“Every government school in Victoria has the potential to be safe for diverse autistic students. We can give every autistic student access to a mentor to build up their pride and sense of belonging. In doing so, we signal to autistic young people that they are an asset, not a problem. They are to be valued, not managed.”
- Autism Plan Advisory Group member
4.1 Inclusive education
The ‘Fighting for Students with Disability and their Families’ package provides $203 million to better support students living with disability, their carers and families. This package ensures that students and children with disability continue to get the support they need to access their learning on the same basis as their peers, while also setting them up for the best possible future.
Elements of this package include:
- an extension of high intensity outside school hours care to an additional 25 specialist schools so that more families can access quality after school and vacation care for children with disability.
- funding for specialist schools to employ an NDIS Navigator, a dedicated staff member to provide direct support to families and carers to help them to navigate and understand the National Disability Insurance Scheme, enabling them to get the most out of the supports available.
- the Specialist School Activity Boost, which provides additional funding to help specialist schools to provide a greater range of inclusive, safe and accessible activities to their students, so they can participate in valuable arts, sports, cultural and social programs or experiences.
- a review into current eligibility processes for specialist schools, to review whether current eligibility criteria and processes for specialist schools and settings are practical and based on contemporary best practice.
- greater access for schools to alternative or augmentative communications software, including Proloquo2Go, to assist students with complex communication needs.
Action areas
Through the Autism Education Strategy (the strategy), launched in December 2020, we will promote and celebrate autism inclusion and diversity at the whole-school level. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.1 Help school leaders and teachers create inclusive and welcoming environments for autistic students.
4.1.2 Support school staff and students to increase knowledge of, and appreciation for, autism. Programs to support this include:
- Disability Inclusion – schools will get more school-level funding to help them create more inclusive schools and classrooms, and better support students with disability and additional learning needs. Schools may choose to use the funding for staff professional learning, employing staff to support students in the classroom or to purchase learning programs and equipment
- increased access for schools to expert advice and support – Regional Implementation Teams and extra operational disability roles in regions will give schools and area teams direct support and advice to help them introduce Disability Inclusion and build skills in the school
- Disability Friendly Schools – will help make schools safer and more inclusive. This includes an additional $5.6 million over 4 years and $1.8 million per year thereafter to continue and expand the I CAN Schools in-person and online mentoring program to make it available to all Victorian Government schools. The I CAN Schools program connects autistic young people with I CAN Network mentors to empower autistic students with optimism, belonging, self-acceptance, pride and confidence. It also includes guidance for schools on running lunchtime clubs, an evidence-based way of providing activities during recess and lunch.
We will build the capability of school leaders and staff to meet the educational needs of autistic students. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.3 Build the skills of school leaders and staff in inclusive education, autism inclusion and legal obligations related to autistic students in a coordinated way. Programs to support this include:
- area workforce capability building – professional learning resources and on-the-job support for school improvement workforces, including regional workshops and online modules. It also includes Education Improvement Leaders – Diverse Learners, which provides professional learning on learning diversity and autism at state-wide and regional capability-building events
- professional learning communities (PLCs) – these support teachers to collaboratively work through cycles of inquiry to evaluate teacher practice against student learning growth. The Diverse Learners Hub will support teachers in PLCs to strengthen their knowledge and skills to better meet the needs of autistic students
- inclusion outreach coaching –this will enable coaches from specialist schools to work with staff in mainstream schools to develop their capacity to better work with autistic students
- professional learning resources – these include the Inclusive Classrooms program, which offers courses for school staff that focus on practical teaching strategies, adjustments and supports for students at the school, classroom, and individual levels. Resources also include AllPlay Learn, an evidence-based resource for students, parents, and schools to understand inclusive education
- the Master of Inclusive Education and Graduate Certificate Initiative – postgraduate course placements for teachers in mainstream and specialist schools to strengthen teachers’ knowledge and capacity to support diverse learners in Victorian government schools by focusing on their strengths, interests, and aspirations.
We will involve the student, families and experts in collaboratively planning for students’ education. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.4 Supporting schools, students, their families and professionals to plan for autistic students’ education. Programs to support this include:
- student voice toolkit – developed with students with disability, the toolkit will give schools flexible and accessible tools to make sure that all students with disability can participate in decisions about their education. The tools can be tailored to suit a student’s age, interests, communication, and participation needs
- partnerships with autistic community and advocacy organisations – these will be strengthened and will lead to better advice and resources for schools to further support autistic students, their families and the school community
- Strengthening Inclusive School Communities program – extends partnerships with key disability organisations to provide information and resources for schools and families that encourage positive partnerships and promote the benefits of inclusion to the whole school community
- Senior Secondary Pathways Reform – offers the Victorian Pathways Certificate and the VCE Vocational Major which focus on vocational and applied learning. The reform includes a range of supports to assist students to access work-related learning opportunities and will introduce inclusive pathway supports to early school leavers with disability, including autistic students, to promote re-engagement and successful transitions.
We will support autistic students’ health and wellbeing. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.5 Providing specialist programs and resources to support autistic students’ social and emotional development, positive behaviour and mental health. Programs to support this include:
- School-wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) – a program to help schools improve the social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for all students, including autistic students
- autism-friendly Navigator program – service providers are trained in understanding some of the barriers autistic students face in engaging with school, and how they can engage and support these students through the program
- Schools Mental Health Fund and Menu – supports schools to select programs, staff and other support relating to mental health, bullying prevention, early intervention and targeted support
- Mental Health in Primary Schools – a partnership with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education to provide more mental health support in primary schools using a whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Consultation with specialist schools to maximise inclusion of students with disability, including autistic students, informs part of this work
- Mental Health Practitioners (MHP) – all secondary and specialist schools are funded to employ a suitably qualified school-based MHP to provide direct support to students, coordinate external supports, and contribute to whole-school approaches to mental health. All MHPs have access to specific professional learning and guidance to providing mental health and wellbeing support to autistic students.
We will support autistic students’ individual education needs. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.6 Use a strengths-based approach to identify and meet autistic students' needs and support their transitions. Programs to support this include:
- Tutor Learning Initiative allows schools to employ a tutor to deliver targeted small group learning support to students who need it most. Since 2021, the Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI) has supported students whose learning was disrupted during remote and flexible learning, and those below, or at risk of falling below, the National Minimum Standards (NMS) in National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) or equivalent. From 2024, TLI will support every student identified as ‘Needing Additional Support’ in the 2023 and 2024 NAPLAN assessments at government schools. Tutors have access to targeted professional learning to build their capacity in specialised areas, such as inclusive education and catering to students with different needs such as autism
- Middle Years Literacy and Numeracy Support – schools receive funding to build teacher capacity and capability to provide direct, differentiated numeracy and literacy support to prioritised students, including autistic students. Professional learning is also provided to Improvement Teachers to further support capacity and capability building
- Complex Communication Needs – specific policy advice and guidance will be developed for these students, including the use of alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) systems. Students will also have greater access to ACC through a $0.1 million (capped) fund in 2023–24 from which schools can apply for funding for a student to access ACC software, including Proloquo2Go, where the student is not funded for it by the NDIS.
We will strengthen accountability and transparency for students with disability. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.7 Improve data collection and information management to better understand the outcomes of students with disability, including autistic students.
Programs to support this include:
- Disability data improvement strategy – improves the quality of data the department collects on students with disability to enhance decision making and practice to improve outcomes for students with disability. This includes better understanding the learning and wellbeing outcomes for autistic students
- Individual Education Plan tools, guidance and processes – including strengthened tools, resources, guidance and professional learning. This will provide higher-quality individual education plans for autistic students, and track their progress
- Autism Education Strategy Advisory Group – this group guides the implementation of the disability data improvement strategy. It includes representatives from autism and disability advocacy organisations, including autistic-led organisations, a student representative, school leaders and regional staff, and autism researchers.
We will monitor the delivery of the Autism education strategy to ensure it continues to meet the learning and wellbeing needs and aspirations of autistic students and continually evolves to include new initiatives to support its strategic pillars. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.8 Build and track key datasets to measure progress for students with disability.
4.1.9 Regularly review the impact of the supporting initiatives, including how the Diverse Learners Hub is delivering against the objectives of the strategy.
4.1.10 Stay up-to-date with the latest research and best practice.
4.1.11 Listen to autistic students and their families to ensure the strategy implementation meets their needs.
We will continue to provide support and professional assistance to government-funded kindergarten teachers and early childhood professionals to support the inclusion of children with additional needs. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.12 Continue to deliver the Kindergarten Inclusion Support program, which provides additional support and professional assistance to facilitate the inclusion of children with additional needs, including autistic children.
4.1.13 Deliver online training designed to help early childhood educators develop a greater understanding of autistic young children and plan inclusive programs that support their learning and development.
4.1.14 Develop and maintain an inclusive early education web portal that gives parents and early childhood educators a single source of information about inclusion for young people with developmental delays including autism.
4.1.15 Enhance supports for funded kindergarten services to include children with additional needs, including children with autism. This involves provision to strengthen existing supports and to design and pilot new tools and processes that will build teaching teams’ capabilities to understand and respond to varying needs.
We will continue to improve information about education and education support systems for parents and autistic students. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.16 Review and expand the existing online resources to guide parents when choosing schools for their children with disability.
4.1.17 Review and update the Guide to home schooling in Victoria to include additional resources as they become available.
We will continue to apply universal design principles in education settings. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.1.18 Apply universal design principles to school and early childhood infrastructure projects as outlined in the Department of Education’s Building Quality Standards Handbook and the Whole-of-Government Universal Design Policy.
4.2 Skills and training
We will continue to strengthen individualised support for autistic students in Vocational Education and Training. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.2.1 Examine relevant areas of vocational education and training (VET) policies and programs in Victoria to ensure the specific issues autistic Victorians face are appropriately addressed in professional development delivered to VET practitioners through such entities as the VET Development Centre.
4.2.2 Ensure government-funded support programs offered by Learn Locals and TAFEs, such as Reconnect, can respond to these issues through targeted and appropriate supports to improve participation in VET.
4.2.3 Improve data collection on the number of learners with disability across all VET programs.
4.2.4 Make high-quality training and support available across the state for more people with disability and their carers to access skills, training and jobs.
4.2.5 Ensure the Victorian training system can meet demand for high-quality training for an expanding NDIS workforce by promoting new course opportunities in disability (for example, Certificate IV Introduction to NDIS) via existing programs and networks.
4.2.6 Continue implementation of the Disability Transition Officers in TAFEs. This initiative sees the employment of 16 transition officers across the TAFE Network to support students with disability transition from secondary school environments into TAFEs.
Marcella’s interview
Marcella's interview is a short film about employing someone with a disability. The film is a collaboration between students from mainstream and specialist schools in the Brimbank/Melton area.
The film is aimed at supervisors and employers. It includes messages about inclusive recruitment practices and simple adjustments employers can make in the workplace to welcome and respect people with disability and enable their strengths and skills to shine through.
The film also highlights the challenge of deciding whether to disclose disability to a potential employer. This is a profoundly personal decision.
The film gives an insight into the steps an employer can take to create supportive work environments for all.
Watch Marcella’s interview.
The team also produced The making of Marcella’s interview. This film showcases the young people who worked behind the scenes on the film. It highlights the technical skills the crew developed during the project, as well as the benefits everyone involved experienced.
4.3 Employment and economic participation
We will continue to increase employment of autistic Victorians. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.3.1 Ensure Jobs Victoria’s mentors support autistic people into work, particularly those who are long-term unemployed.
4.3.2 Continue implementation of Getting to work: Victorian public sector disability employment action plan 2018–2025. This plan focuses on making attraction, recruitment, retention and career progression strategies inclusive of all people with disability, including autistic people. This includes supporting autistic public sector employees through the following key initiatives:
- neurodiverse-confident services – these services aim to help the public sector develop neurodiverse-confident managers and assist neurodiverse employees to have a positive experience at work. The services are provided through a state purchase contract
- Rise program – a recruitment and support program that aims to provide people on the autism spectrum with sustainable and meaningful employment options. Since 2019, the program has expanded beyond the former Department of Health and Human Services (now Department of Health) and Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (now Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action) into the Department of Education and the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
4.3.3 Seek to create inclusive employment opportunities and deliver economic and social value to the Victorian community by:
- opening doors for social enterprises and increasing recognition of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) across the government’s service system
- promoting employment opportunities in social enterprises, including for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and streamline referral pathways
- delivering commitments under the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework and Yuma Yirramboi: Victorian Aboriginal Employment & Economic Strategy.
4.3.4 Support an increase in government spending under the Social procurement framework to benefit people with disability by:
- working with government purchasers to better support their understanding and awareness of the Social procurement framework and its objectives
- providing advice to departments and agencies to include the ‘Opportunities for Victorians with disability’ objectives as part of their procurement
- supporting a clearer understanding of how to meet the Social procurement framework’s ‘Opportunities for Victorians with disability’ objective by developing materials for suppliers to promote and replicate examples of good practice, case studies and resources.
Personal stories
People on the spectrum are consistently underrepresented in the workforce due to stigma and the barriers provided by traditional recruitment systems.
The Rise program aims to:
- remove barriers to recruitment
- evaluate the impact of participation in the program on the health and wellbeing of people with autism
- identify organisational factors that contribute to the perceived effectiveness of the program
- identify barriers and enablers informing future implementation.
Rise participant Timothy says:
‘Working for the Rise program was quite a shift for me compared with other places I have worked, where I struggled to fit in or learn the work that was required of me.
At Rise, my supervisors are far more accommodating and patient with my ability to learn.
This is not to say that there are no expectations or that there is no work being done.
In fact, because my work is closely monitored and even analysed, I can know almost objectively where I can improve.
This, alongside the very precise procedures, helps me get into a steady rhythm, which helps me understand my work expectations.
The supervisors and delegators are very friendly and usually tell me about my errors without putting me down and I feel there is a genuine effort to improve my work rather than put me down.
However, I also feel that they will inform me of my errors rather than letting me do the wrong thing without correcting it.
I also feel much more comfortable asking questions, something that I did not feel when working at other places.
All in all, the result is a comfortable working environment, where I feel able to learn at a steady pace and where I feel accomplished in my work.’
Mathew, who is also a Rise participant, said:
‘I was underemployed and in insecure work for several years before I started at the Rise program.
As an autistic person, I found feeling and appearing confident in traditional job interviews very challenging, where I felt judged on how I appeared socially.
The Rise program’s Discovery Day recruiting was great because we could show our skills in a more practical way.
I feel valued, supported and understood in my new role.
The Rise Program has allowed me to envision further opportunities and career pathways in the public service.’
In 2022, Aspergers Victoria (AV) was appointed to the Victorian Government Neurodiverse confident services panel.
As one of the neurodiverse specialist organisations on the panel, AV delivers support to neurodivergent employees, their teams and managers.
With 80 per cent of its staff autistic, AV is a peer-led organisation that aims to improve autistic social and employment inclusion. Its lived experience team includes job coaches and advisors who use codesigned and strengths-based approaches when providing neurodivergent support services.
The neurodivergent-confident services panel was established by the Victorian Government to build a more inclusive and safer public sector in line with the Victorian autism plan. Neurodivergent employees can access support that includes job coaching, career development and strategies to manage challenges at work. The service can also provide support, coaching or resources to teams and hiring managers to build neurodiversity confidence across the public sector.
President of AV, Tamsin said:
‘It is exciting to witness the positive impact of this service. The panel continues to receive an increasing number of inquiries from a wide variety of public sector organisations seeking support with their strategies towards growing neurodiverse employment inclusion.’
4.4 Voice and leadership
We will promote the voice and leadership of autistic people. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.4.1 Build opportunities for autistic advocates to engage with Victorian Government policy leads in ways that support a range of communication styles and are fully accessible.
4.4.2 Establish a mechanism for the Autism Plan Advisory Group and autistic advocates to provide a regular channel of advice to be shared across the Victorian Government.
4.4.3 Continue to increase opportunities for autistic people to be represented on Victorian public sector boards and committees.
4.5 Pride and recognition
We will develop opportunities for people with disability to celebrate their identity and achievements. These are the actions we will undertake:
4.5.1 Connect autistic people with opportunities led or supported by the Victorian Government for showcasing the achievements of neurodiverse Victorians.
4.5.2 Work with autistic people to inform ongoing Victorian Government messaging that promotes autism pride and recognition.
Personal story
Thomas, Chair, Autism Success Network
Thomas is employed at the Department of Health, where he supports a range of activities to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. In 2023, Thomas undertook a secondment with the Victorian Public Sector Commission, working on a project focused on improving economic participation in the public sector for autistic people.
Prior to obtaining work with the Victorian public service, Thomas experienced a lengthy period of unemployment and described this experience as feeling as though his life was ‘on pause’. Thomas says he had significant difficulty in finding work and that one of the biggest barriers for him was the job interview process.
Traditional job interviews can be problematic for many autistic people as interviews typically assess a candidate’s ‘soft’ skills with interview performance relying heavily on a candidate’s communication skills and relationship building with unfamiliar people. For many people, traditional job interviews do not allow them to demonstrate their capabilities and strengths.
At 31 years of age, Thomas was diagnosed and shortly after this, he found work through the Rise program an autism employment initiative at the Department of Health, which provides an alternate pathway to common recruitment practices. This gave him the start that he needed and enabled Thomas to contribute his knowledge, skills, and insights to his role and also to his broader advocacy work focussed on improving inclusive work practices across the public sector. Thomas says that finding work has given him a sense of purpose and the financial autonomy to ‘un-pause and start living my life’.
An important aspect to Thomas’ career is his work in autism advocacy through the Autism Success Network (ASN). The ASN is one of several disability employee networks within the Victorian public sector and provides opportunities for collaboration, support and sharing of resources across Victorian government departments. However, without having had the initial employment opportunity, Thomas’ critically important work in making workplaces better for autistic people, would not have been possible.
As the Chair of the ASN, Thomas says a key focus of his role is supporting public sector leaders in creating inclusive and respectful workplaces. He says public sector leaders are driving change and demonstrating their commitment to increased employment outcomes for autistic people by consulting with autism advocates when making decisions that affect autistic people.
Updated