Our Consultants
Our team of associate consultants have worked together in one way or another for at least 20 years. We bring a multi-disciplinary perspective to our work - with all of us drawing on at least 30 years of experience and a wide range of academic backgrounds - with qualifications in Psychology, Speech and Language therapy, the Management of Community Care, and Special and Inclusive Education.
Julie Beadle-Brown, PhD
Director and Senior Consultant
Julie has more than 30 years’ experience working with individuals, families and intellectual and developmental disability services and systems. Her research, consultancy and teaching has focused on supporting the development of high quality community-based person-centred services that provide the best possible quality of life outcomes for people with disabilities. In addition to being Director and Senior Consultant at Beadle-Brown Consulting, she is currently the PAVE Service Outcomes Project Manager with the California Community Living Network. She is also Professor Emerita at the Tizard Centre, University of Kent and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society.
Jill Bradshaw, PhD
Senior Consultant
Jill is Professor of Communication, Health and Social Care in the school of Social Policy and Society at the University of Birmingham and a consultant Speech and Language Therapist. Her research, teaching and consultancy work focuses on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and she is particularly interested in people with the most complex communication challenges. She is also an experienced trainer in Talking Mats and in Person-Centred Active Support and supports organizations in implementing person-centred approaches at different levels with a particular focus on understanding staff culture and how to motivate and support staff to implement training in good support on a day to day basis.
Bev Murphy
Consultant
Bev has more than 40 years’ experience working with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New Zealand and the UK. Her practice, consultancy, and teaching have focused on the development and implementation of high-quality person-centred support and practice leadership that promote meaningful engagement and quality-of-life outcomes. She has worked in partnership with academic colleagues on the implementation and evaluation of Person-Centred Active Support, contributed to key training and practice resources, and delivered training and workshops nationally and internationally.
John Ockenden
Consultant
John is a consultant and trainer in person-centred support and practice leadership, with more than 40 years experience of support for people with learning disabilities and/or autism, mostly in people's own homes in community settings. John started his career in this field as a support worker and then served in management positions. For 24 years he was part of the Practice Development Team at United Response, supporting staff and front line managers through training, written and video guidance, observation & feedback, and consultation. He has contributed to a number of academic articles and practical resources, and presented training and workshops for a variety of different organisations. John is particularly interested in helping supporters in practice leadership positions to develop and deliver person centred, team-wide, effective support.
Richard Mills
Consultant
Richard is currently Head of Research, Evaluation and Clinical Support at AT-autism and holds many other positions across the globe all related to supporting education and good support for autistic individuals and their families. Richard is a Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath; Senior Research Fellow at Bond University, Queensland, Australia; Adjunct Research Fellow at UNE, NSW, Australia; Professor, J-CAAR Taisho University, Tokyo, Japan; Consultant at the Autism Resource Centre Singapore and chairs the research and Innovation Council at Inspire Malta. In previous role in the National Autistic Society (UK) he was one of the originators of the SPELL Framework and has since then continued to work, including with Julie Beadle-Brown, to make this available across the world.
Jan Šiška, PhD
Senior consultant
Jan is Professor at Charles University, Faculty of Education, and the Centre on Community Integration, University of Minnesota. His European and international research, consultancy and lecturing focus on policies and practice in community-based services, and transition for young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He has extensive professional experience in promoting and evaluating education for learners with disabilities in the Global South (Ethiopia, Southeast Asia) and project management experience on national and multi-national projects.