Posts in blogs Category

National Police Autism Association (NPAA)

The National Police Autism Association (NPAA) was founded in 2015 to provide autism support to police officers, staff and the community. Our external-facing work was prompted by a need to provide all police officers with autism awareness training and to share best practice – at the time those Forces which provided training tended to include […]


Guest blogger: Kleio Cossburn

By Kleio Cossburn @autismCJS My interest in autism and the Criminal Justice System stems from my time as a police officer. One of my roles involved interviewing suspects and preparing court files. On the occasions where I dealt with autistic suspects, it appeared to me that communication difficulties might have been a contributing factor to their […]


Fighting for my brother.

By Charlotte Henry A follow on from: My son – disregarded by society. I have always been protective over my brother – throughout my parent’s turbulent relationship we sought solace from one another and throughout the years of bullying he endured I sought to protect him, often turning up unexpected when my high school broke […]


My son – discarded by society

By Sally Halsall   It was every mother’s nightmare, screaming for help but no one came to help.  My lovely vulnerable son. I knew there was something wrong and the only person who could save him was me. But he did not seem to listen to me when I tried to steer him in the […]


Promoting Autism and Learning Disability Awareness in the Criminal Justice System

By Dr. Hugh Asher I recently completed a three-year project delivering learning disability and autism awareness to staff across the Criminal Justice System for the charity KeyRing. During this time, I delivered a one-day training course to over 1600 front-line staff in the Criminal Justice System (CJS). The training was co-delivered each time with a […]


Guest Blog #003

My experience of Autism Spectrum Conditions is different to others that have written this week. Mine is that of a parent to a child on the spectrum, no doubt a position I share with many others if national statistics are to be believed. My journey started 7yrs ago when my eldest daughter started to self-harm […]


Guest Blog #002

I only  got diagnosed a couple of years ago ; it  came about as a result of a few issues happening at the same time. Firstly id been googling autism as I thought my Dad was displaying symptoms, then the more I read it, the more I thought oops this is actually me. This happened […]


Guest Blog #001

Being given a diagnosis of Asperger’s was no surprise to me. I’ve always known, you can’t possibly have a 20 year old son with Asperger’s and not realise you’re on the spectrum too.  I used to be an operational Police Officer and never felt the need to obtain a diagnosis, but in recent years I […]