In 2018, NPAA Vice-Chair and Police Scotland coordinator Claire Masterton was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study autism training and education in police forces in the United States and Europe. Claire travelled across the US, visiting police departments in Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine, and crossed the Atlantic to look at projects being run with the police forces of Sweden, Denmark and The Netherlands.

Following her fact-finding mission, Claire has a produced a report on her findings, Autism and Policing: Best Practice in Education and Training. Click on the link to download a PDF, and click here to read Claire’s blog on her trip.

At the time Claire applied for her Churchill Fellowship, the National Police Autism Association was barely two years old, and autism awareness in policing was a largely unexplored area of research. We would like to extend our thanks to Claire for this groundbreaking piece of work, to the police departments and staff who kindly offered their assistance with the project, and to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for making it possible. ∎