Co-designing a novel service delivery pathway to increase access to autism identification and care within a non-profit community organization serving culturally and linguistically diverse families

Culturally and linguistically diverse families experience greater challenges accessing timely, autism-specialized care relative to non-culturally and linguistically diverse families, and ultimately experience less optimal health outcomes. Alternative pathways to access autism care for culturally and linguistically diverse families are needed; however, the features of a novel pathway remain unclear. A co-design process was used with a culturally embedded non-profit community organization to develop a novel service delivery pathway for increasing access to autism services for culturally and linguistically diverse families in the United States. Twenty-three individuals participated in eight, 2-hour co-design sessions. Participants included front-line staff (seven non-specialist providers), management leaders (two program supervisors and two organization directors), and eight end-users (caregivers) from seven understudied cultural and linguistic groups (i.e. Somali Mai Mai, Swahili, Arabic, Dari/Pashto, French, Amharic, and Tigrinya) and four autism specialists. The co-design identified five key design features: respecting diversity, prioritizing caregiver agency, increasing accessibility, minimizing stigma, and maximizing feasibility. These features informed the co-development of a novel pathway to access autism identification and care for culturally and linguistically diverse families that pairs navigation services with the dissemination of brief, culturally sensitive, and evidence-based parenting and coping strategies. This power-sharing, community-academic partnership may serve as a model for improving equity in autism care.