Find out who we are!
Please read the bio’s below to find out about Ben & Nat, a brief introduction to who they are and what brought them to this present day. They’ve both had very different experiences but equally have a lot to offer the neurodiverse world.
About Ben
Ben has come round to the idea that it’s okay not to be well-adjusted to a sick society. He’s curious about how the world works and contemplates perennial questions such as; who are we, what is society for, where are we heading, and what needs to be done.
He is a neurodiversity champion who lives with ADHD and supports those who learn, communicate, and behave differently. He is passionate about the role that divergent thinking and doing in classrooms, workplaces, and community settings will have on what comes next.
Ben thinks we should all be more interested in how our brains work because they influence who we are and everything we do — sensing, feeling, perceiving, judging, communicating, moving, and making decisions. In the context of diversity it’s less about what the brain does, and more about how it does the same things differently that matters, and Ben uses personal stories, industry insights, and multiple interests to bring this to life. He supports and empowers leaders to shift from a “fixing-people” mindset to cultivating conditions for people to flourish. He believes an ability to balance and integrate different outlooks, experiences, capabilities and thinking styles are a necessity for sustainable, inclusive, healthy and productive ways to live, learn, and work in the 21st Century.
Ben plays an active role in the community of Suffolk and is a director at Healthwatch Suffolk. He is a Co-Founder of °Latitude Social Design, Cognitive Diversity Associate at Oakridge Consulting, and tutor with the Better Conversations leadership community. He is designer of the 6 week online program ‘Diversity of Thought for Leaders – the Art of Thinking Differently Together’.
About Nat
Nat has been on quite a journey. For over 30+ years he wasn’t happy deep down, he was living with a never ending internal dialogue, sleepless nights and sensory overwhelm, social anxiety, addictions and other complications. This led to self harming, risky behaviour whilst being overwhelmed and random outbursts due to uncontrollable responses to sensory stimuli. And he didn’t know why!
Masking became too much, it wasn’t sustainable and it all ended badly in 2017. Nat lost everything he cared about and at the same time found out exactly why he had experienced so many challenging circumstances over the years. It was a bitter-sweet experience that changed his life forever.
Nat was diagnosed with a number of neurological disorders and the subsequent mental illnesses he was carrying around and at the time he didn’t realise or even understand what any of it was.
It was just his version of normal!
Unknowingly living with complex PTSD symptoms on top of everything else and not being able to advocate for himself, the journey to discovering why he wasn’t coping was a long and complicated one. After his personal circumstances triggered a full blown mental health breakdown he ended up on an NHS waiting list for another 3 years which proved too much, it tipped him over the edge and he ended up in crisis. Nat was eventually diagnosed as being Autistic (Aspergers) and then later told through a private diagnosis that he also had ADHD and many of the key traits of Dyspraxia. The following 2 years consisted of extensive talking therapies, psychologist sessions, CBT, Long distance walking, medications, treatments, Acupuncture, physical activity, Group therapy with other autistic adults, Mental Health training and much much more. For Nat it was the holistic approach that gave him the tools to recovery and to understand himself better.
Fast forward to today….Finding out the why’s became the catalyst of him beginning his journey into neuropsychology, neuroscience of the mind and human behaviour. Currently his own children are starting the journey of diagnosis, they are all part of a multiplex family (A family with more than one individual who sits within the spectrum of genetic neurological disorders).
Joining Healthwatch in Suffolk as a ‘Co-production Ambassador‘ in 2019 he went onto work within the local community helping to train and co-facilitate sessions designed to introduce partners from within the system in the local area about what co-pro is and how it can be used in the creation of new services by working together to achieve this outcome. (Inviting people with lived-experience to join the table to help co-design and then deliver the project.)
In recent times Nat has started to work with Curators of Change who are a national collective of adults with Live Experience from a cross section of society who work together to facilitate and deliver workshops geared around a number of key areas within adult social care and social services within local councils. Along with this work it has given Nat the opportunity to work with ADASS East as a workshop facilitator on the regional ‘Over A Brew’ monthly sessions. Nat has recently been invited to speak at the NCASC national conference in the autumn of 2023.