now, what next.
Over time
We are working towards not being needed.
Every goal has a handover point. The fishing club that knows them. The gaming group that saves them a seat. The university disability service that already understands how they work. When that point is reached, we stop working on that goal and either move to the next one or finish.
Each tool has an end point and a handover. The membership does not. A person who remains a member across years while tools come and go is not a stalled case. They are exactly what the model is for.
Programs by stage of life
Every few years the rules change, and nobody announces it.
Kinder play becomes primary school friendship. Primary school friendship becomes high school social life. High school becomes adulthood, where the peer group no longer arrives by default. Each time, the skills that worked last time stop being enough, and nobody teaches the new ones. We do.
When they are ready for the next stage, they move into the next program with us. The three focus areas continue and the people around them stay the same, so their care carries forward instead of starting again.
Shared, sustained play with other children.
Before school → Primary schoolFriendships they can keep.
Primary school → Secondary schoolA social life outside school hours and a clear direction for what comes after school.
Secondary school → School leaversSocial contact and a direction of their own.
School leavers → AdultsRegular social contact they choose for themselves.
Adults →Straight answers
Where the approach applies, and when we step back.
The question we ask
Not whether a difficulty is social in origin, but whether the way through it runs through communication. A workplace difficulty with organisation isn't a social problem. Securing the adjustment that addresses it is. A sensory need that stops someone joining a group isn't a social problem. Communicating it well enough to have it accommodated is.
No diagnosis rules anyone out
Intellectual disability, anxiety and mental health conditions are common among the people we work with, and none of them is a reason to decline someone. What changes is the pace and the way we teach. What matters is a gap in the skills we work on, and a willingness to grow.
When something else comes first
If another issue needs to be the main focus, we step back from social skills work, even if we think we could deliver a result, and let the right provider lead. We can stay involved in other ways, including coordinating between the family, the school and the treating team. We come back to it when the person wants to, the treating provider agrees it is safe, and we believe the result can genuinely be delivered.
Take the first step
Let's talk about what's happening.
Request a call back and one of our team will ring you at a time that suits. It takes about fifteen minutes, it's free, and you don't need anything worked out before we speak.