There will be 5 exciting Guest Speakers at this years event, discussing important topics such as mental health, employment, diagnosis and their real life experiences.
There will be autistic guest speakers and professionals working in the field of autism and neurodiversity.
We will also have a variety of talented local autistic people reading poetry, displaying art work and talking about their experiences of what being autistic means to them.
Confirmed Speakers
Mandy Craven
I’m the parent of a 23 year old that was diagnosed as autistic aged 3. I was just entering my final year at University as a mature student.
After struggling with mental health issues I came to realise I was autistic myself. After a 10 year battle I eventually got my diagnosis.
I became involved with Leeds ABC Group and ran their successful youth group and family days for 14 years.
I’ve tried various roles and am now happily settled into People Matters. I’ve progressed from being a bank support worker to co-ordinating both the wellbeing project and one of the outreach services. I’m also involved with their social groups.
Dr Conor Davidson
Dr Conor Davidson is a consultant psychiatrist in general adult psychiatry, and clinical lead of the Leeds Autism Diagnostic Service. He was appointed Autism Champion for the Royal College of Psychiatrists in May 2021. The focus of this work is on improving autism awareness and autism training for psychiatrists. He chairs the College cross-faculty autism group and sits on the NHS England national autism strategy steering group.
Before joining LADS fulltime in 2020, Conor was autism lead for Tees, Esk & Wear Valley NHS trust. The TEWV autism project launched a large scale training program and the autism Clinical Link Pathway; its achievements were recognised with a National Autistic Society award in 2019.
Conor has published a number of journal articles, blogs and book chapters with a particular focus on autism and mental health. Conor is a lifelong Leeds United supporter, which – after many years of disappointment – is finally starting to pay off.
Kate Dean
Kate Dean spent over 10 years leading and managing student facing disability support teams in universities before setting up Enable Disability & Inclusion Consultants in March 2020.
Kate has lots of experience of identifying appropriate adjustments and enabling strategies that allow people to work to their strengths, working across a wide range of disabilities and long-term conditions, but particularly specialising in neurodiversity, mental health, and hidden disabilities.
Kate now supports organisations with end-to-end solution focused support to deliver specialist consultancy, audits, training, and individual workplace assessments to identify and remove barriers to high performance in the workplace.
Kate brings her own lived experience and the strengths of neurodiversity to her work.
Ronnie Pinder
Ronnie Pinder is an autistic clinician and works as a coach and peer mentor with a neurodevelopmental service, where he provides post diagnostic support for autistic adults.
He received his own autism diagnosis in early 2015 and before becoming a clinician he spent a number of years as a public speaker, autism consultant and trainer. Ronnie is married and two of his children are also autistic
Paul Davies
Paul Davies is an Autistic accredited autism trainer and instructor, working full time within a national autism specialist charity organisation. He received his diagnosis late in life and has spent his career working within a range of rights and equality projects.
He has delivered sessions for a wide range of organisations focussed on autism and trauma informed care. This included cross-sector Autistic Trauma Informed Care sessions in collaboration with Survivors West Yorkshire and with Bradford District Care Trust mental health teams. He advocates for wider acceptance of the neurodiversity movement view of neurodivergence amongst other professional services to improve the quality of provision.
Paul worked with Dr Allison Moore at Edge Hill University to co-create, co-produce and co-deliver, the undergraduate and postgraduate modules on the Critical Autism Studies degrees. Paul supports any research that advocates a human-rights based, least restrictive, autism positive approach predicated on the ‘controversial’ notion that Autistic people are human beings.
He has a First Class (Hons) degree in Organisational Management Studies and a PG Dip in Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights Law. In 2020, Paul contributed a chapter to “The Neurodiversity Reader” Ed. Dr Damian Milton. In November 2022 he delivered an online conference paper at the Participatory Autism Research Collective Critical Autism Studies global conference.
Paul will be appearing with Jacqui O’Riordan, Dr Allison Moore and Steph Sneider, which you can learn more about below:
Jacqui O’Riordan – Bio
Jacqui is a mental health nurse with 20 years’ experience currently working as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner within Crisis Assessment. I have also recently begun a role in the assessment and treatment of ADHD. I have a specialist interest in neurodivergence and particularly the missed and misdiagnosis of autism within mental health care.
My interest has grown from my own late diagnosis which came after my son (and subsequently daughter) were both also diagnosed as autistic. I believe that there is a significant amount of misinformation surrounding neurodivergence within healthcare.
Given the high prevalence of mental health issues within the autistic community the lack of proper awareness and training for staff in all sectors is striking. My goal is to highlight and address these gaps in knowledge and understanding. I aim to raise awareness and challenge stereotypes surrounding Autism, as well as advocate for improved support and understanding
Dr Allison Moore – Bio
Dr Allison Moore is a Reader in Social Sciences at Edge Hill University. She is also the Programme Leader of the MA Social Sciences (Critical Autism studies) at EHU, which offers a range of critical perspectives on autism in order to appreciate the ways in which discourses of autism shape autistic people’s lived experiences. She is widely published in this area.
She established and is the Chair of EHU’s Critical Autism Studies Research Network, which seeks to undertake research into autism and autistic experience (and other forms of neurodivergence) according to the principles of Critical Autism Studies and act as a centre of expertise and best practice with regards to positive and co-productive approaches to research. She supervises MRes and PhD students, primarily in the area of autism.
She recently spoke at the Ukraine Govt UNESCO conference and is currently engaged in research with colleagues in Ukraine looking at supporting disabled children in the community rather than in orphanages and institutions post-war. Her other research interests include autism and sexuality, representations of autism in popular culture, along with autism and trauma informed care.
Steph Sneider
Hi I’m Steph Sneider. I’m a consultant clinical psychologist. I split my working life between Bradford acute community services and complex rehabilitation placements in Manchester and Lancashire. I am passionate about improving the wellbeing of clients and support for staff working in mental health. My areas of interest and research are complex trauma, dissociation and more recently neurodiversity. I have been working with partners and colleagues to look at accessibility of our services and therapies to neurodiverse folk and to make improvements. I am an ally with neurodiverse traits and a supporter to people who have experienced trauma, who may identify as neurodiverse, including trauma experienced from services. I am dedicated to improving my own practice and to influencing wider service delivery to improve the care of clients, carers and staff.
AutistiCon: A Leeds Autism Event 