Project aims to transform care and support for families with an autistic child

A new trial could significantly benefit autistic children and their families and the care provided across the entire UK healthcare system

A father and a boy with autism are playing at the table, using toys to help the child develop motor and cognitive skills.

Project aims to transform care and support for families with an autistic child

A new trial could significantly benefit autistic children and their families and the care provided across the entire UK healthcare system

Mr Alan Williams

Media and Communications Manager

Corporate Communications (Marketing and Communications)

2 March 2026

Autism is thought to affect about 2% of the UK population, with the most recent estimates suggesting that diagnostic and support costs total in excess of £32billion per year.

Despite this, autism care and support in the UK is seen and experienced by many as at best disjointed, more often non-existent. Autism is experienced by entire family units, yet many existing healthcare systems do not take wider effects on the whole family into account.

A major new trial, led by the University of Plymouth and funded through a grant of more than £2.8million from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), aims to help address that.

It will examine whether a specially developed package of support – SAFE: Systemic Autism-related Family Enabling – can significantly improve the mental health, wellbeing, and functioning of all family members, and give them coping mechanisms that build their capability to manage some of the challenges that often surround or accompany a diagnosis of autism.

The four-year SAFE2 project draws together partners including the voluntary and community sector and those working at universities and healthcare organisations, in addition to almost 500 families across the UK.

The interventions SAFE will trial have already been developed and tested through a feasibility study and other research and community-based initiatives, funded by NIHR and Autistica, and the new project will be the largest yet to explore its potential benefits for families.

It will also explore how SAFE might be applied right across the NHS, so it benefits autistic children and their families every day and the clinicians and practitioners working to improve the process of autism diagnosis and the provision of follow-up care packages.

This whole project was launched, and continues to be fuelled, by what families are telling us.

For the past decade and more, we have been hearing stories from people saying the length of time it takes to get a diagnosis of autism is extremely demoralising. And when they finally get that, the support they receive doesn’t fully meet their needs and isn’t taking the whole family into account. Our work to this point has indicated that SAFE can be transformative for families, providing tools that build on the strengths they already have to care for their child, while ensuring they are also looking after themselves

Dr Becky Stancer
Associate Professor in Early Childhood and the project’s Chief Investigator

In my experience, autistic children and their families are often incredibly strong. They have capabilities, intuitive knowledge and understanding about their lived experience and the broader autistic perspective that many healthcare programmes and other public services do not fully recognise or embrace. However, autistic children and their families have told us that despite their strengths, they do experience very real challenges, such as difficulties with social inclusion, lack of opportunity due to differences in presentation, communication, and sensorial preference, or preventing episodes of significant distress. These challenges are often contextually triggered as autistic children and families navigate a world that does not always positively reflect or support their experience. Such experiences can have a cumulative impact over time, depleting personal resources and undermining family wellbeing. We hope SAFE will help with this at a family-system level, until we live in a more inclusive and equitable world.

Dr Tara Vassallo
Lecturer in Education (Early Childhood Studies)

Dr Vassallo leads the coproduction of SAFE for the project team. She has direct lived experience as part of, and caring for, a neurodivergent family, and has also spent many years exploring how SAFE can be applied in early and primary education to support the home-school system around the child.

What is Systemic Autism-related Family Enabling (SAFE)?

SAFE is a package of support for autistic children and their families. It has been coproduced and developed over more than a decade, with nearly 100 families as experts by experience, and leaders in education and psychology from the University of Plymouth. It is delivered by trained family therapists through a flexible toolkit of activities that can be used with, and by families, depending on their needs.

Through a series of interventions, SAFE is designed to support families to build on their strengths and enhance their problem solving and coping strategies to manage everyday challenges. It uses talk, images, and play activities to help explore the difficult parts of life connected to autism and aims to provide help around conflict, solving problems, wellbeing, and developing ways of coping.

How will the SAFE2 Trial work?

The trial will be managed by the Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit (PenCTU) , also based at the University of Plymouth, and will recruit almost 500 families of autistic children from six sites across England. From these families, more than 320 will be chosen at random to receive SAFE as well as the usual care that would be offered by the NHS or their local authority. The other families will only receive usual care.

Those families assigned to receive the SAFE intervention will be invited to attend a total of 13 sessions. This will include two three-hour sessions for parents in a group with other parents of autistic children, and five two-hour individual family sessions for the whole family, as well as other focus group sessions. The ‘whole family’ sessions will consist of the autistic child and parents as a minimum, plus other central family members, such as siblings, grandparents, stepparents, other family, or even close friends.

All the participants will be asked to complete questionnaires before and after SAFE or usual care, and then a final questionnaire a year after being chosen at random. The researchers will use the answers provided to measure changes in communication, coping with difficulties, family strengths and wellbeing, and families will also be invited to talk in groups about taking part in the study.

Study with excellent and supportive staff who will work with you throughout your degree:

Education and teaching in the School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Mr Alan Williams

What is Systemic Autism-related Family Enabling (SAFE)?

How will the SAFE2 Trial work?

Read more information linked to this article

Study with excellent and supportive staff who will work with you throughout your degree: