Autism CRC receives $6 million investment through the Australian Government’s ILC Program

Published
30 Mar 2021

The Australian Government has announced today that Autism CRC is to receive $6 million for two major projects to help improve health services and education and employment outcomes for autistic Australians under the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) program.

This grant was announced earlier today in a joint media release by the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Anne Ruston, and Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Stuart Robert.

This funding is to deliver two major projects:

  • Project One: National Best-Practice Assessment and Diagnosis
  • Project Two: Success in Learning; Transition to Earning

In Project One, we will work together with the clinical and consumer stakeholder communities to deliver the efficient and effective implementation of a nationally consistent, best-practice approach to assessing an individual’s goals, strengths, health needs and functional challenges, in line with the Autism CRC-developed National Guideline for the Assessment and Diagnosis of Autism in Australia.

Project Two aims to deepen effective, inclusive practice within and across the education and employment sectors, working with key stakeholders to expand the content, reach and uptake of two Autism CRC online platforms, inclusionED and myWAY Employability. Most importantly, the project will connect these online platforms, and bring together other related outputs from our Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program, to create an individual journey passport that supports successful transitions from learning to earning.

Autism CRC will work closely with many parties to deliver these projects, including numerous organisations already within our CRC network. We will again use the national stakeholder collaborative project model that has underpinned our CRC Program work. Where necessary and appropriate, we will also establish new relationships to ensure we can deliver all project objectives.

The two projects target defined areas of need consistent with the Department of Social Services’ ILC Program, particularly its Mainstream Capacity Building objectives. The projects will build upon and deepen the impact of some major assets successfully delivered under the CRC Program. As always, we acknowledge the funding and support of the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program in making this possible.

Projects from our CRC Program are progressively being completed, and we are now working through the planned transition of outputs and assets to legacy arrangements, which are due to be completed by end 30 June 2022. The activities to be undertaken under the ILC Program are an example of how we might build on the significant outputs delivered through the CRC Program, allowing us to undertake substantial activities at a national scale in these important areas of need beyond the end of the CRC Program in June 2022.

We also continue to work with government and our partners to secure further capacity and funding for the longer-term future of our comprehensive national collaborative approach.

We have already achieved many great outcomes by working together, but there is much more work to be done in order to properly address the needs of the autistic and autism communities, and those who work to support them.