Meet the ACER Team

Practitioner Tutors

Miranda Andras

Miranda Andras worked as a Specialist Teacher for children with autism, delivering Autism Education Trust Training to staff across Essex, supporting pupils, families and schools in developing positive learning experiences. It is her strongly held belief that the starting point in any provision should be to recognise the strengths of the individual and to focus on and develop their areas of interest. This prompted extensive work on Lego Therapy in schools, which was published in the Good Autism Practice Journal.

Miranda is a Trustee of a working farm for young adults with learning disabilities and autism, which aims to give young people a stepping stone into meaningful employment by providing jobs linked to their skills. She is also a Governor for an autism-specific provision for pupils with complex needs, which delivers an academic and therapeutic curriculum.

Chris Atkins

Chris has worked with autism for over 30 years in a variety of specialist services and agencies. Since 2001, he has been the Chief Executive Officer at Stroud Court Community Trust, a specialised charitable trust providing a range of services for autistic adults, and now works as an advisor to the board of trustees and senior leadership team. Prior to this, Chris worked for several years with the National Autistic Society as Group Manager, Adult Services Manager and Head of Projects and Developments. He is the lead Learning Disability representative and a director for the Gloucestershire Care Providers Association. He is also a director and Head of Education and Social Care for AT-Autism, a training and consultancy organisation working in all aspects of autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions. 

Email: c.r.atkins@bham.ac.uk

Helen Bradley

Helen qualified as a teacher of infant children and all age children with severe learning difficulties, teaching in special schools before qualifying as an educational psychologist. She then worked as an NHS clinical psychologist, initially working with children and then adults with learning disabilities. She had a specialist then lead post for adults with autism and learning disabilities and is now working in private practice as a clinician for SPARC, an adult autism diagnostic service.

She is interested in ways of supporting people whose lives are complicated by behaviours that interfere with quality of life (also called challenging behaviours or behaviours of concern.) She has an eclectic approach to intervention so may use a variety of approaches, for example Solution Focused Therapy tools, as part of her assessment and intervention. She was one of the leaders of a county wide Positive Behavioural Support scheme in Worcestershire which focused on improving quality of life for service users with clear standards for services and a robust programme of training and skills development for staff.

She believes that it is important people get the correct diagnosis because that gives everyone essential information that will affect understanding and intervention. This is an issue in autism. She is DISCO and ADI-R trained and has developed comprehensive tools for post diagnostic support.

Annie Etherington

Annie has worked in the field of autism for over 45 years. She has worked across the age range from pre-school children (working with them in their homes alongside their parent or carer); students in primary and high school, through to adults. As a teacher she has set up specialist autism provisions and worked in both mainstream and specialist settings, including a residential, autism specific school. For over a decade, she led a team of autism specialists to provide outreach support to schools and families for a Local Authority in North London.

Autism has been a focal point of interest throughout Annie’s working life. She regularly works with speakers on the spectrum as co-presenters and particularly values the essential perspective they offer to our understanding. When this is not possible, Annie will use film and first-hand accounts to ensure the autism voice is represented. This underlines her ongoing interest in the growing understanding of neurodiversity and the importance of creating learning and living environments that embrace a wealth of cognitive processing styles as well as the variety and richness of, possibly, alternative emotional expression within relationships. She has published papers and journal articles which address some of her particular areas of interest. These include:

• Peer awareness programmes to support inclusion
• Developing literacy, particularly inference skills
• Social understanding

Angela Purdy

Angela is a Teaching Fellow (Autism: Children) within the Department of Disability, Inclusion and Special Needs (DISN).

Angela started her career as a primary school teacher and Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO). She became a Specialist Advisory Teacher (Autism) within a large Local Authority, supporting children with autism, their parents, and helping schools to develop good autism practice. She developed her knowledge and understanding of autism by studying for a Masters’ Degree (Special Education: Autism (Children)) at the University of Birmingham. Angela became a regional tutor at the University of Birmingham supporting students studying on the Autism (Children) distance learning courses.

Her career in the field of autism has spanned many years and she is an experienced practitioner with a commitment to supporting others to further develop their own knowledge and professional practice.

Currently, Angela works as an Independent Specialist Advisory Teacher (Autism and Social Communication Difficulties) offering services to children, parents, and schools. She also works as a mentor and study skills supervisor, supporting autistic students who studying at university.

Barbara Sandland

Barbara is an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. She completed her Masters and PhD within ACER, so brings first hand experiences to the support she offers students currently studying on the MA Inclusion (Autism Children and Autism Adult) pathways.

Barbara brought a distinctive multidimensional approach to her research by including her unique insights of being neurodivergent, a parent and carer to neurodivergent young people, and a specialist mentor to autistic students in higher education, alongside her work background as a Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator in secondary mainstream settings. Her research favours participatory methodologies, which prioritises the inclusion of lived neurodivergent experiences, especially within education and the work place.

Email: b.sandland@bham.ac.uk

Sandy Thomson

Sandy is a Practitioner Tutor on the MA Inclusion (Autism Adults and Autism Children Pathways) at The University of Birmingham and previously held such a role on ehe MEd (Autism) starting in 2021. Sandy's interests in autism spans 4 decades of developing and supporting services, consequently these interests are holistic and reflect the evolving nature of our understanding from a neurodiverse affirmative positionality. Sandy supports students in all 3 years of the pathway and regards his goal as maximising the potential for students to learn from and contribute to our understanding of autism.

Email: s.thomson@bham.ac.uk