About the session
The aim of this event is to share insights and outputs from Regulating Emotions – Strengthening Adolescent Resilience (RE-STAR), a UKRI-funded research programme which is trying understand why young neurodivergent people are at elevated risk for mental health problems.
The RE-STAR team will (i) present discoveries from the programme highlighting how upsetting experiences in school, and the emotional burden they create, can lead to poor mental health in neurodivergent young people and (ii) describe how this discovery has been translated into a preventative whole-school intervention: Place Positive.
Learning outcomes
Attendees will gain an understanding of:
- What drives mental health struggles for many young people with ADHD and/or autism.
- What helps autistic and ADHD young people manage everyday upsets.
- A neurodiversity-informed approach to promoting mental health in schools.
Who should attend
Mental health practitioners and researchers, and educators (related to special educational needs, autism, ADHD).
Programme
09:15 Welcome from Chair Professor Cathy Creswell
09:20 A series of short talks
Understanding mental health challenges in autism and ADHD – Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke
Emotional burden in school – what is it and why is it important? – Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke & Dr. Steve Lukito
Reducing emotional burden in school – what helps autistic and ADHD students? – Associate Professor Dr. Georgia Pavlopoulou
School action for reducing emotional burden – stakeholder perceptions and implementation – Professor Jane Hurry
11.00 Break
11.20 Place Positive: a neurodiversity-informed approach to promoting mental health in schools – Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke, Susie Chandler, Maciej Matejko, Amber Johnson
11.45 Panel Discussion: Implications for practice and policy – Chair: Professor Cathy Creswell, Susana Castro Kemp (Institute of Education), Paul Callaghan (Autistica), National Children’s Bureau – name tbc, Lucinda Powell (Teacher and Parent), Tiegan Boyens (RE-STAR Youth Researcher Panel)
12.30 Closing Comments – Professor Cathy Creswell & Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke
12.45 Close
About the talks
School action for reducing emotional burden – stakeholder perceptions and implementation – Professor Jane Hurry
Teachers and neurodivergent students are critical voices in designing and implementing environments to reduce school burden. Without them things don’t happen and we can’t tell if actions are working. We first conducted focus groups with both stakeholders to understand their views on the impact of school on their emotions, what actions they saw as positive and the push and pull factors in making them happen. The use of photo-elicitation and applied theatre techniques enriched and informed our findings. We used this work, and RE-STAR expertise to design a survey to test these ideas at scale and to document current school practice. Staff and students agreed on quite a lot but, unsurprisingly, not on everything. We also found synergies but important differences between dominant research agendas and school practice which inform understanding of evidence-based practice. Resources (staff time and money) were unsurprisingly identified as a barrier to action but a range of nudge factors to current school practice are presented.
About the speakers
Professor Cathy Creswell is a Professor of Developmental Clinical Psychology who leads The Oxford Psychological Interventions in Children and adolescents (TOPIC) research group at the University of Oxford. Cathy’s research focuses on the development, maintenance and treatment of anxiety disorders. She is an Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist in Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, a former NIHR Research professor, and an NIHR Senior Investigator.
Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke is a developmental psychologist who studies the causes, course and developmental consequences of mental health and neuro-developmental conditions. Motivated by his own childhood experience of learning difficulties and behaviour problems, he has devoted his research career to improving the life chances of young people, especially those with neurodevelopmental conditions, such as ADHD. To this end he has developed new ways of thinking about and studying neurodevelopment using experimental developmental neuroscience methods and theories. Most recently, thorugh RE-STAR he is building, together with colleagues, a new approach to the science of mental health which places the experiences and insights of young people with autism and ADHD at the core of the research process: An award-winning participatory model that has led to new new insights into the sources of mental health difficulties of neurodivergent people.
Edmund is an elected Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences (2016), The British Academy (2018),The Danish Academy of Honorary Skou Professors (2019) and a Member of the Academia Europea (2023). He is Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. He is a Roman Catholic husband and father, soul music aficionado & lifelong Derby County fan (:-().
Susie Chandler is a Research Fellow in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. She is an autism researcher with over twenty-five years’ experience in the field. Her research interests include the developmental pathways of neurodivergent individuals from early childhood through to adulthood, and factors that may impact these. She is particularly interested in the role of mental health. Susie is currently the Programme Manager for the RE-STAR project, working closely with a group of neurodivergent young people as well as researchers to find news ways to promote the mental health of neurodivergent young people.
Dr. Georgia Pavlopoulou is an Associate Professor in Mental Health, Neurodiversity, and Implementation Science at UCL’s Division of Psychiatry, Brain Sciences. She is the founder of the Group for Research in Relationships And NeuroDiversity (GRRAND). Georgia’s work integrates behavioural, phenomenological, and participatory methodologies within a developmental framework to examine the social determinants of mental health in autistic and ADHD populations. She is deeply committed to creative, participatory health and educational research, co-producing knowledge with community members across the lifespan, with a particular focus on adolescents. She has led national and international co-produced training programmes for mental health practitioners working with neurodivergent young people across educational settings and the NHS. Georgia currently serves as Chair of the NHS-funded England’s National Autism Peer Education Programme. Georgia is the lead editor of a best seller book fully co-produced with autistic people Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People.
Tiegan Boyens is a lived-experience advocate, researcher, and consultant who does a variety of work based on her experiences and reflections on adoption and neurodiversity. She has been part of the RE-STAR project as a youth researcher for the last four years, engaging in all parts of the project from designing to dissemination. This has led to a range of wider opportunities, including collaborating on the book Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People. She is passionate about supporting positive change in all areas of life and other lived experience voices being heard.
Susana Castro-Kemp is Director of the University College London (UCL) Centre for Inclusive Education (CIE). Susana’s research focuses on inclusive systems, education policy and special educational needs and disabilities. Specifically, she is interested in examining policies and practices that lead to greater inclusion and sense of belonging, as well as socio-emotional wellbeing and mental health for all children. She has a track record of excellent publications and funded projects in these areas. Her latest grant – ScopeSEND – funded by the Nuffield Foundation, examines SEND policy and implementation in 14 jurisdictions.
Lucinda Powell is a veteran educator and BPS Fellow, Lucinda has been involved in psychology education since 2002. Recently honored as the 2024 British Psychological Society ‘Psychology Teacher of the Year,’ she specializes in translating complex cognitive research into practical classroom strategies. Lucinda bridges the gap between theory and practice through her podcast, Psychology in the Classroom, and her work as a coach for the School Mental Health Award. As a Lead Subject Tutor at the National Institute of Teaching and Education (NITE), she continues to shape the next generation of teachers while delivering impactful workshops on mental health and study skills.
Maciej Matejko is an autistic autism researcher and advocate. He is passionate about work that makes a real difference in the lives of neurodivergent people. He is a member of the Youth Researcher Panel at RE-STAR and a member of the Group for Research in Relationships And NeuroDiversity (GRRAND). He is also a tutor of English as a foreign language working with neurodiverse students. He holds an MA in English and American Studies from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and Ca’ Foscari in Venice.
Amber Johnson is a Senior Youth Researcher with Kings College London on the RE-STAR project and has contributed to the project in a variety of ways, including but not limited to qualitative data analysis, data collection via interviews with neurodivergent young people, study design and conceptualisation, and article editing. She is also a PhD researcher at the University of Gloucestershire, focusing on staff training on autism in Higher Education using a participatory and intervention mapping approach.
Dr. Steve Lukito is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the RE-STAR research programme at King’s College London. Steve has over 10 years of research experience in neurodevelopment, with expertise in autism- and ADHD-related topics. His publications encompass neuroimaging, neurocognitive, and psychometric research. His research interests include understanding the overlap between autism and ADHD, as well as the emotional experiences of young people and how these are shaped by the environment. Steve is a researcher with lived experience of ADHD, and since RE-STAR, he has prioritised ensuring that his research reflects the experiences of the neurodivergence community.
Ruth Pilling has worked in SEND for twenty-five years as a teacher, SENCO, Local Authority adviser and as an advisory teacher for a special school outreach team. She worked with the Educational Psychology service in a London Borough to lead on developing person-centred planning including annual reviews following the 2014 SEND reforms. Ruth has been committed throughout her career to supporting children and young people with the most complex needs to participate meaningfully in their SEND planning and provision. She now works at the Council for Disabled Children where she has most recently supported the delivery of the DfE Change Programme for SEND and Alternative Provision and on supporting the DfE to write guidance for high quality provision in specialist units, resourced provisions and pupil support units in mainstream schools and settings.
Paul Callaghan joined Autistica in December 2025 to lead the charity’s policy and public affairs work. He brings over ten years’ policy experience in health and social care, with a focus on tackling inequalities, addressing national data gaps, finding out what matters to those using services, and making sure people’s stories lead to national improvements. Paul joins from Healthwatch England, where he led work on unmet social care needs, referral black holes, and waiting list disparities. He has supported key national workstreams, including the 10-Year Health Plan, the elective recovery and reform plans, the GP Patient Survey, and the independent ADHD taskforce.
Professor Jane Hurry. Negotiating secondary school, its social world and gaining academic qualifications can define much of a person’s life course. It can be difficult to come back from missing school and high stakes qualifications. Starting research life studying the epidemiology of mental illness, moving on to education, Professor Jane Hurry has been exploring the relationship between mental health and education in young people for three decades in a range of research projects and publications. She has researched the interplay between secondary education, school connectedness and mental health in a range of manifestations: self-harm, depression, youth offending, and most recently ADHD and autism.