9.00 Registration & refreshments
9.30 Welcome and introduction - Dr Maddie Groom and Dr Blandine French
9.45 PresentationsThese presentations will focus on the risks associated with lack of training and services for neurodiversity.
10.45 Break
11.15 PresentationsThese presentations will provide examples of solutions designed to enhance services for neurodevelopmental conditions
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Workshops - The afternoon will focus on a series of workshops to identify challenges and possible solutions to enhance care pathways for neurodevelopmental conditions
15.15 Final words:
15.30 Close
Dr Maddie Groom is Associate Professor of Applied Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the School of Medicine and Institute of Mental Health, University Of Nottingham. Maddie’s research seeks to understand the causal mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disorders with a particular interest in the co-occurrence between ADHD, autism and Tourette Syndrome. She also works with a range of stakeholders including those with lived experience and clinical expertise to increase awareness of neurodiversity and to improve assessment and treatment in healthcare services. Maddie is Director of the Centre for ADHD and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Across the Lifespan (CANDAL), a research Centre of Excellence in the Institute of Mental Health. She runs the MSc Mental Health: Research & Practice at the University of Nottingham.
Dr Blandine French works in clinical and research environments primarily with parents, children and young people with developmental disorders. She completed her PhD in Applied Psychology at the University of Nottingham, investigating the awareness and understanding of ADHD in primary care. She specifically developed and evaluated an online educational tools coproduced with GPs to increase their awareness of ADHD. This online training was endorsed by the RCGP and the leading GP training company, FourteenFish. Blandine is now working on a three year ESRC funded project looking at the economic cost of undiagnosed autism and/or ADHD. Blandine has worked with parents of children with ADHD and adult patients for the last decade, running peer support groups.
Dr Chloe Holloway-George is an Assistant Professor in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice in the School of Law, University of Nottingham. Her research specialises in autism and the law with specific focus on the rights of autistic people in society. Chloe has previously led research aimed at improving the support of autistic people in detention settings through changes to practice, policy and the custody environment. She has worked with the Nottinghamshire Autism Police Partnership to help co-produce an improved autism training package and toolkit for police custody staff and has delivered autism training for custody staff and offered advice on how police forces can make their custody suites more 'autism-friendly'. Most recently, Chloe has conducted an evaluation of the autism training and toolkit to understand how it is being used by police forces with a view to influencing the development of national neurodiversity criminal justice policy.
Emma McNally (CEO Tourettes Action) Emma is both a successful business executive and an avid campaigner for the needs of people with Tourette Syndrome. She is passionate about the cause and has worked tirelessly on improving the access to diagnosis and treatment. Emma joined Tourettes Action as the CEO in January 2022 and has a son with TS.
Suzanne Rimmer initially trained as a Physiotherapist in the NHS and specialised as a Paediatric Physiotherapist, working with children and young people with additional needs, long term conditions and disabilities. Suzanne was involved in the early development of the ‘Team Around’ approach to support collaborative working and co-ordinated support for families, which remains a key driver for her. She moved into operational management, managing frontline paediatric services across Acute and Community services as a way of integrating local provision. This involved working closely with key partners in Care and Education, along with families to improve and transform services for children and young people. Suzanne further specialised in Commissioning and Service Transformation to enable opportunities for service improvement and innovation and commissioning of services to meet local system needs and the needs of local families, co-producing with service users. With over 30 years NHS experience working to support children and young people with additional needs and disabilities, she is now working as the Head of Children’s Health and Maternity Commissioning for St Helens Place, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB, with special interests in Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing, Early Help, 0-19 services and End of Life care.
Professor Prathiba Chitsabesan is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry working in a large mental health and learning disability trust in Greater Manchester (Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust). She has an interest in working with children with ADHD as well as supporting the mental health and neurodevelopmental needs of children and young people in contact with the criminal justice system. She continues to be research active as a Visiting Chair (University College London and Manchester Metropolitan University) and has been involved in a number of regional (Delivering Effective Services for CYP with ADHD, Greater Manchester Strategic Clinical Network) and national transformation programmes as advisor for NHS England.
At our first network event on 11 May 2023, we conducted workshops in small groups to identify key objectives, barriers and facilitators to service delivery, and potential solutions to the challenges faced.
This was a great opportunity to get all new network members present to help shape future service design for people with neurodevelopmental conditions and to exchange knowledge with others in this area.
Each small group discussed a different theme, and each group was facilitated so that key points could be recorded.
Identification to referral
In December, we held a local event to bring together experts in healthcare, commissioning, service design/delivery, research and lived experience in Nottinghamshire
The event was led by senior Research Fellow Dr Blandine French, CANDAL Director Dr Maddie Groom and Integrated Care Board Transformation manager Debbie Bickley. We began with presentations from ICB managers and Single point of access directors from Lincoln, Derby and Nottingham Behavioural Emotional and Health team. These presentations described good practice and innovative initiatives to improve ND care pathways.
We also presented an update on what the network has achieved since its creation last May, the quick wins, collaborations and initiatives already ongoing. We also discussed how best to continue engaging this new network for future research and policy development.
Links to all the workshop presentations can be found by clicking on presentation titles below.
9.30 Welcome and introduction - Blandine French
9.45 Presentations
These presentations will focus on local initiatives and pathways.
11.10 Break
11.30 Network update and workshop
12.30 Networking Lunch
Debbie Bickley, Transformation & Commissioning Manager for the Learning Disabilities & Autism Team within the Nottingham & Nottinghamshire ICB.
Currently leading on a review of the Children & Young Peoples Neurodevelopmental Pathway across Nottingham & Nottinghamshire along with the development of a Neurodevelopmental website for children & young people and their families/carers, offering signposting support and guidance and information along the referral pathway process.
William Galloway-Grant has worked in Health and Social Care for over 20 years starting off in the Probation Service and then moving into Substance Misuse. More recently he has been working in the NHS as a Commissioner where he’s been involved in Adult Mental Health Commissioning with a portfolio the ranged from Talking Therapies to Eating Disorder services. Currently he is the Head of Children’s Strategic Commissioning at NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB leading on Physical Health and SEND with a significant part of his role focusing on ND Pathway Transformation
Maxine Tomlinson has a varied public sector career including political and organisational management, systems and cultural change and more recently children's commissioning. Her current work programme focuses on SEND and ND Transformation.
Emma-Kay Dominey-Hill is the Head of Learning Disability and Autism for Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (and previous Autism Programme Lead for Lincolnshire ICS). She worked with her commissioning board and local authority to secure funding for a community support offer in Lincolnshire and co-facilitated a local community work-stream to devise a functional model in rural Lincolnshire - The Virtual Autism Hub. The Hub is now in operationalisation and currently hosted within Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust, where Emma maintains a supportive oversight. Emma is a Qualified Speech and Language Therapist and Advanced Sensory integration Practitioner by background and has worked in mental health and neurodevelopmental services within the UK and Ireland. She has worked with children, young people and adults within community, inpatient and secure settings over the last 22 years, in clinical and leadership roles.
Anne-Marie Gregory is Project Manager at Lincolnshire’s Virtual Autism Hub. This role includes running the grant scheme for autism support groups. She previously worked in international development. Her passion is plants and her academic background is in plant ecology and tropical agriculture. She was diagnosed with bipolar while at university, which in the days before the Equality Act meant graduate careers weren’t open to her. Twelve years ago, she realised she’s autistic and was fortunate to access diagnosis. This led her to getting involved with Lincolnshire’s Autism Partnership Board as an activist, which she found her technical skills were much needed by the public sector. Prior to this role she’s worked in autism commissioning, staff training and written Lincolnshire’s adult post-diagnostic course.
Ingrid Vlam is the Team Manager for the developing Lincolnshire Virtual Autism Hub. The Virtual Autism Hub is being established to provide an innovative source of all age autism support to empower autistic people and their parents/carers. The Hub will work closely with the voluntary sector and community groups to strengthen support for autistic adults, children and young people and parent/carers, increasing the range, breadth and reach of these groups. Ingrid started as a practitioner in Social Care nearly 40 years ago and has provided direct support to autistic people in the community, which has always been an area of particular interest to her. She has since held senior management positions in provider organisations in the voluntary sector with responsibilities for shaping strategy and best practice.
Rachel Deane has had the honour of managing the Behavioural and Emotional Health Team since November 2020 and following Nottingham City being awarded the contract via the Integrated Care Board
She has worked for Nottingham City Council for 12 years and across several teams, such as, Social Care field work, The Whole Life Disability Team and Early Help. Rachel has been honoured to work with a diverse range of Nottingham City children, young people, their families and professionals with the aim of working together to improve outcomes, celebrating their success and achievements.
During the Covid-19 restrictions she worked closely with key partner agencies, services and professionals to develop best practice and redesign the delivery of evidence based programmes for Early Help Services within Nottingham City.
Rachel is passionate about improving services and their accessibility to children, young people and their parent/carers.
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