Meet The Team

Three of the four directors are parents of autistic children. Dr Kathy Leadbitter has many years of research experience in the field of neurodiversity and neurodevelopmental and learning disabilities, particularly autism. Kathy is passionate about pragmatic and high-impact research that will directly improve the lives of neurodivergent children and adults and their families in the UK and internationally, including in low resource contexts.

Hilary Beach, Louisa Harrison and Hannah Danvers are therapists with many years’ experience working with families of autistic children, using well-evidenced and strength-based approaches.

All four directors have been involved in Paediatric Autism Communication Therapy (PACT) from research into clinical practice. Louisa and Hannah have also worked as senior trainers for IMPACT CIC, gaining valuable experience training other professionals and embedding PACT, an evidence-based autism therapy, into clinical pathways, both within the UK and internationally.

Hilary works as a Psychotherapist and was also one of two practitioners delivering the Empower-Autism programme within the REACH-ASD trial.