Dr Rebecca Mitchell is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and one of the Clinical Leads in the service. She also works in North Buckinghamshire Psychological Therapies. She has trained and worked in autism diagnosis, and in adapting psychological therapy for autistic people, over many years in the NHS.

Rebecca first became interested in the experiences of autistic people during her psychology degree. This interest grew after reading Donna Williams’ books Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere.

On completing her clinical training, she spent a few years working in children’s mental health and paediatric services. This gave a good grounding in a variety of developmental and neurodevelopmental conditions and the challenges people face navigating systems that don’t always fit or work well.

Since 2001 she has worked in adult services and has been involved in local and national networks to support improvements in services for autistic people.

Stefan is a Consultant Psychiatrist specialising in ADHD and ASD, trained in the Oxford programme.

His practice emphasises a holistic approach to patient care, integrating medication, and when necessary, therapy, and lifestyle changes.

He firmly believes that physical exercise and healthy nutrition are fundamental to achieving sustainable mental well-being.

Beyond his clinical work, he is passionate about filmmaking, audio equipment, and rangefinder photography. He also enjoys playing tennis, basketball, and PC gaming.

Georgia Spooner is our Mental Health Liaison Occupational Therapist for Autism. She initially became interested in working with autistic people through voluntary work with autistic children and adults within charitable providers.

Georgia completed her undergraduate BSc at Coventry University in 2018 and subsequently became a member of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT). Following her degree, she worked within the Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team (CRHTT) running groups with adults experiencing mental health crisis.

Georgia helped to develop the Bucks Autism Reasonable Adjustments (BARA) service and has been working here since August 2022. Georgia is excited to help make mental health services more accessible for autistic patients and help people understand what autism means to them.

Laura She completed her professional doctorate in counselling psychology at City, University of London in 2019.

She first became interested in autistic people’s experiences in her personal life. This interest grew professionally through her therapeutic work with autistic people in an adult community eating disorder service, as well as through autism training courses.

Laura is passionate about raising awareness of autism and autism equality (ensuring that autistic individuals have the same rights, opportunities, and access to resources as their non-autistic peers).

Sarah trained at the University of Reading and, since qualifying in 2014, has worked in the clinical areas of adult learning disability, mental health and autism assessment with both young people and adults.

Sarah is passionate about neuroaffirming practice and improving the experiences of autistic people in diagnostic services and has led on projects to adapt diagnostic reports.

She has specific clinical interest in the experiences of trans, gender questioning and gender diverse autistic people and is part of a committee of speech and language therapists who have formed a clinical excellence network to further work in this area.

In her spare time, Sarah has recently taken up running and also enjoys strength training, board games and knitting.

Michaela is our Mental Health Liaison Nurse for Autism. They attended the university of Bedfordshire and completed their undergraduate degree in 2017.

After qualifying Michaela worked on a male acute psychiatric unit. During their time there they gained both clinical and operational experience. They developed an interest in co-production and how best to ensure that patients’ voices are heard. Michaela has always been passionate about improving the experiences of autistic patients accessing mental health services.

Michaela is driven to help colleagues make the necessary adaptation, to ensure that autistic patients have equal access to the services available.  This led to them joining BARA in November 2022.

Lilya is our Assistant Psychologist. She completed her undergraduate degree in International Politics and French at the University of Warwick in 2018 and then completed her Masters of Science (MSc) in Psychology with the University of Glasgow in 2023. Her MSc dissertation research project explored the lived experience of autistic parents.

She has worked within Community Paediatrics within the Child Development Centre in North Bedfordshire and later worked within CAMHS with vulnerable children and young adults in South Bedfordshire.

Linda Studd is our administrator for the Autism service. Linda has only recently taken on this role and has really got involved with the procedures involved at the beginning stage to include the Autism referral process right through to sending out the Autism assessments.

She is also responsible for answering your phone call and email enquiries. Prior to the role Linda worked for 2 years as an administrator with the Adult Mental health Team.

Binuri is our Administrative Assistant for the autism service as well ADHD and North Bucks Psychological Therapies.

Binuri graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience in the Summer of 2024 at the University of Southampton. Her dissertation project focused on investigating the link between the gene MBOAT7 and autism using animal models.

During her studies, Binuri worked as a support care worker for adults with autism, gaining valuable hands-on experience.

Prior to joining our team, Binuri has worked within the NHS as a Covid-19 Vaccine clinic administrator for Stoke Mandeville hospital and the Guttman Centre. Additionally, she served as an HR administrator for international recruitment at Stoke Mandeville Hospital back in 2021.