Neurodiversity Forum November 2025

Neurodiversity Forum November 2025 – Highlights

Joanne Southall • November 19, 2025

A Day of Connection and Progress
On 13th November 2025, parents, carers, professionals, and partners gathered at Hartford Golf Club to share ideas and improve support for neurodivergent children and families across Cheshire West.

Key Themes included:

Understanding Neurodiversity: Brains work in different ways; strengths and challenges coexist; support should be based on differences.

Introducing a new Neurodiversity Pathway for children, young people and their families

Pathway Updates: New profiling tool, early support, combined autism/ADHD assessments, shared ADHD care, and consistent training.

We looked at the new neurodiversity profiling tool, how it’s been developed with professionals, neurodivergent individuals and parent carers. You can find out more about it here

Neurodiversity Profiling Tool ... UPDATE

School Support: SENCo role, legal duties, Graduated Approach, and Quality First Teaching.

Quality First Teaching | Live Well Cheshire West

Autism Service: We heard from the autism service how they work with children in schools and how they support training for schools. Practical strategies without requiring a diagnosis can be found here

Click the link to view the wonderful resources on the Family padlet

PCF Update: Survey 2024: Challenges with systems, EHCP delays, emotional strain, and long waits. Preparing for the next Survey “The Big One”, Understanding how parent carers voices are woven into the SEND strategy

Pledge Culture changes in action the journey so far: We talked about where the Pledge was up to and what it means for families moving forward.

Understanding Inclusion: What inclusions mean to people can be different to everyone albeit a shared understanding. We asked everyone to answer three questions of what it means to them so that we can share with partners for a better understanding of what inclusion means to our families in Cheshire West and Chester. You can share you views by scanning the QR code or clicking the link below.

Understanding inclusion

We heard from children and young peoples care group about the work they are doing and asking for parent feedback. To find out more about their work, visit our Participation & Engagement Page on the MyMind website and have your say to improve services Get involved : Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

All-Age Autism Neurodivergent Partnership Board

Highlight of the day was hearing from Tony the Co-Chair of the All-Age Autism Neurodivergent Partnership Board. Tony spoke passionately about his journey into adulthood and his dedication to improve services for all children and young people. He ended with a call to action to get people with lived experience to join the board and help make a difference.

Scan the QR code or email Katy get involved Katy.Ellison@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk

Partnership for Inclusion Neurodiversity Schools Initiative: Helping schools build inclusive cultures through training and partnerships. We had an update on how this is going in our selected schools and what it means sharing good inclusive practice with other schools in the borough. You can find out more about the project here PINS Update

It was an informative event and lots of positive feedback. A huge thank you to all the professional for showing up for our families helping this forum become a success. You can view the slides from the day here Forum Slides 2025

Here are some additional resources to questions we had:

Communication skills for adults to support children and young people with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) & Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) and Selective Mutism (SM): View resources here!

Family Autism Padlet: Family padlet

Dyslexia Support