Believing in Different

- what we do -

We've now officially separated out our advocacy work into The Neurodivergent Advocate (see link in bio), so wanted to check in and reshare everything that sits within Believing in Different's umbrella.

Believing in Different is a neurodivergent led organisation which offers neuroaffirming, trauma-responsive and specialist support via:

- 1:1 sessions with young people, parents and adults
- Consultations with families
- EOTAS Coordination
- Training & Expertise Sharing
- Sensory & Psycho-Educational Assessments & Reports

We work collaboratively and flexibly, making sure that what we do is person-led and meets the needs of the people we serve. Our 1:1 sessions are holistic and can take one or a mix of any of the following forms:

- interest led
- academic led
- wellbeing/counselling led
- psycho/neuro education led

We have a wide range of experience and expertise, which means we are able to look at situations from multiple perspectives, integrating what we do to create and deliver bespoke packages that meet the needs of the people we work with.

We are all neurodivergent, and all parents of young people who are neurodivergent and who have experienced trauma (in addition to our other quals) - so we get it - from every angle 💜



Image Credit: Jared Poledna

Image Description: Colourful jellyfish with long, flowing, tangled te****les swim against a cool blue background. Pink, blue, and green hues are prominent.

- who we are - Kim

This photo was taken 6 years ago. I had set up Believing in Different, but hadn't started working through it yet. I'm not even sure I had a website at this stage.

I had absolutely no idea of the life journey we would end up embarking on in the very near future. I was a qualified teacher and SENCO, running a Student Services department in an International School in Japan. I was totally oblivious to my own neurodivergence at the time, had not had my son - and had been working in the school system for 16 years.

Fast forward to now; and I am the proudly neurodivergent mother of an incredible neurodivergent young person - as well as partner to an also late recognised and very talented neurodivergent husband.

The force is strong in this house 🤣

The biggest part of this journey for me has been the disentangling of myself from the internalised social conditioning and ableism. If you'd asked me when this photo was taken about it, I would have sworn blind I had none. Cue a huge reality check and some quite dark days as I worked through all that.

In the end the choice was between being able to celebrate who I am and allowing my son to celebrate who he is - or choosing to continue hiding myself and expecting him to do the same too.

No choice at all really.

I work now across both Believing In Different and The Neurodivergent Advocate, entirely online, to support young people and their families - families like ours - so that I can meet my sons needs too.

It wasn't an easy journey to get where I am now and I am thankful. What I have lived through means that my expertise is broad; my experience deep and multi-faceted. I can look at a situation through many different lenses and I join families as a comrade, as well as a professional. Joining young people as a peer, as well as a professional.

I'm so grateful for this work. I feel like I have found my own little community of likeminded souls who get the world in the same way as I do, who challenge it in the same way I do and who stand with me and my family as we embark on the revolutionary 💜



Image Description: An impossibly young looking Kim wearing a green beanie hat, looking to the side and pursing her lips. She has just spent three amazing days at Disney in Japan - and you can see it in her face 💜

I've been very quiet on social media. Doing lots of work in the trenches as well as resetting our little family to allow us to move into a new season for us all. Andy has joined Believing in Different to offer some really amazing and unique bespoke support for the young people we work with, and I have been growing in my work as an advocate alongside developing my direct work with young people and their families.

Out of this, following some amazing work with alongside the input of some brilliantly skilled parents I support, The Neurodivergent Advocate has emerged. It will run alongside Believing in Different, offering neurodivergent led advocacy that partners with families to support them as they navigate their way through SEND systems in the UK.

All our values remain the same, and across both Believing in Different and The Neurodivergent Advocate we remain neuroaffirming, trauma responsive and deeply rooted in social justice and change 💜

I'll be starting to share more content again soon, and there are updates in the works. I'll also be separating out the content a bit across both channels. If you'd like to follow as we head into this new adventure and learn more about what we are doing - as I hopefully become more consistently present on social media (no promises 😂) - give Neurodivergent Advocate or a follow too :)

We've had to purchase a "husband"....

Iykyk

Bonus hint: It cost 35 hard earned dollarbucks 🪙

So much trauma.

I've spoken to quite a few new families this week and one thing is absolutely crystal clear to me.

The system is failing our kids: left, right and centre.

No wonder the world is in so much pain.

These kids who are saying no are doing what we all should be doing. Saying no to the things that don't fit. The things that cause us harm. The demands that are too much for us. The squashing of the self in order to fit in.

They are leading the way 💜

Current favourite: highfalutin 💜

Closely followed by its apparent synonym (according to Collins Dictionary online): bombastic 😜

Which would you choose?



Image description: A white slide with purple and blue ink drop background.The text reads "super cool session today collecting words to insert randomly into conversation.

Big celebrations today for a family I've been supporting who have now got EOTAS and a flexible personal budget agreed 💜

It can be a really long journey (ours was two years give or take) so it is so well deserved when you see all the good that it does for those young people who need it ✨

Been MIA this week as I stretched my skills into something new. I took on a last minute EHCP tribunal - which was heard yesterday.

Lots was agreed beforehand and now we wait on the final judgement...

Keeping everything crossed for the package the young person deserves🤞

Image Description: a sprig of green leans reaching upwards against a white background.

Image Credit: Annie Spratt

One of the many wonders of parenting a PDAer - the casual trot out of a skill you had no idea they were working on, let alone ready for...

Our first letters, making up our first written word 💜

No previous mark making experience apparently necessary 😂

teamsnuggles 💜

Can you spot the puppy? 🐾

As neuroaffirming (and usually also neurodivergent) parents, we have often already moved to a position of radical acceptance.

Our lives are as they are. We aren't trying to change them. Our young people are as they are. We aren't trying to change them.

It brings a lot of peace. To live as we do, to go with the flow. We know what works and what doesn't and we know better than to fight for control.

If you are a professional working with neurodivergent young people, know this:

We don't need you to fix our families. We don't need you to solve what you perceive to be our problems. We don't need your sympathy or your unsolicited advice. We will ask for help if and when we need it. Your priorities are not always our priorities.

We need you to be with us. To be in acceptance with us. To radically accept our young people, to radically accept our families and to radically accept our lives.

To validate us. To celebrate us.

To connect with our young people, to be in relationship with them, to offer them opportunities, to chronicle their successes and support us in evidencing what works.

We don't need to be fixed, we just need to be, with you by our sides, supporting us.

Exactly as we are 💜



Image Credit: Sarah Arden

Image Description: A wall corner. One side is black, the other is white. The text on the walls is alternate in colour (black on white and white.on black). The text on the white side reads "This is not a wall to you it is a call to accept differences to stand proud, to feel safe and spread love". The black side reads "This is a welcome to every person today and always to reject division and speak your mind, to be safe, outside and in."

There's a weird thing that happens with autistic people's interests.

They get called "special interests".

People get really concerned about autistic people engaging in these "special interests". Things that any other neurotypical person would call a hobby or a passion.

They are labelled as "too obsessive" and "too restrictive". People intentionally try to interrupt them, or seek to train caregivers to do this in their place. To stop the person from engaging in them so they can that something else "more socially acceptable" can be found to engage in. In the worst cases, these interests are targeted for extinction or exploitation.

I can tell you from first hand, neurodivergent experience, these passions are key.

Build them, explore them, resource them.

Spend time together doing them.

Learn about them. Examine them. Find joy in them.

Build trust through them. Foster connection through them.

Don't extinguish them. Don't try to change them.

Accept them and celebrate them.

Your young person doesn't need changing. They are incredible just the way they are...

and so are their interests 💜



Image Description: A "robot clock" made out of , an adaptation co-constructed through playing together around our interests.

I don't underestimate our privilege in being able to achieve this.

My knowledge and experience within my career, from both before our young person was in our lives, and after.

The amazing professionals we have found who work with us.

The ability to be able to pay those professionals to be a part of our lives.

My experience as a neurodivergent person, and someone who has been impacted by trauma too.

It's why I'm so deeply driven by the work I do, and why I'm so committed to supporting as many families as I can to get what their young people need.

All young people deserve to have their voices heard, their needs met and their sense of safety protected.

💜



Image description: A set of slides in carousel, with purple and blue hues on a crinkly paper background.

The text reads: Some big news from me this week... I've been working on our young person's EHCP for two and a half years now. We have had to go through the appeals process, and almost ended up in court. We received our final EHCP yesterday. We now have a plan that recognises the trauma that trying to attend settings has caused. Our setting will now be EOTAS which means "Education Other than in School". Our young person won't have to attend another setting this year just to prove that they don't work for him, on any level. And now we can go into the next year knowing that, even if just for now, our young person is going to get the support they need, where and with whom they feel safest and most understood x

Do you see it?

We were missing a piece and I had no idea where it was. My young person (age 4) found another puzzle of the same size and make - took out a piece the same size and shape, and fixed the problem 🤯

I was once told by a professional, not that long ago, that this young person needed to work on seven piece inset puzzles. This was despite me telling said professional that they were able to do 50+ piece puzzles at home.

This shared snippet of information went unheard. It didn't fit the professional's belief system around what and how our neurodivergent young person's learning should be. The suggested target they shared was the same standard target they gave to everyone. Our young person was seen as part of a demographic, rather than as the unique, spellbinding individual they, and all young people are.

Needless to say we declined the services of that professional, and we shrugged off their misunderstanding of our young person.

In these moments though I still really enjoy the implied f*ck you our young person hands out to those who have not been able to see them for the incredible young person they are 💜

You tell 'em kid.



Image description: A 42 piece Toy Story 4 puzzle, completed except for one piece. In the missing puzzle pieces place is an identically shaped and sized puzzle piece from a Finding Dory puzzle of the same make and brand. It fits perfectly.

Incoming ✨

I'm working on putting together some short, bite sized, online sessions to explain different parts of the SEND System in the UK.

I'm aiming for these to be super accessible, both in price and content - whilst clarifying what the law actually is and how to effectively navigate the system.

My aim is to empower parents, carers and professionals to be able to work together to get the support in place that young people need.

Will let you know when the first one is up 💜

There’s an isolation we don’t talk about when you are someone who is no longer following the rules. Someone who has either chosen, or been forced, into that role. Being fully aware of “the rules” but no longer being able to follow them.

It can be incredibly isolating. You are bearing witness to all this stuff that is going on. It is so painful to watch and no-one else around you seems to notice.

Even if you wanted to, you can’t reengage with it. You can see the pain it causes now. You recognise that you have been part of it in the past, so you’ve been a part of causing that pain too.

It’s a huge responsibility. It’s activism. No wonder it’s exhausting. Especially when you’ve been conditioned to follow the rules all your life, and now you have to spend all your time breaking them. Upsetting people, fighting for what’s right, saying what needs to be said, challenging long held beliefs and practices. Questioning things most people have never thought to question. We become ‘difficult’. Most of us become ‘difficult women’.

In order to be the parents we need to be for our kids. In order for our kids to get what they need. In order for our kids to be safe.

But we have each other. And we have the gift of sight our children have given us, and the freedom that goes with it. We don’t have to be blinkered anymore. We can see it all. We can be free of those rules together.



Image Credit: Tim Foster @ Unsplash

Image Description: A lone kayaker navigates the dark blue black water with their paddle. The bright yellow of the kayak is in sharp contrast to the colour of the water. Ripples run across the water and the trail left behind by the kayak shows the effort that is required to keep moving it forward.

Celebratory post 💜 🎆

A family I support have had a decision overturned and their young person will have an EHCP issued.

This is the second decision that has been overturned for them after the Local Authority initially declined to even assess.

Feeling proud to be a part of the young person's team, as it has definitely been a team effort to get here ✨



Image credit: Alexander Grey

Image description: Soft white fairy lights taken with a fuzzy focus, against a very light purple background.

Love is ...

Meeting your child's sensory needs, even when they are the total opposite of yours at the time 💜



Image description: A photo taken from above of a small child, fully clothed, in a teal plastic bucket filled with warm soapy water. He's curled up like a ladybird with his feet and knees lifted to the top of the water. His head is resting on the back of the bucket.

Post-social recovery.

Never had any idea I needed this. Now I don't know how I'd manage without it 💜

The things you learn in interest led sessions...

This is a female blanket octopus. She grows up to 2m long, has a long cape that she can either use to make herself look more threatening or can detach to confuse predators. She's immune to jellyfish stings and so uses a te****le she rips off a Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish as a weapon against both predators and prey.

The male is not quite so badass. He's 2.2cm long and dies shortly after mating, although he does rip his third arm off to do so...!



Image Credit: 'Habitats' DK book.

Image Description: A photograph of a purpley, pinkish blue blanket octopus. She has her legs outstretched and her long cape flowing behind her, and a big yellow eye looking to the camera.

The more I learn about neurodivergent nervous systems and sensory processing the better I understand myself. My digestive system is so sensitive that if I eat anything that is even just slightly out of date, or undercooked, or overcooked, then I know about it straightaway. Whereas my husband's system is like, 'yeah, whatever' and is just able to process it without problem or issue.

And then that that approach actually goes into our eating. So I'm super cautious about everything I eat or really sensitive about how something has been cooked or the texture of it and all those kinds of things. And Andy's just like, 'yeah, whatever' and can essentially eat what he likes.

It's really made me think about how if your system is super sensitive, of course you would eat restrictively. It's a survival response. Evolutionary programming.

It makes sense in so many other areas too - why our kids can find things some things so challenging and how no amount of explaining or negotiating or "desensitising" is going to make a difference.

It's a survival response. Evolutionary programming. No "thinking" your way around that 💜



Photo credit: Solen Feyissa at Unsplash

Home.

"We did it."

💜

New weighted mammoth and rainbow articulated dragon for the win 💜

95 days since we last left the house 🏠

From masking, to unmasking, to proudly neurodivergent 💜

Also - only just realised that me not being able to do a genuine smile without closing my eyes is a distinct component of my neurodivergent brain 😂

Mini moment of joy this week 💜

Helping a family who have had no funded support whatsoever get 10 hours a week of neuroaffirming, supportive tuition a week funded.

It's been a long journey, with quite a way still to go, and the mini win really felt like it needed to be celebrated ✨🎆💜



Image by Alexander Grey on

Surely how we should all be bathing?!

An amazing kind of side effect of the work that I do is that I now get to be in community with this amazing group, this really incredible group of women who are putting their kids first, who are bucking the system, who are nonconforming and doing exactly what needs to be done so that their kids can live positive lives where they don't need to be carrying around all that generational s**t from the past and society's projections of how they should be. It is such an honor to do this work and I feel so grateful that what I do allows me to do that, and to sort of finally find a place that I belong in that group of women as well 💜