Ontario Autism Program: capacity action plan
Learn how Ontario is helping service providers build a thriving workforce to better support children and youth on the autism spectrum.
Overview
Ontario is making investments to help service providers hire, train and retain more skilled staff to deliver services through the Ontario Autism Program and increase their ability to support more children and youth on the autism spectrum.
By supporting providers to build a stable, efficient, and skilled workforce, we are ensuring that all families have access to safe, high-quality services in the Ontario Autism Program.
Creating the capacity action plan
To develop our plan, we sought and considered advice and findings from families, service providers and other experts, including:
- recommendations to build sector capacity from the autism advisory panel
- advice from the implementation working group, which included recommendations related to workforce initiatives specifically focused on northern, rural and remote communities
- data on the sector’s workforce, including the results of a survey of more than 2,000 clinicians that provided important insights about their availability, distribution and qualifications
Through these discussions and research findings, we have heard from families and service providers about the need to continue developing a stable and skilled workforce to serve children and families in the needs-based Ontario Autism Program.
Developing a stable, efficient and skilled workforce is key for families in northern, rural and remote communities who require access to local services. They have also reported a need for more service providers with the skills and training to work with francophone and Indigenous families.
Objectives
The capacity action plan is informed by broad feedback and research that we have conducted. It has four primary objectives:
- Stabilize the workforce to retain and build on existing talent to support a smooth transition to the needs-based Ontario Autism Program.
- Enhance skills and training to increase the supply of skilled clinicians responding to each family's unique needs.
- Strengthen oversight to promote consistency, professionalism and safe, high-quality service delivery across the province.
- Expand access particularly for rural, remote, Indigenous and francophone populations, through new service delivery and outreach strategies.
Initiatives
To achieve these four objectives, the plan includes a mix of short-term measures that will have an immediate impact and support future growth and transformation.
We will consider additional initiatives in subsequent years as the workforce and service sector evolve.
Here is an outline of the initiatives, organized by the objectives that they support.
Initiatives to stabilize the workforce
Workforce capacity fund: a grant program that supports projects led by public and private service providers and community organizations to improve access to clinical services in the OAP.
Transition funding for legacy agencies: provide transition funding to legacy Ontario Autism Program service providers to help them transition to the needs-based program.
Transition planning resources: funded Empowered Kids Ontario to develop tools and resources to build sector capacity, and supported transition planning for ministry funded children’s service providers.
Workforce planning data: working with AccessOAP to develop a plan to collect, monitor, analyze and disseminate data on workforce supply and demand.
Initiatives to enhance skills and training
Professional development: fund training activities that help to build, retain, grow the workforce, and enhance the knowledge and skills of existing clinicians. This includes:
- Indigenous Cultural Competency Training for OAP service providers, including behaviour analysts, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, ASD diagnostic hub staff and care coordinators.
- Integrated mental health capacity-building and training for mental health and autism providers (developed and delivered by Children’s Mental Health Ontario).
- Considering opportunities to better align higher education and training pathways with the future workforce needs of the OAP.
Initiatives to strengthen oversight
Regulation: started regulating applied behaviour analysis as a separate profession under the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario. For more information, visit the College’s website.
OAP provider list: expanded the OAP provider list, a verified list of experienced and trained clinicians who deliver OAP services, to include speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists.
Initiatives to expand access
Northern capacity-building pilots: fund three pilot projects led by agencies to stabilize and expand supports in Northern Ontario.
We are considering additional initiatives to improve service access for Indigenous and francophone families.
Contact us
If you have questions about the Ontario Autism Program and the capacity action plan, you can contact us at: