ONLINE CERTIFICATE COURSE
Supporting Autistic LGBTQIA+ Students in Higher Education
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Start date
On demand - you can start and progress through this course at any point of the year
Cost
£65 + vat
Guided learning hours
3 hours
Directed study hours (reading, research)
-
Overall grading type
pass / fail
Minimum required entry qualification
None
Qualification type
3 CPD hours
Delivery
Online
Total qualification time
3 hours
Overview
This course will upskill higher education professionals, including non-medical helpers, disability advisors, and those working in related areas, through driving best practice in supporting autistic LGBTQIA+ students.
Autistic people are significantly more likely to identify as being LGBTQIA+ than the non-autistic population. This means that, if you’re working with autistic students, you are also highly likely to be working with LGBTQIA+ students too – and vice versa. Each year, more students are telling us that they are LGBTQIA+ and/or autistic. LGBTQIA+ students tell us that they hope to be open about their sexual orientation and gender identity in higher education – but continue to experience barriers and discrimination once they arrive. Similarly, autistic students are more likely to encounter barriers than non-autistic students and are less likely to complete their courses of study. With a significant percentage of these students experiencing negative comments or conduct from other students, close attention needs to be paid to how the intersection of autism and LGBTQIA+ impacts on the educational outcomes for this group of students. Addressing how to best support this population is crucial to allowing students to fulfil their academic potential and develop strategies to promote good mental health and wellbeing.
This short course will provide you with an up-to-date overview of the current research, alongside practical strategies, and interactive scenarios to help you gain a holistic understanding of the support needs of autistic LGBTQIA+ students.
Programme content
The course consists of four short units:
- Autistic and LGBTQIA+ identities
- Autism and LGBTQIA+: intersectionality, health, and wellbeing
- LGBTQIA+ key concepts
- The legal rights of autistic LGBTQIA+ people.
Each unit is delivered on demand and features short quizzes and interactive activities. Each unit concludes with applying the content to strategies to help support autistic LGBTQIA+ students in the higher education context.
Download course brochureLearning objectives
- To understand the risk factors for health and wellbeing issues for autistic LGBTQIA+ students.
- To understand intersectionality and related concepts, and how these apply to autistic LGBTQIA+ students.
- To develop understanding of LGBTQIA+ terminology and key concepts, and its importance in relation to student inclusion, health, and wellbeing.
- To have a clear understanding of the legal rights of autistic LGBTQIA+ students, and to be able to signpost students effectively when these rights are infringed upon.
- To develop confidence in, and strategies supporting health, wellbeing, and inclusion for autistic LGBTQIA+ students.
Each unit will include a series of interactive activities, to check your learning. At the end of the course, you will take a short quiz which you need to pass to be awarded your completion certificate.
Academic advisors
This course has been developed and produced in collaboration with Carys Kennedy. The course also features content from autistic LGBTQIA+ students discussing their experiences of higher education.
