We are a community interest company that delivers psychological therapies to neurodivergent people, children, and families. We run social groups and provide education and training to parents, therapists, and counsellors.

Phoenix was set up by Peter and Amanda, who are both autistic and have ADD traits. They have six neurodivergent children—adopted, fostered, and biological—as well as three neurodivergent grandchildren. Over the years, they have all faced mental health challenges and struggled to access appropriate support that fully understands neurodivergent needs.

With over 30 years of professional experience working with neurodivergent children and families, Peter and Amanda’s personal journey inspired them to create Phoenix. Their aim is to reduce emotional distress and trauma symptoms, increase self-confidence, repair attachment and connection, reduce loneliness and isolation, educate the community on neurodivergence, and improve communication and relationships within families.

Our neurodivergent children and families often struggle with relationships. Many children are bullied, misunderstood, and find it difficult to maintain friendships. We use an asset-based approach across our individual therapy, group therapy, and social groups.

We aim to increase life chances and improve educational outcomes by working with schools to ensure reasonable adjustments are in place so each child can thrive. Recent NHS data shows that autistic people are 9 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, and more than 66% of autistic people have considered suicide. Autistic children are 28 times more likely to attempt suicide. During the COVID-19 lockdown, a quarter of young people who died by suicide were neurodivergent. This is the reality many of our families face daily.

Our organisation has a steering group of 25 young people and their families who help shape our work and projects. They meet regularly to share ideas, review what’s working (and what’s not), and recommend improvements. We also collect weekly feedback from clients to guide our approach.

We use psychometric tools to track how therapy and group work are helping our young people and families in detailed and measurable ways. One example of this collaboration is our specialist sensory room, which was designed based on direct feedback from our young people. They asked for a calming, forest-themed space with adjustable lighting to meet their sensory needs—and it's now in daily use. They are also currently helping us design our new family therapy and teaching room.

Some of our young people have identified a lack of support during the transition into adulthood and have asked for our help in building confidence and gaining independence. We are actively working to respond to this need.

As part of our registration with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the NCPS, we undertake annual safeguarding training. Our designated safeguarding lead is a registered social worker who is on-site five days a week. We also have two clinical supervisors who are both designated safeguarding leads. All staff receive regular external and in-house safeguarding training, which we take extremely seriously. Our most recent training was completed in June 2024.