Stephen M. Cullen

Phase 4 of our evaluation of the Autism Education Trust (AET) Programme built on our earlier research: Autism Education Trust: Programme Evaluation; 2011-13, Autism Education Trust: Programme Evaluation, 2013-15; and Autism Education Trust Programme, 2015-16. Those evaluations demonstrated that the AET Programme delivered high levels of effectiveness in terms of delivery, materials, satisfaction, and impact. That effectiveness was demonstrated across all levels of the AET Programme; for Early Years, school age, and Post-16 settings.

CEDAR was asked by the AET to focus its evaluation of the 2016/17 Programme on four of the main elements of the Programme:

• The establishment of a further five regional networks to support schools and Local Authorities (LAs) using the AET materials to improve autism education.
• The roll out of Post-16 training and its integration with Ambitious About Autism’s Succeeding at College programme.
• A project to help prevent young people with autism from being excluded from school. This was led by the National Autistic Society and to provide information for parents, as well as for professionals, via Network Autism.
• The establishment of the “AET Young People’s Panel” to input into all AET Programme areas.

The final evaluation report was published in the summer of 2017: Evaluation of the Autism Education Trust Programme, 2016-2017