Autism Professionals Awards 2020
Celebrating services and professionals who are leading the way in innovative autism practice and making a real difference to the lives of autistic people in the UK
What are the Autism Professionals Awards?
The Autism Professionals Awards have been created to recognise and reward professionals and services who are leading the way in innovative autism practice and making a real difference to the lives of autistic people in the UK.
The Awards seek to acknowledge the outstanding contributions and achievements of individuals, teams and organisations who have demonstrated excellence, dedication and commitment to improving the lives of autistic people.
Award winners
Individual professionals
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Dr Virginia Bovell is the mother of Danny, 25, who has a diagnosis of autism and severe learning disabilities. A former trustee of the National Autistic Society, she was also one of the founding parents of TreeHouse School and its UK umbrella charity Ambitious about Autism. During Danny’s school years, she was active in UK policy and campaigning in relation to autism and SEN, contributing to several national guidance documents, including the NICE Guideline on the management of autism in children and young people. She has since written and spoken about autism and ethics, for which she received a doctorate in 2015. She is currently a member of Islington Learning Disability Partnership Board, with particular involvement in issues of housing, health and family support.
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Melanie qualified as a teacher in 1990 and spent the first twenty-three years of her career working in two schools in Lewisham. Both schools had significant numbers of children with SEN and behaviour that challenges. Melanie went from being a part time teacher in 1990 to Head Teacher in 2008.
In 2013 Melanie moved away from mainstream education and into SEN – a decision informed by her passionate belief that ‘every child matters’ and that a narrow focus on academic results was letting down many SEN children. Melanie began leading a unit for KS3 autistic children and grew it into a stand-alone ASC through school of twenty-five children.
In 2015, Kedleston Group recruited Melanie to develop their provision for children with autism and additional needs. Starting with a unit in Hackney, children who had been out of education for years re-engaged, and some moved onto college with GCSE’s. Melanie was then able to open Kedleston’s first stand-alone ASC school. After just six months, the school’s ‘Leadership and Management’ and ‘Behaviour and Personal Development’ were judged ‘outstanding’ by OFSTED who said “Brookways School is exceptionally well led.” Parents describe the school as ‘transforming our lives’ and children say ‘Brookways is the BEST’.
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Lee is a Vice President for JP Morgan Chase, one of his roles is leading the Autism at Work Program for UK and Europe, Middle East, and Africa region supporting the Global team based in Delaware. Lee was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome over 12 years ago, and he has a teenage son with Autism Spectrum Condition, which drives him to be a leading advocate and speaker for JP Morgan and beyond. Lee supports numerous not for profits, government agencies and JP Morgan in providing guidance to other businesses seeking to start and run Autism employment programs. Lee uses his extensive experience to achieve his vision of increasing employability options for people on the spectrum.
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Hayley is a SEND campaigner and full time parent, with her husband Ben to their two sons Matthew and Connor. Prior to having children Hayley was a solicitor working for companies such as Google and Avis Budget Group.
Hayley founded the Sutton EHCP Crisis campaign group after her son Matthew who is on the Autism Spectrum, was turned down for an EHC Assessment despite seven professionals all saying that he would need one. After making enquiries she realised this was a borough wide issue and so believed that they only way to resolve it would be to unite those struggling and speak with one large powerful voice. Hayley organised and presented at multiple meetings between local councillors, council officers, MPs and the group members to try to persuade those with responsibility to make the changes needed. Alongside this, she arranged for parents to get free legal advice to help them appeal decisions.
The campaign gathered large support and has been recognised and widely covered in the press including being spoken about at Prime Minister’s Questions. Hayley continues to lead the campaign “I will not stop until changes are made and all children get the education that they are entitled to.”
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Alison Stansfield is a learning disability psychiatrist who began her training in Cambridge where she first developed her interest in autism. She moved to Leeds to complete her specialist training and then worked in Yorkshire as a consultant. She was employed by the Yorkshire and Humber Secure Services Commissioning Team to review people with learning disabilities and autism who required treatment in conditions of security.
From 2010 to 2013, she was the Associate Medical Director for Learning Disabilities in Leeds but relinquished the post to concentrate on her role as Clinical Lead for the Leeds Autism Diagnostic Service (LADS) after successfully submitting business cases that resulted in permanent funding. She has co-authored five publications describing the service development of LADS in Advances in Autism and has contributed four chapters to the book ABC of Autism (Wiley Blackwell). She has produced a series of educational films for GPs with Dr James McGrath (available on YouTube - search Leeds Autism Diagnostic Service) and was recently filmed talking about autistic mums for a perinatal masterclass.
Prior to her retirement, she led the team in a quality improvement process that resulted in successful succession planning and the team meeting national waiting list targets.
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Hazel is the holder of an MSc in Autism and Related Conditions from Swansea University, Hazel is a race representative of the ABMU Health Stakeholder Reference group, the organiser of the first Festival of Autism Swansea in 2017, she has an Asperger’s husband, Asperger’s son, a daughter with permanent hearing impairment and her youngest son is on the autism assessment pathway.
As a multilingual autism specialist at Chinese-In-Wales-Association (CIWA), a charitable organisation whose ethos is to deliver services that will make a positive impact on the lives of ethnic Chinese residents, Hazel advocates for autistic people and their family and support professionals of how to more effectively assist their clients from Chinese ethnic minority. Additionally, Hazel is a passionate international autism speaker, a dedicated leader of a range of autism related workshops and wellbeing activities. She has a diverse range of skills and personal experience which give her a profound understanding of people with autistic conditions, and she is committed to working alongside them to make a positive impact.Prior joining CIWA, Hazel has served as an interpreter in the public services, supporting and advocates for the Chinese living in the UK to overcome cultural and language barriers.
Teams of professionals
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‘Every child is unique with different needs that must be supported’ is the approach adopted by the team at the award-winning, Ofsted-rated ‘Outstanding’ Westwood Day Nursery in Coventry.
Stepping in after other early years providers have refused entry to children, and in the absence of a formal diagnosis or assessment, the dedicated and highly trained Westwood practitioners developed action plans to nurture talent and support weaknesses.
They take a holistic approach to supporting both the child and their parents by pinpointing appropriate support groups and organisations and advocating for external specialist support and funding to ensure children with special or additional needs are visible to local authorities.Manager Martina Reidy said: “With our help, parents recognize that the milestones for development and achievement may change but the goal is the same – ensuring their child is given every opportunity to realise their full potential.”
“It is impossible to describe our joy at seeing a child who started with 10 minute sessions in nursery, settle into four afternoon sessions a week before making a confident transition to school recently.”
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The ASC Resource Provision, is part of Wilmslow High School, a large mainstream school with over 2000 students. The RP evolved into the provision it is today in 2014, when Katie Goodwin took over. Forest School was introduced later that year as an alternative way of experiencing learning outside the classroom. It has a profound effect: “It is difficult to convey the impact these activities have had on my child’s self-image, confidence, social skills, learning and enjoyment of school.”
To ensure flexible, reactive and bespoke support, the team are in constant contact to ensure that everyone is well briefed on any trigger points and reduce meltdowns. This communication is extended into the home, with parents and carers being part of the team as well. According to one parent, “The resource is like a second family … the future is bright, that was unimaginable 4 years ago!”.The team’s aim is to ensure students are as independent as possible, by the time they leave. A fully fitted, Life Skills flat and timetabled life skills trips, such as horse therapy, personal budgeting, independent travel training and orientating the local area, alongside academic lessons, has enabled the team to really prepare the students for adulthood.
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Denise and Simon have achieved something quite phenomenal with The Inclusion Project: they saw the need of a genuine service for adults with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism.
During his teaching career Simon had roles of Learning Disabilities Teacher and Specialist Careers Adviser/Co-ordinator for students with Autism. He took on another job in his ‘holidays’, evenings and weekends working in Supported Housing/Living. Simon was also (and has continued to) do voluntary work for the Special Olympics. He set up basketball teams he has taken to national finals and won and has single handed funded two Special Olympics basketball players living with Autism, to attend the World Games in Abu Dhabi this year, where they won Gold medals for Team GB. What sets Simon apart is he had this experience of what it is to live in society with LDs and/or Autism from perspectives of: education, employment, domestic living/housing, leisure/sporting activities. This unique vantage point coalesced to enable Simon to have the vision of The Inclusion Project.
Denise, who is not only Simon’s colleague but Mother, has a Phd in Inclusion and has supported Simon from the very beginning. During the last year, Denise and Simon continue to change lives–so many of them–Participants and Staff. The Inclusion Project has created work for a hundred Staff in providing opportunities for Participants. Staff are paid way above the Living Wage and consequently we keep good staff and can provide consistency/continuity of service for Participants. Denise and Simon are devoted to making the lives of people with LDs and/or Autism self-determining so they can lead lives they choose to.
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The National Autistic Society’s School Exclusion Service aims to empower families to secure the education their children need and deserve – this includes preventing exclusion, helping to challenge decisions and getting the correct support.
Exclusion can have an adverse impact on not only a child’s education but also their wellbeing, and a long-term consequence of a disrupted education is the limiting prospects for their future. The School Exclusion Service, thanks to funding from the Department for Education, most recently via the Autism Education Trust, aims to change this.The service also aims to effectuate wider change by ensuring education professionals have access to free resources which aim to encourage understanding of autism and minimise exclusion.
In addition to helping individual families (successfully as demonstrated by the overwhelmingly positive feedback they receive), the service also works closely with external affairs colleagues and contributed to the successful ‘tendency to physical abuse’ loophole upper tribunal appeal led by policy colleagues.
The service has supported over 5,000 families since it began in 2013 and free resources have been prepared and shared with almost 80,000 education professionals. The School Exclusion Service is coordinated by Andy Cutting who was previously a deputy head and primary school teacher, and is supported by volunteer advisers.
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J.P. Morgan’s Corporate & Investment Bank is a global leader across banking, markets and investor services. The world’s most important corporations, governments and institutions entrust us with their business in more than 100 countries. With $26 trillion of assets under custody and $485 billion in deposits, the Corporate & Investment Bank provides strategic advice, raises capital, manages risk and extends liquidity in markets around the world.
Our Autism at Work programme aims to hire, retain and support qualified individuals with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) into meaningful roles across the firm. Through partnerships with organisations including the National Autistic Society, we are learning to look beyond the traditional interview process to find highly qualified employees and identify roles that would benefit from the talents of these individuals. In the UK, the agenda is driven by individuals who are themselves on the spectrum, which means the programme is driven by a true understanding of what it means to be “on the spectrum” and some of the challenges faced when seeking employment.
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Act for Autism is a social enterprise based in Warwickshire founded in 2016 By Tessa Morton and Jane Gurnett. Its purpose is to empower autistic kids to have a voice and talk about autism with the wider community. The community project specific to this award is the Autism Voices film projects. Having been successful as NAS short list nominees in 2018 they embarked on 3 more film projects which have been equally successful in giving confidence to the cast but also a wider awareness to the many people who have benefited from seeing the films on social media and live at training events and conferences.This year’s film project ’Autism Voices 2’ won a prestigious award at a film festival in Milan and the students have been empowered to take the films into their schools and host assemblies and staff training themselves. There are two more projects planned for 2020. The self-esteem and self-acceptance derived from the project has surpassed all expectations. We show the films on our parent and school training courses to educate about autism but also to inspire others never to underestimate the ability and the desire that autistic students have to express themselves.
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Sarah Cassidy is the lead researcher in the mental health in autism research program and is a lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of Nottingham.
Sarah’s ground breaking research discovered high rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviours in autistic people. Since then, Sarah has worked to ensure that the autistic community has a voice in setting priorities for suicide prevention research, policy and practice. The International Society for Autism Research and the leading autism research charity Autistica have honoured Sarah for her dedication to meaningfully involving autistic people and their families in suicide prevention research and policy. Her research has led to service providers and policy makers worldwide acknowledging autistic people a high-risk group for suicide. Her research, co-produced with autistic people, has successfully developed new methods to enable researchers and clinicians to better identify, understand and prevent suicide in autism. Her research and policy work are supported by grants from the ESRC, NIHR, Autistica and INSAR.
Sarah completed her PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2012. She completed a post-doc at the Autism Research Centre University of Cambridge, and went on to form a research group at Coventry University, before re-joining Nottingham as a lecturer in October 2017.
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Janet Matthews
conference@nas.org.uk
T: +44 (0) 115 911 3367