Breaking the Buzzwords: Trauma, Neurodivergence and the Path to Equitable Practice

Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou  - Chair

Georgia is Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology and Mental Health at University College London (UCL) and founder of the Group in Research in Relationships and Neurodiversity - GRRAND. She works at the intersection of research, clinical care and education to bring sustainable and positive change for neurodivergent people and the professionals who support them. She is also a BACP relational pluralistic psychotherapist and lead editor of the three times best seller “Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People”, published by Routledge in November 2024. Her recent research focuses on school induced emotional burden, situating emotion regulation in adhd and autism and adaptations in therapy settings when working with distressed autistic adults.

Alexis Quinn  

Alexis is a psychotherapist, researcher, educator and manager of the Restraint Reduction Network. She has also published two books: Unbroken, a memoir, and Autistic and Expecting, a guide for autistic parents-to-be. Alexis speaks on neurodivergence, trauma, restraint, solitary confinement and mental wellbeing.   

Bengi O’Reilly  

Bengi is a registered nurse and Co-Chair of Trustees for the Restraint Reduction Network. Her work focuses on improving understanding and inclusivity for neurodivergent people to reduce the discrimination and inequalities they face. Bengi is passionate about promoting human rights and trauma informed support and reducing restrictive practice.  

Hazel Lim    

Hazel Lim is an award-winning autism specialist, campaigner, and founder of Chinese Autism CIC, supporting Chinese-heritage neurodivergent individuals and families across the UK. A member of the Welsh Government’s Neurodivergence Ministerial Advisory Group, she is recognised for promoting culturally responsive and equitable practice. As an autistic and ADHD (AuDHDer) woman and mother of three neurodivergent children, Hazel brings deep lived experience and intersectional insight to her training and advocacy. Her work bridges health, education, and community engagement—raising mental health awareness, challenging cultural stigma, and empowering professionals to build more inclusive and understanding services.

Jon Adams  

Jon is a contemporary artist whose work draws on his experiences of AuDHD, synaesthesia and dyslexia. Through drawing, sound, narrative and performance, he weaves his lived experience in with history, research and time. He has shown work at the Royal Academy, Tate Modern and Pallant House, and facilitates KoCreate Kollective – a space for neurodivergent people to come together for creative practice.    

Kieran Rose   

With a background in Education, Kieran Rose is an autistic parent to three autistic children. Through training, consultancy and supervision he supports organisations and professionals worldwide to critically reflect, challenge stigma, and reframe Autistic experience through an intersectional lens.

Kieran is a published academic researcher focusing on masking, identity, stigma, trauma and care practice, and delivers training across health, education, and social care, including for the NHS and HSCNI. He also guest-lectures at universities across the UK and on five teaching streams at Anna Freud. Kieran is a faculty member at both the occupational therapy clinical, teaching and research organisation ‘the STAR Institute’ in the US, as neurodivergence educator and as a principle lecturer on the specialist degree in ‘Supporting Autistic People from a Transdisciplinary and Inclusive Approach’, at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Spain.

He also serves as a curriculum reviewer and co-writer for NHS England for IAPT Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression in Adolescents (IPT-A). Kieran is a writer and co-author of the highly acclaimed book: ‘Autistic Masking: Understanding Identity Management and the role of Stigma’.

Olive Kayongo

Olive is a neurodivergent mother, parenting practitioner, and peer supporter whose work explores the meeting point between love, trauma’s legacy and the heart work in the layered experience of raising neurodivergent children. Her perspective has been shaped through personal, family and community journeys that travel across the complex terrain of crisis, recovery and growth. These journeys unfold within the cradle of public systems that hold and shape their stories, a terrain Olive invites audiences to explore alongside her.

As a speaker, Olive curiously peels back sentiment to reveal love as the golden thread that reveals, challenges and restores. She invites audiences into spaces where deeper truths can be felt, witnessed and held. Her approach brings trauma into focus not as a clinical concept, but as a lived lens through which parenting, connection and fierce compassion take shape and are experienced alongside moments of joy, expansion and repair.

Olive’s leadership in strategic spaces grows from this same lens. As Chair of her local Parent Carer Forum (recognised by the Department for Education as a strategic partner to local SEND services), she works to bring the insight and value of lived experience into decision-making spaces. Her work moves across many layers: within herself and her family, alongside families she supports and into the public systems that shape those lives. In these early and often complex stages, she has witnessed how centring lived experience can open conversations and gently influence how services evolve. Olive invites audiences to imagine what can unfold when change begins close to home and ripples outward— through individuals, families, communities and the wider systems that surround them.

Sajida Khan

I am an educationalist and advocate for autism, with over 26 years of experience across primary, secondary, and further education. As a qualified teacher, mentor, and school improvement consultant, I’ve led curriculum development, supported students with SEND, EAL, and SEMH needs, and trained staff across all phases of education. I hold a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and Comparative Religion, a PGCE, and an MA in Education. But my most personal role is being a mother to my autistic son, who tragically died by suicide. His life and loss drive my commitment to building compassionate, inclusive systems that truly support neurodivergent children and young people. Today, I speak not only as an educator but as a mother determined to turn pain into purpose and advocacy into action.

Dr. Venessa Swaby (h.c)

Dr. Venessa Swaby (h.c) is an autistic advocate and founder of A2ndvoice CIC, specialising in autism, family perspectives, cultural trauma, and double marginalisation. Drawing on her lived experience as an Black mother of two autistic ADHD adults, she also provides and supports autistic people and their families while training professionals to provide culturally sensitive, trauma-informed, and equitable autism care. Through her work, Dr. Swaby strives to make a positive impact by promoting inclusion, understanding, and meaningful change in communities.

• 09:30 - Welcome and introductions - Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou

• 09:35 - Understanding upsetting experiences and narratives that hurt – Alexis Quinn  and Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou

• 11:00 - Cultural trauma and double marginalisation: lived perspectives – Hazel Lim  and Dr. Venessa Swaby (h.c)

• 12:00 - Responding to trauma in practice – Bengi O’Reilly 

• 12:30 - When professionals harm: reflections on institutional trauma – Sajida Khan 

• 13:00 - Lunch (provided)  

• 14:00 - Masking as a trauma response – Kieran Rose  

• 14:30 - Love, joy and the lens of trauma in parenting neurodivergent children  - Olive Kayongo  

• 15:00 - Psychotherapy, learning disability and trauma – Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou and Alexis Quinn 

• 15:30 - Reframing trauma: from diagnosis to understanding what happened – Jon Adams 

• 16:00 - Panel: a neurodiversity-informed approach to trauma – agency, relationships and repair

We offer a limited number of student concessionary places, and free places for autistic people and their families. Email training@annafreud.org for more information or to request a place. 

If attending a full-day training, we usually offer lunch as well as refreshments including tea, coffee and biscuits. Please inform us of any dietary requirements or allergies before you attend.

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