Creating Inclusive Holidays for Neurodivergent Families with Karen Mason

Update: 2025-11-18

Description

In this week's episode of The Autism Mums Podcast we welcome Karen Mason to the show.

Biography

Karen Mason grew up in Hertfordshire with five brothers and built a 35-year career with Bourne Leisure, one of the UK’s leading holiday park operators. Alongside her professional journey, she supported three neurodivergent family members and cared for her father through dementia. These personal experiences highlighted the lack of support for neurodivergent families in holiday parks. Driven to make a difference, Karen founded My Safe Place, combining her industry expertise with her passion for inclusion. Her mission is to create safe, welcoming environments for all families to enjoy accessible and stress-free holidays.

Key Takeaways

Understanding Personal Experiences: Karen Mason's journey emphasises the importance of personal experiences in shaping her understanding of neurodivergent needs and challenges.

The Importance of Inclusion: Karen's mission with My Safe Place focuses on creating inclusive environments that cater specifically to the needs of neurodivergent families.

Recognising the Need for Support: The lack of support for neurodivergent families in holiday settings highlights a significant gap in accessibility and understanding within the hospitality industry.

Creating Safe Spaces: Karen's work is dedicated to fostering safe, welcoming spaces that allow families to enjoy stress-free holidays together.

Industry Expertise Meets Compassion: Karen combines her professional background in the holiday sector with her passion for inclusion, showcasing how expertise can drive meaningful change.

Mentioned in This Episode

www.mysafeplacesouthern.co.uk

Connect with Karen

Email: karen@mysafeplacesouthern.co.uk

Facebook: @mysafeplacesouthern

Instagram: @mysafeplacesouthernuk

Connect with The Autism Mums

Website – https://theautismmums.com/

Transcript

Creating Inclusive Holidays for Neurodivergent Families with Karen Mason

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00 ] Welcome to the podcast. Karen,

Karen Mason: Thanks.

Victoria Bennion: could you start by talking us through your journey to starting my safe place please?

Karen Mason: Yeah, sure. So I've actually worked in the park industry, holiday parks for over 35 years now, and worked in various roles operationally, managing parks, all sort of jobs. I decided about 18 months ago after an episode supporting my brother and his neurodivergent children that I wanted to pivot where I was in the business and help and encourage parks to become more inclusive when it came to neurodivergent guests.

So I literally stopped what I was doing and. Spent now researching, talking to lots of families, working with local charities, and my Safe place evolved. And here we are. We're to ready to [00:01:00 ] go.

Natalie Tealdi: Oh, that's brilliant. Excellent. I understand you pivoted overnight. Your business was it the experience with your nephew that was the catalyst for that?

Karen Mason: Absolutely. So my brother has three neurodivergent children that I've helped support over the years and the stress of that situation actually led to my brother being admitted to hospital 18 months ago. So I stepped in to help support the family in many different ways. And it was a conversation one day with my brother where I was saying, look you guys.

Need a holiday break. He just looked at me in disbelief, said where are we gonna go? Nowhere is geared up for us and we've tried to have two breaks on holiday parks and it failed and it was really stressful. And I just had a light bulb moment because I work in that industry and why hadn't I, it was so true that there isn't [00:02:00 ] accommodation that's safe and secure for neurodivergent families. There's no provision in terms of staff training, sensory areas, and I went to bed and I woke up the next day and I said to my husband, I'm setting up a new business and it's called My Safe Place, and this is what we're doing.

Natalie Tealdi: how brilliant. Yeah, I can talk from my experience really. 'cause we used to have a caravan of our own and we. He took our son, I think only a handful of times, but every time was really difficult. I think he got overexcited and it just ended up being a really stressful experience for us. And I think you've really tapped into a gap there because if they were better set up, then there'd be places to go when they're dysregulated and just having that more supportive environment, you don't feel like such an outsider.

Karen Mason: Absolutely. I've heard from so many families now I didn't realize it was such a problem actually to get [00:03:00 ] away. It evolved because originally I thought, okay, what can we do? Can we maybe just look at encouraging parks to maybe have a sensory room on site, and then you go one step further and think actually that's not enough.

The main feedback I had from families was accommodation that wasn't safe. They were worried about. Damage to the property. Various other things. So because I've helped design a lot of park homes in my career and I've got a strong connection with the manufacturers, I was able to go and sit with them and design a diverse, friendly unit.

Natalie Tealdi: Brilliant.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, could you talk to us about what that looks like?

Karen Mason: Okay, so it's still slightly under wraps a little bit at the moment. However it's say the heart of it really was based around safety. So I know a lot of the parents were saying the caravan doors and windows were not lockable, and so they. [00:04:00 ] Children were trying to escape. That was a big issue.

Things like in the kitchen, having safety door locks, the magnetic locks on the units. And we've also designed in things like robust furniture. With rounded edges. We've got flooring that's stain resistant. So all the things that as a mother, you'd be panicking a little bit about,

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah.

Karen Mason: The safety.

And then we are going to be having, bedroom will be a purely sensory bedroom. So we'll have a safe bed in there and we'll have, a unit and various other items so that if the child is, needing to regulate you don't have to actually leave the accommodation, you can. You can just relax. And one of the main things I wanted was for the master bedroom and en suite to feel [00:05:00 ] comfortable and luxurious because let's face it, as parents, you need a break. You need to feel like you're at a holiday. So I didn't wanna design the unit so it looked like an accessible unit or clinical.

It still would very much suit. Young children because it's got a lot of safety measures.

Natalie Tealdi: Sounds

Victoria Bennion: I think it's, yeah. It's great that you've actually spoken to families and you've used that to inform the changes. 'cause they. Sound so well thought out.

Karen Mason: Yeah. I was really lucky as well to have worked with local charity, diverse abilities. They've been incredible. We spent some time with them talking to the staff. We actually did a photo shoot with them for our new website. So the feedback was great.

It's difficult, 'cause one size doesn't fit all. 'cause as you'll be aware, each child is so different. But I just wanted. To have some provision. 'cause something's better than nothing at all. So even if a [00:06:00 ] park doesn't have all of the provisions that I would like, if they maybe didn't have the accommodation but had the sensory room or a sensory garden and we did some staff training, that would be music to my ears.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah. I think a big part of it is building that awareness, isn't it, as well, and the training's such a big part of that.

Karen Mason: Yeah, I'm actually working with a training provider who specializes in activities for neurodivergent children. Because again, on some of the larger sites where they have entertainments and activities we decided the training we needed.

Introduction to neuro diversity for seasonal staff and part-timers. Then we'd have training activity team leaders, management, and we would like them to have a site ambassador who is responsible for [00:07:00 ] overseeing all of the above. And if they tick those boxes that we then would benchmark them. Be part of our accreditation scheme that we'd like to roll out.

Natalie Tealdi: Brilliant.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah. Fantastic.

Natalie Tealdi: And you mentioned your modular sensory garden rooms. Could you tell us more about that

Karen Mason: so in the early days, because my husband is from a background of construction we. wanted to build sensory rooms for people at home actually in the garde