Case Study: Ambitious About Autism Careers Education Framework 2024-2025
Project Overview: In July 2024 Creased Puddle were commissioned by Ambitious About Autism to create a series of resources and webinars aimed at empowering mainstream and specialist schools and colleges to effectively support their autistic cohorts. The project leveraged resources from the Ambitious about Autism Careers Education Framework to develop a comprehensive training webinar. The project was designed to provide educational institutions with the tools and knowledge needed to enhance their support for autistic students.
Objectives:
- Develop Training Webinars: Creased Puddle was commissioned to create a series of training webinars for schools and colleges, utilising resources from the CEF. These webinars were delivered by a dedicated Creased Puddle Neurodiversity Consultant and Trainer during the pilot phase and included a self-audit tool for users.
- Pilot Phase: The project included a pilot phase of free webinars over three months, with a cap of 15 attendees per webinar. The pilot phase also included follow-up sessions to ensure the effectiveness of the training.
- Design: The interactive webinars were designed to bring the CEF to life, by simplifying the key messages and tools provided. Accessibility was built into the design from the start ensuring that learners who were autistic, ADHD or dyslexic benefited from the learning.
- Collaboration: AAA and Creased Puddle collaborated with external and internal teams to manage the content and delivery of the webinars. The project involved various departments, including marketing, IT, and customer service in Ambitious About Autism.
The courses were held on-line and were delivered into 2025 by Creased Puddle’s Neurodiversity Consultant Remi Chappel. Delegates were invited from across the teaching profession to attend a two-module course. The first 4-hours focused on “What is Autism and how to use the Careers Education Framework in your education setting”, followed by further 1-hour webinar reviewing the action plan created in session 1. Delegates were encouraged to interact and impart their own good practice and experiences providing a ‘learning by osmosis’ benefit.
“I was most in need of ideas as to how to embed careers into the curriculum & not overburden teachers, and I was given super resources and ideas to try. I feel far more confident to take this forward following the training.”
Recruitment and Progression Manager, Harington Scheme, Special Educational Needs College
This was a unique collaboration utilising the neurodiversity training expertise of Creased Puddle and the Autism and educational expertise of the Ambitious About Autism team.
The webinars themselves included various topics, including understanding autism in educational and workplace contexts, supporting autistic students, the importance of careers education for autistic young people, developing impactful careers education approaches, facilitating self-audit and action planning, and enhancing outcomes using Bloom’s taxonomy.
“Collaborating and developing projects with Ambitious About Autism is always exciting. This is just another example of their passion to educate the educators and leave no stone unturned when it comes to autism support”.
Caroline Turner CEO Creased Puddle Ltd
“The creation of training developed with Creased Puddle, is another fantastic example of collaboration. The training has been designed to help education professionals integrate our autism-specific Careers Education Framework (CEF), into their setting, and to enhance their knowledge of careers education and its significance on the lives of autistic young people.
Ambitious about Autism and Creased Puddle are united in supporting each other in the sector, to improve outcomes for autistic and neurodiverse individuals. I would highly recommend Creased Puddle to any prospective client, or partner.”
Emma Allix, Head of Employability, Skills and Training at Ambitious about Autism
