Autism charity to close amid burnout and funding concerns

A charity supporting people with autism has announced it is to close at the end of January amid concerns around its long term funding and the “immense pressure” being put on staff.

Autism Understanding Scotland said the move comes after it was told “with very little notice” it will no longer be receiving funding through the Scottish Government’s National Post Diagnostic Fund. It had previously been funded for three years through this Fund.

“This has made it increasingly difficult to maintain our staffing levels and services,” said a statement from the charity’s staff and board.

“It also put immense pressure on those staff we were able to retain, resulting in burnout.

“The board has worked with others looking at options to continue, however the lack of long-term funding, and a lack of permanent staff from the end of January, has left us in a position where we need to close down the charity.

“We are beyond devastated that this is the case. This is not a decision we came to lightly, or that we wanted to make.”

Challenges in finding long term funding have “been exacerbated by the fact we are a relatively new charity meaning many funds were simply not open to us”.

The charity was formed in 2021, according to the Scottish Charities Register. Its services include offering one to one support to autistic people living in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Shetland.

It has also found that many funders have decided to “pivot away from supporting autistic people”.

The process of winding down the the charity starts from the end of January and “we will be closing down out various services incrementally over the next month and half.

Members of the team and volunteers say they intend to continue running the Autistic Pride Aberdeen annual event.

“We are making sure our resources section remains available, and we will provide details on that soon,” the charity’s board and staff added.

“There are many great organisations and autistic led pages on social media to follow, we hope that people we have supported will be able to access support from some of these sources.”