Morebus employees given lesson in how to deal with autistic people by charity Autisim Unlimited

A lesson in how to support people with autism was given to Morebus employees by the charity Autism Unlimited.

The experience was so successful the company now intends to roll out the training across all its services.

Morebus, part of the Go-Ahead Group which operates a fleet of more than 850 buses across the south west, asked the charity to teach its customer services team how to help people with autism.

Sara Davenport, customer service manager for Morebus, said: “We want all our staff to have a better understanding of autistic people. We began the Autism Unlimited training with our customer service team, and speaking personally it completely opened my eyes to some of the challenges autistic people face on a daily basis.

“In terms of the way we can improve our service to support autistic people, we learned about the importance of giving succinct information on our services, journeys and timescales, being as specific as possible and also following up with customers.”

Claire Causley, training manager at Autism Unlimited, said: “Autism is a neuro developmental condition which means an autistic person’s brain works differently.

“For example, an autistic person may find it difficult to communicate or interact with unfamiliar people in public areas which can be too loud, busy or new to them.

“So, ‘everyday’ things for a neuro-typical person, such as buying a bus pass, or making a travel inquiry at a bus station, can be potentially very stressful and even something an autistic person may avoid altogether.

“It is great that Morebus has started this journey to becoming autism inclusive.”

The charity has also launched four other courses which have been designed and built in conjunction with its autistic community. These are Recruiting Autistic Talent, Workplace adjustments, Signalong Foundation and Signalong Essential Vocabulary

For more details, visit https://www.autism-unlimited.org/support/training/