You Found us!

We are so excited to see you have found your way to our ND Family Hub – The Nook by Nurture. Over the last year or so we have built a beautiful community of people and if you join us we will be one more person, carer, human being closer to helping more of you grow from crisis to calm, to learn, work or live, in safety. 

Safe spaces for you to be Authentic. Safe for you to live without fear or judgement, or anxiety about whether or not you are accepted; confident that your own uniqueness is understood and that you are valued and celebrated for who you truly are!

We are inside, waiting for you to join us so you can start understanding how brilliant you truly are.

You Found us!

We are so excited to see you have found your way to our ND Family Hub – The Nook by Nurture. Over the last year or so we have built a beautiful community of people and if you join us we will be one more person, carer, human being closer to helping more of you grow from crisis to calm, to learn, work or live, in safety. 

Safe spaces for you to be Authentic. Safe for you to live without fear or judgement, or anxiety about whether or not you are accepted; confident that your own uniqueness is understood and that you are valued and celebrated for who you truly are!

We are inside, waiting for you to join us so you can start understanding how brilliant you truly are.

Your Chosen Safe Space

This space is designed to be your safe space and has been developed with the knowledge that often our families are in crisis and are seeking, connection first and foremost. We don’t judge, we don’t shame. If you are new to the neurodivergent community we want to make sure that you feel valued, appreciated and always welcome. Often we don’t have many safe spaces for a variety of reasons, such as social anxiety, the feeling of being ostracised or never really connecting with groups of people in the outside world. We get it. We truly do, and this is where The Nook by Nurture aims to fill that void.

We want to connect. We want to share. We want to help the next generations thrive whilst protecting them from the trauma we have experienced. Breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma through Calm, Connection, Co-Regulation® – A Nurturing Parenting Approach.

Upcoming live members-only events!

Jodie will be delivering one of her flagship programmes The Nurturing Anxiety Programme in the membership during the months of March, April / May

What will I find in there?

In our members only portal you will find a collection of webinars, interviews and even a selection of our previous conference recordings from world renowned speakers such as Alfie Kohn, Dr Wenn Lawson, Kieran Rose, Vanessa Bobb, Talisha TeeCee Johnson and many more. Our speakers are carefully selected and always align with our nurturing ethos, advocate for a more neuro-affirming model of disability and work tirelessly to support our neurodivergent community.

Alongside our on-line membership portal we have also created a Facebook group for accessible connection. Most of our members found us there, so that is where we are most days and alongside our group we have an active messenger chat available dedicated for our members to utilise whenever they need.

We sometimes stream our events live, directly into the group so that you don’t have to quit doom scrolling whilst you watch and listen. This is important to us as we understand that being present for webinars is difficult and often we need something else to do to enable us to focus.

Included in your membership:

We are committed to providing spaces free of charge so that our education and content is accessible at all times. If you are unable to join the monthly membership due to funding then we also have these free groups available for you to use. We also provide FREE weekly meet-ups in The Co-Regulation Corner hosted by Katy Cordice and The Professionals’ Nurture Hub. 

All of our videos in The Nook have a ‘Spoon’ guide to help you easily navigate our content. Look out for our spoonie friends – they are on every one of our videos to let you know if the content will nourish and nurture (the ‘smiley’ spoon) or offer a warning for our more intense videos (the ‘half smiley’ spoon). This will allow you decide which videos you want to devour based on your own spoon supply and levels of emotional energy.

All of our videos in The Nook have a ‘Spoon’ guide to help you easily navigate our content. Look out for our spoonie friends – they are on every one of our videos to let you know if the content will nourish and nurture (the ‘smiley’ spoon) or offer a warning for our more intense videos (the ‘half smiley’ spoon). This will allow you decide which videos you want to devour based on your own spoon supply and levels of emotional energy.

MEET THE TEAM

Jodie Isitt, Founder

I’m Jodie, and I am Autistic. Nope, scrap that! I’m Autistic and absolutely 100% proud and privileged to be able to share my experiences with you in the hope that we can bring about change, and balance, and inspire NURTURE throughout not just the community, but adventurously the universe!

I was only diagnosed on 2020 over 8 years after my first child was diagnosed (three Autistic children altogether) and whilst I have been predominantly using a Nurturing parenting style, it never fully translated to myself, therefore I was frequently in a state of shutdown and burnout and unable to tend to my own needs. Impossible really when I wasn’t aware there were any, let alone understand them to be able to advocate for them to be met. I made the mistake of believing I knew everything about autism, until I was diagnosed myself. I now understand and fully support that there simply are NO experts. Not one single expert on Autistic experience or other neurodivergence, because no one person can simply know and understand every single person on the planet. Our experiences are individual and unique and absolutely beautiful and learning about neurodivergence is one of the most inspiring, fulfilling things I have ever done in my life. I want to learn more, every single day. Because not only does it help me understand myself and my family, it has also helped me to become a much better person, less afraid, less misunderstood about difference and absolutely more accepting. It is a powerful thing, knowledge. And knowledge is absolutely the power we need to be able to thrive in a world with outdated beliefs of our “disordered selves”.  We can use our knowledge in the most inspiring of ways, to create change, to reframe thinking and understanding and to nurture people to make that step from thinking we need to be modified, to KNOWING that we are 100% exactly as we were meant to be. And becoming that stepping stone, building that bridge and facilitating the movement from “US” to “THEM” is exciting.

We do NOT need to be modified, we do not need to change. What we need is a more inclusive, understanding and accepting society that we are appreciated in as an equal contributor.

Eloise Elford, The Nook Manager

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Guide Five: RADICAL CONNECTION - Neuroparenting with Kristy Forbes & Jodie Isitt

Kristy and Jodie have worked together for a number of years and are completely aligned in their parenting, and in fact all round beliefs. Creating neuro-inclusive spaces, using neuro-affirmative approaches as standard. 

Week 3: Reasonable Adjustments

The pathway of SEN / EHCP’s / Reasonable adjustments and so forth can be a scary and bewildering place. But knowledge is POWER and this session aims to provide members with this power. 

Attendees will be given clear information and knowledge so they will be able to navigate these pathways armed with confidence. This will include basic law and children’s rights including ideas about what reasonable adjustments vs unreasonable adjustments are. We give examples of our own reasonable adjustments, how to ensure these adjustments are put in place and ideas on how to approach the professionals in your children’s lives to ensure that their needs are met. 

Members will also be equipped with ideas for “reasonable adjustments” versus “unreasonable adjustments”. A guest expert speaker – Karen Stepanova – SEN Consultant is arranged for this week who will give her very own presentations on the basics of SEN Law.

Week 4: Mental Health

In this session we look at how Imposter Syndrome can cause people to doubt their abilities.

The toll of advocating for children with additional needs can be detrimental to a parent or carer’s health. Our aim is to build up confidence and restore the mental health of parents or carers so that they have the inner strength to fight as hard as they can for their children.

This week focuses on changing negative thoughts to positive ones and helps restore the mental health of attendees. Jodie and Laura provide ‘Top Tips’ to staying mentally well during tricky times.  

Week 5: No-one can help me

What can I do? By week 5 we hope that all attendees will feel more confident, less stressed and have the skills and facts that they need to successfully advocate for their children. But we know that sometimes this is not enough.

The system can be fraught with challenges, and no matter how skilled you are, it can feel like your journey keeps being taken off track. In this session, an expert speaker will join to give fantastic advice on where to turn next when you feel you have exhausted all avenues. Practical advice regarding matters such as benefits, grants and additional sources of advice is also given, leaving the attendees feeling well equipped in their journey ahead.  

Guide Three: I'm Giving Up

Making sure that consistency is key, as our young people will not learn to trust us if we do not show them we are trustworthy. So making sure that when we start this process, we are committed to making it as successful as we possibly can.

Gaining trust, and keeping it is extremely important, however we all make mistakes, we will get triggered at some point, it is how we manage those mistakes that count. We are so used to being judged for our parenting choices, that throughout this session you be inspired to take back control of who you are, and give you the confidence to shut out the negative and leave more room for the positive.

Guide Two - Trust Your Gut

Guide Two: Trusting your instincts is a vital part of the process for RADICAL (UN)Parenting and we will discuss the many experiences of the facilitator and the learners where this has either proven to be true when listened to or when you wish you would have listened and acted on that gut feeling.

Briefly discussing methods of communication for the neurodivergent person and how important it is to study our young people intently so that we can begin to talk their language.  This session guides you back to your most confident, enabling those advocacy skills to flourish once more and encouraging you to always trust your gut.

Radical Guide Four: F*ck That Sh*t

Tuning out all the negative interference from around you will be crucial to enhancing your progression through this change, and this is something that will be difficult for a lot of families particularly when people are not yet ready to accept the RADICAL approach. Ditching the negative impacts on your parenting so that you can be free to be you. No shame. No judgment, just unapologetically you!

Join us whilst together we chant:   

F*ck That Sh*t

Week 1: Introduction to ASC

We will explore the many aspects of being autistic or having an autistic family member. Jodie will share her road to diagnosis for her three children and finally herself and her own diagnosis in 2020 at 35 years of age.  This first week will lay the foundations for the rest of the Five week programme. 

Week 3: Worrier to Warrior

In this final session, we will help you and those you support to find ways to reframe negative thoughts so that it is possible to “think better and feel better.”  We will also cover practical strategies to help you manage your anxious self, keep calm and turn you from a worrier, to a warrior, ready to battle everything that life throws at you.

Week 2: Differences I May Experience

Focussing on the saying, “When you have met one autistic person you have met one autistic person” we will take a deeper dive into the way that autism effects everyone individually.  During this session we will look at sensory needs in more detail and provide some ideas to help keep autistic children more regulated.

Week 3: Advocating For My Autistic Child

Laura and Jodie feel that “small changes make a big difference” for autistic individuals – and during this session we will discuss helpful tips for parents and reasonable adjustments for schools and colleges. 

In this session you will also be able to ask us questions relevant to this topic and we will signpost you to other helpful organisations and sources of information related to Autism. 

Week 4: Sibling Support

There is no doubt that an autism diagnosis can affect the whole family.  In this fourth session we will explore the impact autism can have on families and siblings.

We will discuss lots of helpful approaches to help you support your whole family and explore the positive aspects of an autism diagnosis.  We will also discuss how to support siblings of autistic individuals using empathy and understanding whilst also covering the importance of looking after your own mental health as parents.

Week 5: The Autistic Experience

Chloe, Jodie and Laura will discuss the medical model of autism and some of the theories of autism which are now proven to be out-dated and detrimental to autistic individuals.

Chloe will talk using her personal insight as an autistic adult, will discuss effective ways to support the mental well-being of autistic individuals and answer questions from attendees.

Week 2: Nurturing Anxious Minds

Whilst it is true that many children suffer from anxiety at any one time, those who are neurodivergent (ie are autistic, with or without PDA; have ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia etc) are more likely to have anxiety to varying degrees as part of their experience.  In this session, the anxiety experienced by any child is approached with understanding and acceptance and is jam-packed with practical ways to support children in a positive and nurturing way.

Week 1: Understanding Your Anxious Self

In this first session, Laura and Jodie gently introduce what anxiety can look and feel like with a real and tangible understanding that all participants come from a variety of experiences. Together, we will look at the impact anxiety can have on how we behave and interact with different people as well as the internal struggles it can bring.  By offering an invitation to reflect on and recognise our own anxiety and the negative internal voices that drive it, they begin to consider ways to quieten those voices and fears both for ourselves and those we wish to support. 

Week 2: Nurturing Advocacy Confidence

The aim of this session is to break down attendees’ advocacy skills, then rebuild them so that facts and controlled emotions are used successfully.

Laura and Jodie share their experiences of advocating for their children – both good and bad and demonstrate how to use assertiveness skills effectively and remove emotive language.

They also share their “Top Tips” before, during and after transitions to ensure that all objectives are achieved.