Inclusive Crisis Alternatives – This piece of research, which took place mostly in 2025, aimed to develop the crisis alternative workforce to deliver services that meet the needs of people, who are neurodivergent or have a learning difficulty, including those from minoritised communities.

About the Research.

The research was commissioned by and executed in collaboration with NHS England. It looked at what training staff in crisis alternative services need to offer the best support possible to all people in crisis.

The crisis alternative workforce is made up of services in the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector. These services support people in crisis, as alternatives to A&E and other public healthcare options.

In particular, the project focuses on the training staff need to meet the needs of people who are neurodivergent, particularly autistic people and people with ADHD, and/or people who have a learning difficulty.

The Results

The research resulted in a number of outcomes as below:

    1. An interrim report summarising the findings and the next steps in the form of a flip book.
    2. A final report including the research results that can be found here and a shorter summary that can be found here
    3. Training materials for a 7 hour course which has been piloted with Touchstone staff and improved after feedback. This will form part of a training offer delivered by Touchstone. For further information on this offer click here
    4. A Resource Pack for use in Crisis Provision, developed with Neurodivergent Experts by Experience. See the information on the training offer link for how to get a copy of this.

Get in Touch

Please contact Tracey via email wherever possible: research@TouchstoneSupport.org.uk.

If you have a preference or need for calls over email, please call Tracey on the below phone number:

Call: 07484 911048.

Meet the Team

Tracey Hemmerdinger, Crisis Workforce Development Lead

November 2025 Report Update

This flipbook shows interim results from the research, which were published in November 2025.Please click on the image above to be taken to the full report in flipbook style.

How we look after your information

Touchstone is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and keeping your information secure. If you took part in one of our questionnaires as part of this  project, all of your information will be kept confidential.

To read more about how we looked after your information in this research project, please download our privacy notices below:

Frequently Asked Questions

There is a real need to offer people alternatives to being admitted to hospital and provide more support in the community. Recent events, such as the Darzi report into the NHS and the review of the Mental Health Act, have emphasised this need.

There are many people in hospital, who wouldn’t need to be if support was available in the community. This can often be the case for people who are neurodivergent and people who have a learning difficulty.

The NHS is committed to investing in VCSE services to support people in the community. They need to know what training and support staff need to deliver excellent services for everyone. This piece of research provides NHS England with that information.

The research took place predominantly in 2025 and the results published in July 2026.

The project looked at services for all ages. We focused with particular interest on the barriers for those who are transitioning between children’s and adult services.

We include the following services:

  • Any service in the VCSE sector, which works with people in mental health crisis. This includes crisis hubs or cafes, crisis houses, mental health helplines (not including 111), and other crisis support services.
  • Any services that work with people who are neurodivergent and/or people who have a learning difficulty.
  • Services that work with people who often find it hard to access mainstream provision. This could include people who, when trying to access support, face barriers related to their culture, age, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, or other experiences i.e. of homelessness, migration, caring responsibilities etc.

The research is across the whole of the North East and Yorkshire region of NHS England. This includes West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and the Humber, and the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) districts.

A learning difficulty is defined by the NHS as “a type of special educational need which affects areas of learning”. This includes conditions such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

A learning disability is defined by the NHS as “a significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information, to learn new skills (impaired intelligence), with a reduced ability to cope independently (impaired social functioning), which started before adulthood.” This piece of work does not cover people with a learning disability as it does not have the resources to do so.

Person-first vs. identity-first language

When describing people we worked with in this project, we have carefully considered the language we use. This includes choosing between using people-first or identity-first language to describe people with different experiences. Below we have explained some of our reasoning behind our language choices:

Autistic people – We have chosen to use identity-first language here, as this description is preferred by most autistic people. This is because most autistic people see being autistic as integral to who they are, not as something they ‘have’. While have used these terms for our research project, we realise that some autistic people we work with may prefer people-first language (i.e. people with autism) and we always refer to individuals using the language they prefer to describe themselves.

Disabled people – We have chosen to use this language to reflect the ‘social model of disability’. The social model says that it’s not someone’s condition or impairment that disables them but the barriers created by society. The term ‘disabled people’ reflects this. NHS England and charities working with disabled people like Scope advise to use this term.

In most other cases, we use people-first language i.e. people with ADHD, people with a learning difficulty.

Other language choices 

Throughout the project, we refer to Experts by Experience to describe people who bring lived experience of using crisis services and/or of identifying with a particular group or community. The term Experts by Experience highlights the valued expertise that this lived experience brings.