Certificate Course: Working Therapeutically With Autistic Adults. 6 Days

The Certificate in Working Therapeutically with Autistic Adults is open for registration again. It is 6 full days (spread out from SEPTEMBER to December 2025) ON SATURDAYS - live on Zoom - with 2 live online clinical discussion supervision group sessions included, plus 2 hours of training videos to watch in your own time - and a WhatsApp chat group for keeping in touch with the group.

On completion of the course and passing the assignment you will be awarded ‘Certificate in Working Therapeutically with Autistic Adults’.

You can count this as valid CPD hours: 36 hrs live training days, plus 2 hrs training videos, 4 hrs supervision group - total 42 hrs

We ran this course from February to May 2024, and in September to December 2024, as well as in March to end of May 2025, and are now taking bookings for the next training group in September 20th 2025. BOOKING IS NOW OPEN.

** BOOKING IS NOW OPEN.* EARLY BIRD PRICE AVAILABLE IF YOU SECURE YOUR PLACE BY 10 pm Monday 16th June 2025

If you are a counsellor, psychotherapist, or psychologist working with autistic clients, this professional development event could be just what you are looking for. You can find out more about this course by reading the course description below. And you can read the course description below to see what is in the course, and watch the video clips of training to see what the training is like.

THIS £300 TICKET IS TO SECURE YOUR PLACE ON THE COURSE - PLEASE READ BELOW FOR FULL DETAILS . The numbers of tickets sold won't necessarily represent all tickets sold as sales are also through our website. It's usual for everyone joining us on the course to have arranged a brief online chat with Vauna first, before purchasing.

On this page you can

• see the training dates
• see the supervision group dates
• see the fee (and the early bird offer price)
• see video clips of the last time we ran this course.
• learn how to be awarded the certificate
• see what else is included

DETAILS: THE CERTIFICATE IN WORKING THERAPEUTICALLY WITH AUTISTIC ADULTS.

This course is trans-modality. We welcome therapists with all backgrounds and training perspectives as there isn't only one modality that 'works' for autistic clients. This course is to help you to make sense of how you already conceptualise therapy and as an extra layer of awareness to applying in your work as a therapist with autistic adult clients.

The Course is Starting September 20th 2025, on selected Saturdays, and finished by Mid December 2025. The full description and list of dates, are below. Also, below, you can see video clips from the last times the course was running (actual video clips of the segments of training from then).

WHAT'S INCLUDED

CERTIFICATE IN WORKING THERAPEUTICALLY WITH AUTISTIC ADULTS.

• 6 live training days (Saturdays)
• Time: 10 am till 5 pm GMT (UK and Ireland time)
• The group meets live on Zoom
• Separate supervisory clinical discussion group sessions included in the course fee
• 2 hours of EXTRA training videos supplied for you to watch in your own time
• Reading List, and resources are provided (multimedia)
• Subject Handouts are provided (our own materials plus research papers, etc)
• A Self Reflective Journal to document your learning insights
• WhatsApp group for asynchronous chat and to see the extra resources
• Video replays are provided for course attendees and available for 6 months
• The Certificate is awarded on completion
• Automatic listing on the therapists directory for 6 months after completion
• Free ticket to Live Online Conference event (2026)

THE COURSE CONTENTS:

Some of the content that is covered in the course is shown below and in the adjacent graphic.

The course has been written and ran three times now, February to May 2024 was the first time, amd September to December 2024 the second time, and March to June 2025 the third time.

We can tell you what content is in the course, however, each course is adapted to who is in the course (attendees) and what their needs and interests are. So some of the sections of the course will be especially adapted to what the group needs.

Here is what is in the course (plus anything extra that we add or is requested).

Working therapeutically with autistic adult clients in the following areas:

• Internalised ableism
• Stigmatisation of autism (and internalised stigma)
• The journey of identity reformation for late identified autistic adults
• Burnout: Identifiying, immediate coping, recovery planning.
• Understanding shutdowns and inertia
• 'Meltdowns’ and high arousal states
• Dealing with organising life and executive functioning
• Significance of life experiences of being pathologised, oppressed and marginalised
• The role of social scripting, sterotypying and social norms causing harm
• Issues around eating including autistic clients and 'eating disorders'
• Gender differences with autistic people (and relevance of gender historically)
• Issues of sleeping, and going to GP’s and other medical experiences
• Anxiety, including PTSD, OCD, and Social Anxiety.
• The history of autism as it is relevant to therapists (to underpin clarity about healing)
• How therapy can harm clients (even well-intentioned therapists) and the alternatives
• The collective trauma of the autistic population
• Overview of what is therapeutic for the autistic client population in general
• How to select what is therapeutic for each individual autistic client
• Discussion of therapeutic modalities - eg TA, CBT, Narrative Therapy, Person Centred
• Where is the social justice issue here? How to approach this.
• Neuroaffirming language, and presuppositions relevant to autistic adults.
• Autistic community and culture: support, information, belonging
• Relationships and friendships: Risks, realities, and a new approach
• Crises that autistic people can face (and clients have often encountered in life)
• Autistic obsessing and addictions,
• Being mindful about the therapeutic relationship,
• The processes, e.g. power-sharing as a baseline approach, and why this is useful
• Autistic processing.
• Body awareness and emotions (how to identify and manage feelings)
• Knowing the self: Reclaiming, emerging, and conscious unmasking decisions
• Self-ownership, self-asserting, and self-advocacy
• Addressing barriers to inclusion
• Fulfillment and self-actualisation (Based on 'Quality of Life' framework)
• Workplace accomodations. Rights, responsibilities and relating to HR and managers.
• Autistic people with ADHD also (AudHD)
• Discussions of our actual current client work
• and more, and more, and more……

ALL TRAINING CONTENT IS SUPPORTED BY CLINICAL KNOWLEDGE, LIVED EXPERIENCE, AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

What does that mean?

Both trainers (Eoin Stephens and Vauna Beauvais) have been seeing clients for over 25 years and both have specialised in seeing ONLY neurodivergent clients (especially autistic clients) for the last 6 years. Moreover, both of them are autistic people themselves. And because they are constantly thinking about neurodivergent clients and thinking about understanding themselves more and more completely, they continually read books, research studies, and journal articles about autism, autistic people, mental health, and therapy. The combination of clinical knowledge and lived experience shaped what goes into the course (these ARE the issues autistic people live with and bring to therapy. And then the scientific materials provide the references, statistics, and data to back up the assertions made by the trainers.

The Dates

TRAINING DAYS

What do we do in the training days? Training days have a mix of presentations, slides, workshop-style experiences, talks, exploration and idea sharing, and Q&A.

Time: 10 am until 5 pm, (Western European Time, UTC) on the following SATURDAYS:

• September 20th 2025
• October 4th 2025
• October 18th 2025
• November 8th 2025
• November 22nd 2025
• December 6th 2025

SUPERVISION CLINICAL DISCUSSION GROUP

(Attendance is included in the course fee, and it is entirely optional)

What can we do in these group sessions? We can bring client cases for discussion, ask questions about theory, explore and make meaning of the work we are doing.

These meetings will be smaller groups, and (depending on how many are in the course training group you may have a choice of which supervision group to be in and which days and times).

Time: Group one, 9:30 am to 11:30 (Western European Time, UTC).

• Saturday October 25th 2025
• Saturday November 15th 2025

Time: Group two, 9:30 am to 11:30 (Western European Time, UTC).

• Monday 27th October 2025
• Monday 17th November 2025

CERTIFICATE AWARD CRITERIA

To attend all of the dates and comple the two assignments.

Assignment one:

• A VERY short self-reflective piece following on from module one (due by Sept 27th 2025)

Assignment two:

• 3,000-3,500 word piece OR any format, eg create a video, presentation, client resources, essay, article, or something else creative that meets the crietria (due February 28th 2026)

The Fee

For everyone to enroll, there is £400 to pay to book your place on the course - WHICH YOU CAN DO HERE ON THIS EVENTBRITE PAGE

Then:

• one-off payment £895

or

• 3 payments of £306, £306, £306

THE EARLY BIRD FEE. * ENDS Monday 16th June 2025 AT 10 PM*

to enroll, there is £400 to pay to book your place on the course - WHICH YOU CAN DO HERE ON THIS EVENTBRITE PAGE

Then:

• one-off payment £800

or

• 3 payments of £275, £275, £275

CLICK HERE TO PLEASE READ THE TERMS OF SERVICE FOR ALL PURCHASES WITH VANGUARD NEURODIVERSITY TRAINING

PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU WANT TO CONTACT US ABOUT ANYTHING

If you feel skilled to work with autistic adults already, and yet know there are some ways in which you feel there’s something not always working out with those clients, this certificate course offers a lot of information and practical how-to’s. And, because real clients are never like case vignettes in books, the group discussions are invaluable for exploring the nuances involved. equips you to work therapeutically with autistic clients and feel confident about having an inclusive practice that enhances (and saves) the lives of autistic people coming therapy.

If you are already doing good work with autistic clients (that is actually therapeutic) we know that you will also benefit from this course. When you have a group of therapists from a variety of backgrounds and training modalities, there is a lot to offer each other in the viewpoint sharing realm, as we talk through the work that we do. And with everything focused on deeply understanding and responding to autistic adult clients, we find that we travel from a place of being with clients therapeutically from intuition to a place of informed work about how and why therapy is therapeutic for autistic clients. This is, not only empowering for the therapist, but also is exciting and interesting progression and development as a professional person.

COMMENTS ABOUT LAST TIME WE RAN THIS COURSE (which was the first ever time this course completed in May 2024).

We had the most amazing time learning together on the course, from February 2024, until May 2024. Not only am I totally delighted about that, but also I am relieved that enough colleagues believed in us to come on the training, and that made that first time of running that course actually viable to do. Those therapists that were our learners, I will always be grateful for your belief in us and I have enormous gratitude for making it a time to remember forever.

We were, not exactly, writing the course as we went along. But we definitely were doing lots and lots of research-and-reflecting as the course progressed. It was full-on hard work, but very very rewarding to do. And the outcome is a superb course that now still is good to offer out again with only minor updaes (as you would with any course).

What i learned from doing that has really elevated me up a whole other level now.

And we ALL said that we had emerged transformed, both personally and professionally from both the course contents, and the talks we had and the safe time together throughout.

WE ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING THE COURSE AGAIN FROM SEPTEMBER 2024 TO DECEMBER 2ND 2024, AND CAN GIVE EXTRA TESTIMONIALS SOON FROM THE COLLEAGUES CURRENTLY ON THIS COURSE.

ONCE YOU HAVE PAID YOUR £400 HERE, YOU HAVE THEN SECURED YOUR PLACE ON THE COURSE. WE THEN EMAIL YOU A CONFIRMATION OF YOUR PAYMENT (as well as you getting confirmation from Eventbrite) AND CONFIRM YOUR PLACE ON THE COURSE. AT THIS POINT YOU HAVE NOT PAID IN FULL FOR THE COURSE. SO, we will ask you whether you want an invoice for the one-off payment of £895 or you want to pay 3 payments of £306 each, to pay for the course (or the equivalent amounts for the early bird price as shown above - ie £800 one-off, or 3 payments of £275)

IMPORTANT: You are paying to secure your place on the course, and there is still more to pay for you to attend and complete the course and get the certificate. You have 14 days cooling off period after paying your £400 to secure your place on the course, so you can cancel and be fully refunded during this time. If you have booked without first having a Zoom meet-up with Vauna, then we will arrange to do that together within the next few weeks.

Once you've paid for the course, we will send you some resources so that you can start interacting with learning materials (these are supplementary materials given to you as extra bonuses and are totally optional for you to use).

When you come on the actual course, starting 20th September 2025 we will be on Zoom together and interacting. You won't be watching a recording - it is live.