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Who is the Mental Matriarch?

  • I'm Cassandra, a 48 year mum of 5 now adult children with various needs including Type 1 Diabetes, Autism, ADHD, Bipolar Disorder and broader spectrum Schizophrenia. My son has a confirmed profile of PDA which was obtained via NHS assessment.
  • I live in Somerset in the South West England.
  • I'm deeply spiritual, also highly empathic and closely follow the work of Carl Jung, Eckhart Tolle and many others. I also engage in meditation, chakra healing, energy work and use of tarot. I'm an avid video gamer and actually a bit of Fortnite sweat!
  • I have training in understanding and offering peer support to autistic people. I also have a long history of feeding back to and advising a range of services around how to develop their practice when engaging with autistic people. Sometimes this has been welcomed and sometimes it hasn't!
  • I'm currently on the assessment pathway for Autism and ADHD myself.

Training

Working with drug users, including:

  • Harm reduction
  • Safer injecting
  • Motivational interviewing
  • Relapse prevention
  • Overdose prevention

Other training:

  • Introduction to youth work
  • Group work skills
  • Training for trainers
  • Project management
  • Data Protection
  • Business planning and development (short course)
  • Level 2 Understanding Autism
  • Level 1 A fresh approach to children and young people who hear voices
  • Level 2 Supporting children and young people who hear voices
  • Level 3 Advanced working with voices
  • Level 1 Advocacy
  • Peer Support

Experience

I have been involved in some amazing opportunities throughout my life so far!

  • I've run a national campaign with other parents of Autistic young people

Publications and documents

  • PDA Action Guiding Principles for Working with PDA Young People 2019
  • Failed by the System Report 2019
  • Petition to raise awareness amongst health care professionals of the autism subgroup PDA or Extreme Demand Avoidance, submitted to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) 2019
  • Effective Family Support Review Consultation, Somerset 2020
  • Consultation submissions to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Department for Education (DfE) 2019–2021

If any of this is useful for your own work, you’re welcome to get in touch whenever suits you.