Holiday Activities for Autistic Children and Young People

This grants programme runs once a year.

An expression of interest form will be available on the website from Monday 2 February until Friday 13 February at 5pm.

Please note there is a high demand for this programme and last year the grant round close for applications one day after it opened.

The 2026 round will only fund autistic-specific holiday schemes. The programme will be for autistic-specific activity programmes that run in the school holidays in the UK, including sessions for siblings.

Not-for-profit organisations in the UK can apply for grants of up to £15,000 which are usually for part of the costs to run the activity schemes.

To be eligible, applicants must:

• Have a safeguarding policy
• Have Public Liability Insurance
• If paying staff, have Employer’s Liability Insurance.
• Use professionally trained staff and volunteers (not parents/guardians)
• Pay staff the Living Wage or better (we will ask for details)
• Have a bank account with two unrelated people to authorise or check on payments
• Have an income of less than £1 million
• For autistic children and young people who need one-to-one or greater support, staff and volunteers must have specific training on the following:
  • Autism awareness
  • Positive approaches to behaviour and communication support including de-escalation skills
  • First aid and medical needs support
  • Health and safety