Autism Spectrum Consultant

About us

Untapped's mission is to build high-performing teams from groups of highly skilled individuals. We are passionate about identifying commercially compelling opportunities in organisations for neurodiverse teams and uncovering extraordinary individuals to form those teams.

The identification of this untapped talent will be achieved via a growing neurodiversity hub community of practice and other partnerships and, in conjunction with world-leading partners, by applying cutting-edge testing and assessment techniques. The sustainability of these programmes will be supported by world-leading training and support, underpinned by an on-line / mobile suite of training and support tools.

We are a network of autism professionals, recruiters, software developers, training providers, researchers and workplace consultants, all passionate about neurodiversity inclusion.

An ASC fosters and supports the client/employer relationship and drives for a socially inclusive workplace culture.

Key Responsibilities

As an ASC you will:

• provide direct on-site person-centred support to individuals on the autism spectrum
• provide mentoring and advocacy to empower individuals to achieve their employment goals
• provide support to technical staff and trainers to understand the needs and working methods of the autistic employees
• work alongside technical staff and trainers to ensure individuals are supported to succeed in the workplace
• implement strategies for reaching work and life goals through the learning curriculum
• assist with developing training as needs arise
• provide training and ongoing coaching promoting the inclusion of neurodivergent individuals within organisations
• develop good working relationships with stakeholders across a range of diversified groups: customer, program executives and community groups
• continue to contribute to successful outcomes for the employees through helping to shape and innovate the tools, methods, processes, and learning used within the program
• facilitate connections to other supports if and as necessary i.e. support workers, dieticians, mentors, and health professionals
• deliver autism awareness training to employers, managers, executives, and co-workers through a combination of face-to-face or virtual sessions
• run virtual or face to face workshops for assessment of suitable candidates to open roles
• help team members to recognise stress and anxiety and to adopt strategies to minimise the impact

This opportunity will appeal to an enthusiastic autism employment professional with multi-faceted skills and passion to manage relationships that assist individuals on the autism spectrum to succeed in employment.

Desirable Skills, Experience, and Qualifications

• Tertiary qualifications in a relevant human sciences discipline or equivalent life/career experience
• Strength based approach in supporting autistic individuals in the workplace
• Experience in person centred planning and approaches
• Experience in identifying, developing, and delivering training
• Competence in Microsoft Office applications. Proactive attitude to working in a more complex IT environment
• Strong teamwork focus
• Demonstrated highly effective interpersonal communication skills
• Proven ability to work collaboratively, and to build effective relationships at all levels with internal and external stakeholders

Highly Regarded

• Professional experience in the field of autism
• Experience in working with neurodivergent adults
• Experience with workplace coaching of autistic individuals
• A qualification in Training & Assessment

Special Conditions

• Current open driver's license
• Travel to other sites may occasionaly be required
• May be required to use own vehicle for work purposes

Culture & Benefits

Salary £22,500 per annum for a 20 hour week.

Untapped is an inspiring place to work with supportive, hardworking, and passionate colleagues and leaders who value your contribution and share your commitment to make more accessible and inclusive employment for neurodivergent individuals.

Your work will be both challenging and rewarding and you will find scope for personal as well as professional development.

The Autism Spectrum Consultant (ASC) Role - In Detail

An autism employment programme can produce valuable results for people on the spectrum and organisations seeking to discover new talent. Critically, the key outcome for an Autism@Work or autism employment programme is sustainability of the programme and employment. To achieve this, two key requirements must be met:

• For trainees in the programme, they need to acquire workplace and technical skills while navigating non-autistic workplace conventions.
• Employers engage in learning about, and providing, workplace adjustments for the trainees on the autism spectrum to enable them to work effectively and deliver high quality work outcomes.

Satisfying both of these requirements requires specialist knowledge and experience. Untapped recognise that much of the success we have achieved delivering sustainable autism employment programmes can be attributed to the role performed by an Autism Spectrum Consultant (ASC).

The ASC role bridges the autism world and corporate world for autistic and non-autistic employees. This is particularly true in the early stages of a new programme or when onboarding a cohort of new autistic employees. The primary functions of an ASC are:

1. Supporting autistic trainees for their autism needs
2. Enabling expected outcomes from a pre-developed curriculum of activities designed to equip autistic trainees with soft skills to navigate the workplace and make sense of the steps needed to develop and sustain a long-term career
3. Autism consultative service for the organisation operating the employment programme or employing autistic employees
4. Working with the employer to embed autism employment practises to enable ongoing success in hiring, training and retaining autistic talent for enduring business benefit
5. Mental health management. People on the autism spectrum have a higher incidence of covariant conditions than non-autistic people. These include conditions such as:
6. Anxiety
7. Depression
8. Dyslexia
9. Dyspraxia
10. ADHD and ADD
11. PTSD

These conditions often lead to an increase in mental health challenges. An ASC can recognise, provide support and refer individuals to further specialist help as required.

Trainee Autism Support

As well as helping a trainee through a curriculum of learning, the ASC provides more general autism support. This includes working with individuals to understand their learning and work preferences and sensory sensitivities and developing and implementing strategies to overcome any difficulties that impact on work performance.

Team Support

ASCs form part of the support team in an Untapped employment programme. Technical support is provided by technical leads who train and develop the trainees' technical skills. These leads can be Untapped resources or a customer resource who has been allocated sufficient time to fulfil this important role.

The ASC will train and work collaboratively with the Technical Lead to ensure that trainees are receiving appropriate support and individualised technical training and mentoring from the lead and other organisational staff.

HR Support

The ASC will advise HR and Diversity and Inclusion teams about how to understand the needs of autistic people in terms of recruitment processes. The intention is to help the organisation move towards more standardised autism-friendly hiring practices.

In the event of a dispute between an autistic employee and a colleague or manager, the ASC will help with the dispute resolution to achieve an appropriate outcome. If these instances arise, the ASC works as an intermediary with HR and the individual.

Training

The ASC is central in providing soft skills training to autistic employees to help them navigate the workplace requirements and also understanding what is expected of them from their managers or supervisors. This is known as the 'Hidden Curriculum'.

As an integrated part of the curriculum training that the ASC facilitates, Untapped provides access to the 'Be Your Best' life skills training suite. This training has been developed as a number of short courses by Untapped's team of neurodiverse writers, editors and artists to help other neurodiverse people make sense of the Hidden Curriculum and acquire other important life skills. More information can be found at: https://www.beyourbest.academy

The ASC will also provide specific training to managers of autistic employees to help them understand an individual's needs and workplace accommodations as well as how to communicate effectively with a person who may not be accomplished at social connection.

General autism awareness training to groups of employees across the organisation is also provided by an ASC to ensure that there is a general understanding of autism and acceptance of inclusion in the organisation. This is provided as a complementary activity to the Uptimize training suite resources.

Collective Expertise

Untapped employ a number of ASCs responsible for autism support across our customers. This collective body of expertise is available for an Untapped ASC to draw upon to resolve situations that may arise.

Through this body of expertise, we also have access to psychologists and academic researchers specialising in autism.

An ASC's Background

ASCs are recruited from a variety of backgrounds, but all possess an understanding of autism and the practical application and development of strategies for support and individual development.

The Untapped ASC panel reviews potential ASC candidates and selects people based upon the right balance of knowledge, experience, attitude and passion for delivering outcomes for autistic individuals and employer organisations.

Ongoing Program Development

The programme and curriculum for the employment and development of individuals continuously iterates. ASCs contribute learnings, new concepts and other areas of innovation into the iterative development process and work towards the definition of best practise.

Autism Community

The autism community is very important in supporting individuals in employment programmes through various methods. The community is represented by peak bodies, specialist support groups, education and family members. ASCs integrate and communicate with the community helping to support better outcomes for autistic employees.

They also support and manage recognition and celebration of autism events that are very important to the autism community and help to link employers with the autism community.

Job Type: Part-time

Pay: From £22,500.00 per year

Expected hours: 20 per week

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Erskine: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)

Experience:

• providing support to autistic adults: 2 years (required)

Licence/Certification:

• Driving Licence (preferred)

Work Location: In person

Application deadline: 30/09/2025
Reference ID: UTS-ASC04
Expected start date: 01/11/2025

#J-18808-Ljbffr

---