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In Ireland more people have Autism than 15 years ago
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More people want a service for Autism.
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But in that time services have not been given more staff.
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Families are getting less support than they used to get.
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Health Service Executive (HSE) started a programme for changing disability services.
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The programme will swap specialist teams for a general teams.
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Services are already changing but there is still a long way to go.
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North Lee ASD Cope Foundation is one of the specialist teams that is still going.
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North Lee ASD did a study on their services to find out a few things:
- What parents think of their services?
- Are parents happy with the services?
- What are the levels of need in the services?
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To get the answers to these questions North Lee ASD wrote a questionnaire.
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This questionnaire was given to 565 families who has been with North Lee ASD for a year or more.
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140 of these families returned their questionnaires.
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After reading over the questionnaires North Lee ASD wrote a report.
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Some of the conclusions in the report include:
- Parents are happy with staff.
- Parents are happy with quality of interventions.
- Parents are happy with quality of communication.
- Parents are happy with person-centred practices.
- Parents are happy with how near to their home the services are.
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- Parents are unhappy with waiting time for appointments.
- Parents are unhappy with waiting time for reports.
- Parents are unhappy with telephone response time.
- Parents of secondary school children are happier than other parents.
- Parents of children with a higher level of need are unhappier than other parents.
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In North Lee ASD’s report they suggest changes based on the results:
- Shorter waiting times.
- More intervention.
- More timely written material.
- More timely telephone responses.
- More clinical and administrative staff.
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