Barry Boffy is an award-winning Inclusion, Equality and Diversity thought leader with a history of working in the social and criminal justice sector. He is a passionate advocate for victim rights and for a kinder, fairer and more inclusive world for all. Barry most recently held the role of Head of Inclusion & Diversity for British Transport Police (BTP), leaving in March 2022 after 15 years service leading the equality, diversity and inclusion agenda for BTP throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

He is a confident and experienced keynote and public speaker who believes in working collaboratively across industries and amplifying the voices of those from under-represented, seldom-heard or otherwise marginalised backgrounds. Barry has campaigned tirelessly for better diversity and inclusion practices in policing. He remains committed to ensuring social and criminal justice and victim rights for all, and has a particular passion for working with communities to explore interfaith dialogue

Briony has worked with The Donaldson Trust since 2018 on a number of projects, providing valuable insight and guidance as well as writing a series of insightful blogs for the Trust’s website about her experiences with ASD (Briony’s Blog).

A long period of complex health problems from the age of 11 led to several misdiagnoses for Briony, until she was finally diagnosed with ASD when she was 25.  Although these problems have made studying for qualifications difficult, Briony is still aiming to attend university to study English. She has a keen interest in the people and the world around her, and a particular love of literature which has tied in well with her past and present work with Donaldson’s, and her blogs in particular.

Alice Hagopian is a young academic and French teacher. Born in Besançon, her primary and secondary education were typical of an undiagnosed neurodivergent child in the French school system. Upon turning 18, Alice chose to study Linguistics and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures for her undergraduate degree at University College Cork. She has had opportunities to be a visiting student in Spain and Mexico and is currently finishing her Erasmus Mundus Masters Crossways in Cultural Narratives at the University of St Andrews.

Her research interests include French literature, creative literary scholarship, feminist-queer studies, and medical humanities/disability-neurodiversity-crip-neuroqueer studies.

Alice has learnt a lot from having to adapt everywhere to more or less accommodating institutions and individuals and is delighted to be able to bring this lived experience to contribute to the improvement of learning environments for neurodivergent people. She is a member of Les Jaseuses, a French interdisciplinary network for young feminist researchers, and admin member of the Narratives of Neurodiversity Network. Her participation in these alternative community and research networks and others has been greatly beneficial and helped her develop the  neurodiversity self-advocacy and knowledge that she’ll be bringing to The Donaldson Trust.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-hagopian-a674a5205/

Dr Monique Botha is a Community Psychologist based at the University of Stirling. Their research places a focus on social psychology, equality, and mental health for the autistic community, exploring how community may act as a resilience resource for autistic individuals facing stigma and discrimination. They are passionate about producing research, policy, and services that can help autistic people of all ages to live equitably and with good, self-determined, quality of life, and have a further interest in preventing dehumanisation of minority groups in research.

Their approach can be summed up as “Nothing About Us Without Us”.

Alongside their research, Monique continues to provide consultancy to organisations on disability, diversity and autism, and their experience in this will bring valuable insight to The Donaldson Trust.

Dr Ruth Moyse is a Director & Associate at AT-Autism, an Associate Tutor at the University of Strathclyde and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. She is a qualified teacher and completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, where her work was funded by the John and Lorna Wing Foundation. Her research interest lies in the education of autistic children and young people, particularly the female experience, and more widely in autistic wellbeing.

Ruth is an advocate for participatory research and the co-production of knowledge and chooses creative methods of engagement that centre autistic people and their views. She is the autistic co-Lead on an innovative pilot autism Train the Trainer training programme for adult mental health inpatient settings in London and the Southeast. This joint venture between AT-Autism and Anna Freud Centre has been co-created and co-delivered with autistic and non-autistic colleagues, including experts by experience.

Ruth is also a guest lecturer/speaker on autism, inclusion, and wellbeing and sits on a number of neurodiversity advisory boards and steering groups.

Ruth has two children, one of whom is autistic, and is autistic herself.

Inika grew up in India and is currently a neurodivergent social anthropology undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. She is particularly interested in cross-cultural education and specifically neurodivergent forms of community and care.

Inika convenes a ’Neurodivergent Socialities’ undergraduate research network at Cambridge University and is also a member of Dr Anna Stenning’s Narratives of Neurodiversity Network.

Inika particularly enjoys thinking about how different sociocultural settings live neurodivergence differently and we are delighted that she’ll be bringing this thinking to the Donaldson Trust.

Grace is a former service user having attended Vibe at The Donaldson Trust from 2022-2023. She is passionate about neurodiversity and keen to raise awareness and educate others through her writing and advocacy. Her booklet ‘I am Autistic’ has been used in several schools throughout Lothian and she publishes a regular blog about her lived experience as a young, autistic woman.

She is a keen footballer and member of the Scottish Disability Sport Young Person’s Panel, where she promotes inclusion in sport for women and girls and the neurodiverse community. From September 2024, she will be studying for a degree in Psychology and Sociology at the University of Stirling.