Speaker
Dr Nicky Greaves
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Biography
Dr Nicky Greaves is a consultant clinical psychologist with over 20 years’ experience working with autistic children and young people. Following five years in diagnosis in the NHS, she has been part of an embedded clinical team working in an autism-specialist educational setting with currently over 300 pupils on role across sites from nursery through to college age. Over the years she has been extremely grateful for this opportunity to spend in-depth time with so many autistic young people across their development: to observe and hear their experiences of school and daily life. She has always been curious and passionate about supporting emotional well-being, so recognising that everyday demands often presented a huge challenge to the emotional well-being of autistic young people she sought to understand why in order to develop effective support and interventions. Developing a framework of understanding involved unpacking everyday psychological concepts in terms of how feelings of safety and control are created for well-being, what skills are helpful in navigating daily life, and appreciating just how complex the role of the social world is in all of this. Nicky’s evidence-based interventions (NICE Guidelines) utilise the education-based context to support emotion literacy and regulation in autism through visual, structured approaches that offer psychoeducation in a way that makes sense to each autistic individual and a range of well-being and functional ‘think, feel, do’ choices to help navigate daily life within our complex social world.
Nicky is also in private practice offering similar psychoeducation and skills-based approaches, and in the process of writing it all into a practical book. The aim is to explain the purpose and impact of emotions, and to offer skills for positive well-being to develop resilience and thrive.