Community priorities for suicide prevention
Being guided by people with lived experience
In 2022, our team began to identify suicide prevention as our top priority. The charity recognised that not enough was being done to reduce the number of autistic people who die by suicide; not at a national level across Government, NHS and social care, or in the charity sector.Â
We commissioned a large body of research from the University of Cambridge, which we knew would tell us about suicide risk factors, services gaps and potential avenues for service development. But research alone is not enough. We wanted to take action, to develop projects that would actively save lives.
The next challenge was deciding the best way to do that, given our limited charity resources. Our neurodiverse project team debated different options and decided that it was vital to find out what a large number of people with lived experience thought was needed. Experiences are so varied that we decided to run the biggest ever survey on the topic, to find out the priorities of thousands of autistic people and those who support them.
How we sought thousands of opinions
This work involved more than one survey and covered different aspects of suicidality, not just the priorities for change we originally sought. Almost 4,000 autistic people took part and over 600 ‘supporters’, some of whom were also autistic.
The many people who took part provided so much valuable information that the researchers needed to write not just one but several journal articles (see bottom of page). Some of these focus on descriptions of experiences of suicidality and its causes, and barriers to seeking help.Â
The journal article about the suicide prevention priorities of community members has now been published (11th February 2026). You can read a summary of the results on the website of Dr Rachel Moseley, primary author, here. Rachel has kindly given permission for us to share the video she has created, which you will find opposite. We will also summarise the results below.Â
Top ten priorities of autistic people
This list was created by asking over 1,000 people for ideas, identifying themes, and then asking thousands more people to put them in order of priority. Over 3,300 suggestions came in, and were grouped into 63 specific ideas. The top ten came out as follows:
- Train professionals (especially in healthcare) to understand suicide, trauma, burnout and mental health issues in autistic people.
- Autism-specific professionals, services, interventions and tools.
- Tackle societal ignorance, prejudice and discrimination related to autism, mental health and suicide
- Make existing services and support faster and easier to access, with better continuity of care and non-speaking ways to access help.
- Focus on improving autism assessment and diagnosis across the lifespan.
- Facilitate peer support (in-person/online), one-on-one mentoring or peer mental health support.
- Focus on improving mental health with continuous, preventative support, including help with self-esteem and emotions.
- Develop strategies for coping with suicidal thoughts and improving wellbeing.
- Provide social support, non-judgemental and empathic.
- Improve support/interventions in the education sector: flexible, person-centred, and strengths-based learning.
Autistic people and their supporters generally agreed about the most important priorities: the need for early, preventative mental health support, support specifically designed for autistic people, improved access to diagnosis and post-diagnostic support, and better training for professionals.
There is a great deal more complexity in the full journal article, available here for those who are comfortable reading scientific publications.
Summaries of other research papers based on these surveys, via Dr Rachel Moseley:
‘I did not think they could help me’: UK-based autistic adults’ reasons for not seeking public healthcare when experiencing suicidality (2025)
‘A combination of everything’: a mixed-methods approach to the factors which autistic people consider important in suicidality (2025)
A video summary by Dr Rachel Moseley
How Autism Action will use these results
Some of the ideas that were suggested would help autistic people at the time they are in crisis. However, most of the high priority ideas are about supporting people better more generally and preventing suicidal thoughts in the first place. This tells us that we need to focus not just on crisis services, but on big changes to how society does (or doesn’t) support autistic people long before they reach crisis.Â
Many of the ideas are about systems and society, for example changing how the NHS works, fixing problems with the system for autism assessment, and making education and mental health support work better for autistic people.Â
We thought hard about what this means for Autism Action’s long-term strategy, considering which ideas could potentially be delivered directly by a charity and which would need national changes across health, education and social care. We are now developing a range of projects, as described below. Â
Delivering change directly
Even while this research was being conducted, as the results were coming in, we knew that autism-specific support from people properly trained to work with autistic people would be somewhere among the top priorities. These points had already been raised repeatedly in many discussions with autistic people and those who support them. Therefore, when we had the opportunity to work with PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, a charity that offers a crisis line for children and young people, we jumped at it.Â
PAPYRUS told us that they are already a lifeline for many autistic young people and their families, with a high proportion of children contacts mentioning autism, ADHD or neurodivergence. Ged Flynn, PAPYRUS Chief Executive said, “As part of the new partnership with Autism Action we will be looking at our existing services and resources, see how accessible and autism-specific they are and where we can develop and improve what PAPYRUS has to offer.”
This work will be co-produced with autistic people and those who support them, and we expect to expand it. We will take what we learn and collaborate with other crisis support charities. One benefit of working with national charities like this is that large-scale change can be achieved relatively quickly, much faster than we would be able to influence the national NHS or education situation.
More to come
We will continue to seek opportunities like this to directly deliver the priority actions identified by autistic people and their supporters.
Influencing national policy and guidance
We will also bring these community priorities into our policy work. For example, as we continue to push for a national autism strategy that is fit for purpose, we will look for opportunities to incorporate the examples provided by so many autistic people and those who support them. We will also seek ways to ensure professionals are adequately trained to support autistic people, and opportunities to make the case for autism specialists and peer support.
Improving society’s understanding, acceptance and inclusion of autistic peopleÂ
At number 3 in the list of priorities is ‘tacking societal ignorance, prejudice and discrimination’. We are already developing plans to carry out this work on a large scale over the next five to ten years. Autistic people need change now, and we will act quickly wherever we can, but we also recognise the need to invest in work that can only succeed over a longer period of time. We are committed to driving this longer-term change across society, and will develop our plans alongside our Community Network. If you’d like to be part of the action, please consider joining via the link below.
With huge thanks to our neurodiverse project team and every single participant
We were fortunate to have the support of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, who took overall responsibility for the academic aspects of the survey, and Dr Rachel Moseley, a researcher from Bournemouth University who is autistic herself and has experience of suicidality. The team also included researchers from other universities, charity staff and trustees, and other people with lived experience of relevant issues:
Dr Rachel Moseley, Dr Tanya Procyshyn, Tanatswa Chikaura, Dr Sarah Marsden, Dr Tracey Parsons, Dr Sarah Cassidy, Dr Carrie Allison, Dr Mirabel Pelton, Dr Elizabeth Weir, David Crichton, Professor David Mosse, Professor Jacqui Rodgers, Dr Ian Hall, Dr Lewis Owens, Jon Cheyette, Holly Hodges, Dr Darren Hedley, and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen.
