Trauma or Neurodiversity?
Telling them apart, and what to do when you cannot. A full day, delivered live online, for anyone who has to describe a child to somebody else.
Duration
Full day, six hours of CPD
Group size
Up to 20 delegates
Delivery
Live online, two trainers
Included
Delegate handbook, evaluation and certificate
Two trainers, one from each specialism, because a single trainer reliably favours the side they trained in. Both wrong turns are covered at the same weight, including the one practitioners cause.
Who it is for
- SENCOs, ALNCos, pastoral and inclusion staff
- Social workers, early help and family support
- School nurses, health visitors, therapists
- Anyone who writes referrals about children
What delegates will be able to do
- Explain why one visible behaviour is produced by two different underlying processes
- Use the six discriminating questions from the published expert consensus, and say what each is worth
- Explain why co-occurrence is the expectation rather than the exception
- Name both wrong turns, including the one practitioners cause
- Rewrite a diagnostic sentence as an observation that survives being read out in a meeting or a tribunal
- Send a referral that carries what the receiving service needs
- Support a child properly for a year without knowing the answer
The programme
- 01Why the two look the same
- 02What actually separates them
- 03Both, which is the usual answer
- 04Two wrong turns, and both cost
- 05Describe it, do not name it
- 06Referring so it lands
- 07What helps before you know
The problem this course addresses
Practitioners are put under real pressure to answer a question they are not qualified to answer. Is this child autistic, or has something happened to them? A decision follows: a referral, a plan, a conversation with a parent, sometimes a safeguarding one.
Get it wrong in one direction and a traumatised child joins a neurodevelopmental queue for two years while nobody asks what happened. Get it wrong in the other and a family is investigated for a presentation that had a developmental explanation. Both errors are common, both are documented, and only the first is usually taught.
What it is built on
The discriminating features are taken from Sarr and colleagues (2025) in the British Journal of Psychology, a three-round Delphi study of 106 international specialists in which 275 statements reached consensus. Every feature taught on the day carries the percentage that agreed with it, because none of them reached 100 and a delegate who leaves thinking otherwise has been misled.
The material on parental blame is taken from Blamed Instead of Helped (2024), a survey of 685 parents carried out by West Midlands ADASS with the University of Birmingham and commissioned by NHS England. The full reference list is in every delegate handbook.
Delivered in Wales and in England
The clinical content is identical either side of the border. The statutory routes are not, so both are taught side by side and labelled: Individual Development Plans and ALNCos under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, and Education, Health and Care plans and SENCOs under the SEND Code of Practice 2015. Mixed rooms are common on this course and are handled explicitly rather than hedged.
Who delivers it
Two trainers, which is the design rather than a convenience. Laura Fitzpatrick is a Registered Learning Disabilities Nurse and an ADOS-2 and ADI-R trained clinician with over seven years across NHS and independent neurodevelopmental services, including as Clinical Lead for ADHD and autism. Lisa Hibbert is an MNCPS Accredited counsellor and BACP member with seventeen years working with children and families, holding a BA (Hons) in Therapeutic Child Care and EMDR practitioner training. A single trainer covering both sides of this question reliably favours the one they were trained in, which is the bias the course exists to work against.
Assessment and evidence
Every delivery produces the paperwork an employer, a commissioner or an inspector will ask for. It is collected from the first course, not retrofitted later.
- Pre and post knowledge check, used to evidence learning gain
- Anonymous delegate evaluation, results shared with the commissioner
- Optional written reflective assessment for CPD or revalidation evidence
- Attendance register and individual certificates
- Attendance records retained for six years
Fees
In-house delivery for your own team, at your site or online. Travel is included within Shropshire, Cheshire, Powys and the Wrexham and Oswestry area, and charged at cost beyond it.
In person, at your site
From £1,250
Delivered online live
From £950
Open course place
£165 per delegate
Every quote is specific
Cost depends on delegate numbers, location and whether you want the content adapted to your setting. Tell us what you need and we will quote properly rather than sending you a rate card.
What this course is not
It is not a diagnostic course and no delegate leaves able to say which it is. It is not training in ADOS-2, ADI-R or any other assessment instrument, and the certificate says so explicitly. It is not a screening checklist, and we say on the third slide that anybody selling one for this problem is overselling it.
Blip’s clinical service
Blip is an independent mental health service for ages 7 to 25 as well as a training provider. Buying training does not commit you to the service, and the two are quoted separately.
Book this course for your team
Tell us the numbers and the term you have in mind, or email training@blip.org.uk. We reply within one working day.