Study title

The Our Stories project was a methods pilot project co-constructed with different practice-based settings to support different transitions of autistic children, young people and families. Therefore, most of the documents deposited are methodological protocols for informed consent, video content creation, evaluation, and analysis. There were 4 pilot projects in total, each with different protocol documents to suit the context and stakeholders as well as institutional requirements for ethics review at the universities of Southampton and Sussex. We also share example video outputs from the project that we have permission to make publicly available (the URLs to these outputs are also included in the summary Readme document) and include: 10 'I am' Digital Stories; 2 'How I feel' Digital Stories; and 3 'We are' Family Digital Stories.The long-term social, educational, and employment outcomes for autistic people remain poor. There is a longstanding gap between research and practice such that these poor outcomes are not being adequately addressed despite over 40 years of research. This has led to calls for research to develop more participatory methods that are inclusive of autistic people such that their needs and strengths can be identified, explored, and understood in more effective ways that make a difference to everyday life. However, many approaches to participation remain tokenistic and partial, with many voices and experiences excluded and under-explored. Such voices include those with complex needs who may not communicate via speech. Also excluded are the voices of families, and practitioners across education, health, and social care. Lived experiences and professional knowledge are sources of evidence that are regularly overlooked and undervalued in research in favour of scientific evidence and formalised knowledge. We argue that research, and the methods used therein, can only make an impact on practice if there is a genuine commitment to gathering and...