An Autistic Guide to Healthy Relationships

I’m incredibly aware that over the past few years my blog has been incredibly quiet. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working, researching, writing, collaborating and doing good work!

The release of ‘The Autistic Guide to Healthy Relationships’ is one such piece of work I’ve been working on in the background and am now able to talk about. This is a free guide, available to everyone to download, print and share.

“There is dearth of relevant information with regards to the experiences of Autistic people who experience intimate partner violence (IPV), and therefore an enormous gap in the meeting of need for those people too. Autistic people exist within an ecology of stigma, where so many of our experiences intersectionally are invalidated, pathologised, misunderstood, and we are often victim blamed when normatively intended processes fail us.

“This research is key to not only platforming Autistic people’s experiences of IPV and providing victims with both a voice and resources; but also shines a light on processes of ‘support’, that simply aren’t informed or structured well enough to meet the need that exists.” Kieran Rose, April 2024

Project overview
Many autistic people experience violence and abuse within close relationships. However, there is currently little understanding about what we can do to a) prevent this from happening, and b) provide better support for autistic people who have been abused.

This resource was developed as part of a project funded by the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network, which examined how autistic adults understand and recover from intimate partner violence.

We interviewed autistic adults about their experiences, and how we could improve service provision and outcomes for autistic victim-survivors. During this process many of them told us how much they wished that there had been more information on what healthy relationships look like, including how to spot red (and amber/green) flags.

Based on the information shared in the interviews, our team (which includes both autistic people, and people who have experienced intimate partner violence) created this guide to help other autistic people to navigate relationships and recognise the signs of both healthy and unhealthy relationships. We also worked with Sunderland People First to create an easy-read version.

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDES

Download the guide here:  An Autistic Guide to Healthy Relationships

Download the easy-read guide here: An easy-read Autistic Guide to Healthy Relationships

You can also access these from Durham University’s website: An Autistic Guide to Healthy Relationships

THANKS TO MY COLLEAGUES ON THIS PROJECT
Dr Amy Pearson, Durham University
Dr Monique Botha, University of Stirling
Mrs Sarah Douglas, University of Bristol
Dr Felicity Sedgewick, University of Bristol

This work was funded by the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network as part of a project exploring the experience of violence and abuse in the relationships of autistic adults. The red, orange, and green flags we include here are based on what they told us during our
research.

The artwork included in this resource was developed by Lauren Osborne: https://www.laurenelizartworks.co.uk

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If you’ve found this article useful you can support my work by donating any amount from $3 (about the same as a coffee – mine’s a caramel latte please!).

I know not everyone wants, or needs to buy one of my training courses, but I often find people will read one of my free articles and want to say ‘thank you’ (and this is really appreciated as they’re a lot of work to write!) Buying me a virtual coffee is a really easy way to say thanks. It also supports me to keep being able to create new, free content and keep my older, free content up-to-date. It also allows me to keep my website ad-free!

My Autism FAQs page is a good place to start if you’re new to my work and want to explore more. Thanks for your support, Kieran.

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JOIN KIERAN’S MAILING LIST (for infrequent, but useful, updates!)

And, as a thank you for joining, you’ll get a 10% off code emailed to you which you can use on Kieran’s on-demand autism training and ebooks (including his flagship training The Inside of Autism).

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Training and ebooks from Kieran

I have a full range of autism training and ebooks on my website; starting from just a few dollars and all priced to be affordable.

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Got more questions about Autism?

If reading this article has given you more questions then my Autism FAQs is a great place to point you in the right direct to get answers (and most of where I direct you is to free-to-access resources!).