Have you been on the SWAN Post Diagnosis course in the past year?
Would you like to help make sure the evaluation of the Autistic Adult Support Fund across Scotland is done right, with autistic people at the centre?
Our funders (Inspiring Scotland and Scottish Government) have commissioned an evaluation of the Autistic Adult Support Fund, which funds post diagnosis support projects run by SWAN and the 15 other organisations across Scotland.
The evaluation will help demonstrate how valuable and vital this support is, and hopefully help lead to further funding in future.
The evaluation is being carried out by experienced autistic researcher Sinead Assenti - we have worked with Sinead at SWAN in the past and she is kind, supportive and generally fantastic, so we trust this work is in really safe hands.
In order to make sure she gets this evaluation right, Sinead is looking for a small group of people to help shape the evaluation and make sure it's been done by and for autistic people. This will involve reading the survey questions before they go out, and then helping check the report when it is complete.
Interested in finding out more?
Sinead has sent us full details of what will be involved:
As part of the approach I am pulling together a panel of 6 people from across Scotland, who have accessed or are accessing Post Diagnosis Support. They will be required to complete 2 tasks as detailed below, each task will be remunerated with £75 which can be given as a shopping voucher or BACS payment:
Task 1 – inputting to the draft questionnaire and topic guide which will be used for an online survey and depth interviews with project beneficiaries. I will be designing the questionnaire and topic guide and would want them to look at the documents to make sure that the questions are easy to understand, that the order the questions are asked in is right, that the questions asked are not triggering or upsetting etc etc. This task will take 2-3 hours and they will have a week to complete it. Timings haven’t been confirmed yet but this input is likely to be needed around the last week in October or first week in November.
Task 2 – reading the draft report I compile at the end of the project to sense check and make sure the meaning is clear. Note this will not be an opportunity to contribute to the research findings, it is about making sure that the report is easy to read, concise, clear etc. Again this task will take 2-3 hours and they will have a week to complete it around mid-March 2025.
How can I get involved?
If you have been to the SWAN Post Diagnosis Support 6-week group in the past year, and you're interested in putting your name forward, please fill in this expression of interest form.
The form asks for a few simple details including your name, ages, gender and location, but you'll need to complete it BY 12PM ON FRIDAY 18TH OCTOBER.
There will only be 6 participants from across all 16 organisations delivering Post Diagnosis Support - and it's important there's a good mix of people across gender, age and geography - so not everyone who puts their name forward will be asked to take part.
However, we'll be distributing the evaluation survey itself once it is ready so everyone will have an opportunity to have their say about their experiences of SWAN's post diagnosis support services.