The SENDcast

Burnout isn't one big thing. It's lots of smaller things, building and building - until even the smallest demand tips you over the edge. Joe Fautley, project coordinator at the Council for Disabled Children and neurodiversity advocate, returns to the podcast to discuss burnout, communication, and what it takes to build inclusive environments for autistic learners. Joe speaks from lived experience. Non-verbal for much of his childhood, he lost hard-won communication skills when he moved to an unsupportive mainstream school, and spent years managing severe anxiety and extended absences. His story is also one of remarkable growth: from a child who couldn't speak verbally, to someone who now delivers public talks and co-facilitates training for education professionals. Together, Dale and Joe explore the direct relationship between belonging and burnout, why communication and mental health are inseparable, and why the single most important thing a school can do is ask the young person what they need - and actually listen to the answer.  About Joe Fautley Joe Fautley is an Autistic and neurodivergent advocate with over 10 years of experience in a variety of personal lived experience advocacy and professional training work for Autism, neurodiversity and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Joe is a relentless and determined advocate for positive change and engages regularly with professional networks across the SEND community with over 6,000 connections and followers on LinkedIn. Joe has delivered many presentations to various audiences. Outside of his full time day job at the National Children's Bureau (NCB), Joe regularly contributes to various media, providing practical advice for professionals who support Autistic children and young people and adults using insights from his own personal lived experience. Joe is the co-chair (a voluntary role) of the Staff Disability and Neurodiversity Network, launched in January 2023, for colleagues at NCB, ensuring they are supported and their feedback can influence positive changes in the workplace. In 2025, Joe was a guest on an episode of the podcast "SEND in the Experts", hosted by Georgina Durrant from Twinkl Educational Publishing, in which he provided advice and strategies to help support teachers and educators.  Joe featured on an episode of the SENDcast in 2024, the #1 podcast for SEND hosted by Dale Pickles, in which he talks openly about his personal experiences of Autism and provides advice for professionals supporting Autistic children and young people in education.  Joe has written articles in several publications in the SEND and children's sector including Teach Secondary, NASEN Connect, SEN Magazine, Autism Eye, SecEd, Headteacher Update and Children and Young People Now Magazine, and featured in a blog for SENsational Tutors.  Joe was invited by NASEN to be a speaker at their conference in Birmingham in July 2025. At this conference, Joe delivered a seminar titled "A Lived Experience: Practical Advice for Educators Supporting Autistic Children and Young People". Joe also joined a panel discussion at this conference with other inspiring advocates who all shared openly their personal lived experiences. B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk  Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast  Email Dale – [email protected]  Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe The SENDcast is powered by B Squared We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Today, Dale is joined by Terry Bolton - known as Telboy - a UK-based music producer, independent hip-hop artist, and parent of neurodivergent children, diagnosed with Tourette's and ADHD in his mid-30s to discuss Late Diagnosis, Loud Music and Parenting Neurodivergent Kids. Terry brings an honest, funny, and at times deeply personal perspective to a conversation that covers late diagnosis, sensory overload, resilience, and what it really means to define success on your own terms. They explore why Tourette's without coprolalia leaves so many people undiagnosed for decades and how Terry spent years masking his tics on stage without realising it. They also have a fascinating conversation about sensory overload - how context, certainty, and the people around you can completely change a sensory experience, and why the answer is rarely as simple as avoiding the thing that feels overwhelming. And they talk about parenting: modelling resilience without pretending life is perfect, being honest with your kids about the days you're struggling and running your own race rather than constantly measuring success against everyone else. About Terry Bolton Terry Bolton (Telboy) is a UK-based music producer and independent hip-hop artist. As an adult diagnosed with Tourette's and ADHD, and a parent within a neurodivergent household, Terry delivers fast, introspective, and socially aware bars that tackle emotional conflict, stigma, and raw identity. His work focuses on lived consequences, accountability, and authentic representation for the neurodivergent community. B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk  Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast  Email Dale – [email protected]  Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe The SENDcast is powered by B Squared We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

The SEND reforms have generated a lot of conversation - but one perspective has been missing from the debate. What does it mean for trusts? In this episode, Dale is joined by Helen Bray, Director of Inclusion at St Francis CMAT, and Simon Tanner, Director of School Improvement for SEND at Authentic Education, for a wide-ranging and at times refreshingly candid conversation about what the proposed reforms mean at trust level. Together, they explore: - Why accountability and capacity must move together - and why simply shifting responsibility away from local authorities without the right funding and workforce risks relocating the pressure rather than solving the problem. - What the standardisation of EHCPs and ISPs could mean in practice, and why trusts working across multiple local authorities stand to benefit most. - How the Mainstream Inclusion Fund will work differently across schools of different sizes - and why trusts can't simply pool the money. - Why Helen's trust has moved away from a standalone SEND register and replaced it with a vulnerability dashboard - and why that distinction matters for the children who fall through the gaps. - Whether the 'Experts at Hand' proposal can actually deliver in practice, given the existing shortage of educational psychologists and speech and language therapists. - Why executive function training is urgently needed - not just for TAs, but for every teacher in every secondary school. "If we're going to formally shift greater responsibility away from the local authority model, we have to ask whether schools actually have the expertise, the funding, and the infrastructure to deliver on it — otherwise we're not solving a problem, we're just relocating where the pressure sits." Helen Bray An essential listen for trust leaders, MAT leads, and anyone navigating the SEND reform landscape. B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk  Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast  Email Dale – [email protected]  Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe The SENDcast is powered by B Squared We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

In this episode, Dale is joined by Emma Muir, social media marketer, author, and education communication strategist, to discuss late diagnosis and whether being neurodivergent is a superpower. Emma received her ADHD diagnosis at 45, on a day when she was also told she had severely fractured her back and her mother was being rushed to hospital. Dale and Emma explore what it really means to receive a late diagnosis and why so many neurodivergent adults spend decades being offered depression medication or HRT before anyone suggests ADHD. They also have a fascinating conversation about whether ADHD is actually a superpower - and why the answer, as Dale argues, depends almost entirely on context. About Emma Muir Emma Muir is a social media marketer, author and Education and Communication Strategist at Clearcut Consultants. She was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45, on the same day she received a diagnosis for a severely fractured sacrum and learned her mother had been rushed to hospital. Her mother passed away on Mother's Day weeks later.  Emma spent thirteen years as a childminder, during which time she also founded Nurture Socials, a marketing consultancy supporting businesses whose customers are parents. She is the author of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret, the first practical marketing guide written specifically for childminders.   Since her ADHD diagnosis Emma has come to understand and embrace her neurodiversity as a professional superpower. She reads rooms, spots what others miss, hyperfocuses with extraordinary intensity and brings the unfiltered perspective of a parent into every school and business she works with. She believes her ADHD explains every area of her career where she has been most successful.  Emma is passionate about late diagnosis, about the power of understanding your own brain and about what becomes possible when you finally stop apologising for being different. B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk  Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast  Email Dale – [email protected]  Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe The SENDcast is powered by B Squared We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Schools have sensory rooms, sensory audits, and sensory-informed environments – but what about home? For many neurodivergent children, the place they're supposed to feel safest is quietly making things worse. Today, Dale is joined by Natasha Grays, founder of The Sensory Haven, to discuss sensory support at home and how it supports regulation, learning, and sleep. Natasha explains why so many families are unknowingly living in homes that are working against their child's nervous system – through lighting, noise, materials, and clutter – and why the good news is that the most impactful changes are often the simplest and cheapest to make. Dale and Natasha explore: – Why swapping a harsh overhead light for a soft lamp can shift a child's entire nervous system. – How background noises that adults barely notice can feel genuinely painful to a sensory-sensitive child. – Why the hard floors and minimal soft furnishings that look so good on Pinterest can turn a home into an echo chamber of stress. "It's about making small, easy, practical changes to lower the sensory overload in the home." — Natasha Grays An episode full of ideas you can act on today – without spending a fortune.   About Natasha Grays Natasha Grays is the founder of The Sensory Haven; a sensory design consultant, speaker, and CPD-certified Sensory Integration Facilitator helping families create calmer, more supportive home environments for neurodivergent and sensory-sensitive children. With over 20 years of international interior design experience, alongside lived experience and extensive self-education around sensory processing, emotional regulation, nervous system wellbeing, sleep, and neuroinclusive environments, Natasha helps families better understand how lighting, noise levels, visual clutter, layout flow, and sensory stress can impact behaviour, anxiety, sleep, focus, and overall family wellbeing. Natasha is also the creator of the S.E.N.S.O.R.E.E. Wellbeing Solution, a framework which underpins her approach to sensory wellbeing and sensory-friendly home design. Through sensory home audits, consultations, educational talks, and practical online content, she supports families in creating homes that feel calmer, safer, and more regulating for everyday life. Her work has been featured in The Parent Teacher magazine, and through her YouTube channel, The Sensory Haven, she shares relatable skits, sensory design advice, and realistic wellbeing strategies to help reduce overwhelm and support emotional regulation, without the need for expensive renovations or perfectly curated homes. B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk  Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast  Email Dale – [email protected]  Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe The SENDcast is powered by B Squared We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.