Does 'mentoring’ offer effective support to autistic adults?: a mixed methods pilot study

Two overwhelmingly important drivers for the need for mentoring are mental wellbeing, and unemployment. Regarding the former, a number of studies now show that adults on the autism spectrum have relatively high rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality . This is likely to be a result of feeling isolated and excluded in society. Regarding the latter, the National Audit Office’s 2009 report Supporting People with Autism through Adulthood highlighted that only 12% of respondents of the NAO survey were in full-time paid employment; and 70% identified mental health problems. These figures are also supported elsewhere, although they are likely to underestimate the numbers of non-identified people on the autism spectrum in employment. The motivation behind the present mentoring study was to evaluate if mentoring might serve as an effective intervention to promote mental wellbeing and greater levels of employment in adults on the autism spectrum. Given resources, the present study could not be designed as a large scale quantitative randomised control trial. Instead, it was set up as a small mixed -methods preliminary pilot study in order for the research funder and research team to learn what the issues were, with a view of gathering information and preliminary evidence that would be needed in the event of a large scale study.