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Re-thinking 'engagement' through the harnessing of joy: A guide to supporting autistic people, for both parent-carers and professional practitioners.
This toolkit considers how best to support autistic people by focusing upon fostering moments of joy, particularly when seeking to encourage 'engagement' with practitioners, services and 'interventions'.
Grounded in current research-literature, this thorough guide uses an affirming approach to working alongside autistic people by considering how sensory requirements, the physical environment, people around them and particular interests work together in creating safe spaces whereby moments of joy can be accessed.
Traditional 'autism interventions' may fail because they expect an autistic person to assimilate to a non-autistic way-of-being rather than consider how best to create an accessible pathway to inclusion.
This toolkit considers how re-thinking 'engagement' through creating access to JOY may be more beneficial for helping autistic people to THRIVE.
CONTENTS (24 pages):
Explaining 'engagement failure'.
Thinking differently: harnessing joy.
Identifying joy as a state of being.
The role of flow within joy.
Using a sensory world to encourage flow and joy.
Harnessing interests and activities.
Sharing joyful moments.
Safe people.
Creating safe spaces.
Asking questions.
by Alice Running PgCert Autism. (Copyright September 2026.)
(Unauthorised reproduction - in part or in entirety - or sharing of this toolkit is not permitted. Matters of plagiarism are taken seriously.)
Alice Running is an autistic woman and mother to neurodivergent children. She is an author and writer with an academic interest in the use of parental blame within autism support services. She holds a PgCert in Autism and has contributed to academic texts relating to autism theory and social work practice.
