As the leaves fall from the trees, and we see a sprinkle of snow in Manchester, Dr Erin Beeston reflects on a busy few weeks with Autism@Manchester.

Meeting and planning

Since September, I have had the pleasure of meeting lots of new people. Ranging from fellow researchers, experts from Manchester City Council and Healthwatch Manchester, and, of course, the lovely department PhD students and our generous autistic advisors.

To prepare for meetings with members of the public early next year, our partners at Healthwatch Manchester have assisted us with accommodation. Last week, I did a recce of the route to their offices so I can create a social media story. I especially enjoyed exploring some of the adjacent railway heritage and chatting about it with Neil – a bonus as this is one of my historical research interests!

I have also been busy planning a talk about the ‘Marginalisation multiplied’ project drawing upon my personal experiences for the Cafe Autistique on 28 November at Contact Theatre. If you missed this, we’ll share more details about the talks at November’s Cafe Autistique soon.

Presenting at a conference

On 20 November, Dr Kelly Birtwell and I attended the Society of Academic Primary Care North annual conference in Liverpool to share our work addressing autistic health inequalities. I provided an overview of the ‘Marginalisation multiplied’ project outlining our overarching aims to improve access to health research for autistic people through an online toolkit. A further aim is to develop a programme grant around tackling health inequalities, which is currently focused on exploring peer support with our colleagues in health and social care.

Meanwhile, Kelly presented another project reviewing general practice support for autistic adults, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and NIHR School for Primary Care Research (NIHR SPCR). The work was displayed as a poster: ‘A realist review of general practice support for autistic adults: Early results and insights from stakeholder involvement and work with autistic assistant reviewers’. The poster was skillfully designed by Sophie Longley and Cathy Stratton and highlighted the importance of their roles as assistant reviewers and in recognising autistic experiences in research. Other co-authors include Claire Planner, Geoff Wong, Emily Corsellis, Monique Botha, Ghafaria Khan, Tracy Epton, and Emma Gowen.

The conference was a rich introduction to current clinical research and research into medical education on various aspects of mental health. Several papers especially resonated with work on autism, with approaches to dementia research through public involvement I’d like to explore further.

That’s all for now – enjoy my autumnal photos of Liverpool and Manchester!

Erin

You can email me at erin.beeston@manchester.ac.uk if you would like to find out more about the project or join the autism@manchester mailing list.

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