About
Stacey is a late-diagnosed neurodivergent individual and parent of neurodivergent children. She is also a former outstanding teacher, healthcare assistant and PDA Society trainer, as well as an author, advocate and independent trainer.
Stacey has been actively involved in work centred around understanding and supporting neurodivergent individuals for many years, which naturally led into the world of advocacy, training and consultancy.
Additionally, as a former Autism and PDA Champion for Parent Carers Together, she collaborated with healthcare and education professionals, providing input into various projects, training and resource development.
Stacey’s professional background is in education, where she has experience across SEND and leadership in literacy, science and music. She has always enjoyed finding creative and individual ways to help children access learning, particularly where more conventional approaches may not work for them.
Stacey is interested in all things neurodiversity, but PDA remains a particular area of interest and passion. As somebody who was recognised as having a PDA profile as part of her autism diagnosis, alongside her children, she is particularly passionate about raising awareness and improving understanding of this profile.
Her experiences supporting her own children through disrupted education and learning outside school have also increasingly shaped her work. This has included identifying and filling learning gaps, but perhaps most importantly, helping to rebuild confidence and self-esteem and supporting children to begin seeing themselves as capable learners again.
This has strengthened her belief in the importance of relationships and understanding the individual. Some children may be ready to work with a tutor straight away, while others may need time to build trust and confidence with a new adult before more formal learning becomes accessible.
Through NFORMED Learning & Mentoring, Stacey is now developing specialist tuition, mentoring and learning support for children and young people, alongside support for parents who may be trying to understand and support their child’s learning.
Stacey is also an author, including Understanding PDA: For Kids & Grown Ups, and continues to develop further books, resources, webinars and training.
One of Stacey’s primary goals is to enhance the quality and relevance of training on autism, PDA and other coexisting neurodivergent conditions.
She believes that lived experience is incredibly valuable, and that training about neurodivergence should be co-produced and delivered by, or in genuine collaboration with, neurodivergent individuals. At the same time, she recognises that no one neurodivergent person can speak for everybody and that continuing to listen to and learn from different experiences is essential.
Stacey promotes the use of neurodiversity-affirming attitudes and approaches and believes strongly that there should be: