John Enjoys a Holiday Break at the Kingwood Caravan
20 July 2026
The senior team at Autism at Kingwood has been dismayed to read about the appalling rise of exploitation of overseas care/support workers in the care sector. Since the government added care workers to the ‘Shortage Occupation List’, allowing people to be recruited from overseas, there have been horrendous reports of individuals paying huge (and illegal) amounts to third parties to obtain a visa, and of labour exploitation including wage theft, harassment and abuse, and debt bondage.
This practice is abhorrent and jeopardises the reputation of social care. The prominence of such criminality makes it all the more important to demonstrate what good practice looks like, in the recruitment of care professionals through a sponsorship license.
Autism at Kingwood obtained a sponsorship licence to employ people from overseas early in 2023. We have so far employed 33 people.
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What Autism at Kingwood has gained from this employment drive is a hugely talented, often highly qualified, committed, and motivated cohort who have enriched our workforce. They have helped us to stabilise staff retention, enabling us to focus on our person-centred approach and driving up quality.
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Our colleagues on sponsorship licenses receive the same employment contract, pay, and benefits as other support staff. Our colleagues have gained specialist training in all aspects of the autism support role, including autism training, safeguarding, health & social care and PBS training.
We are committed to providing them with meaningful career progression if that’s what they choose.
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Further, we have in place a specially adapted cultural induction programme to support full integration and a buddy initiative with existing staff, to support familiarisation with the organisation and in their community. We provide an employee assistance programme and proactively encourage all staff to utilise this confidential and free service.
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At Autism at Kingwood, we are embracing the positive influence our sponsorship colleagues have made to the organisation; we are learning so much from them and their experiences in care and in life.Â
We provide supported living and outreach support, helping and enabling autistic people to live in their own homes and make their own choices about the lives they want to lead.
Our relationship with the families of those we support is incredibly important to us and we work in partnership with families wherever possible.
All Autism at Kingwood support staff receive our Specialist Autism Training, making us leading care providers in Autism support.
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