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.

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.

Georgia loves animals and in her free time enjoys art and photography.

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

After qualifying Michaela worked on a male acute psychiatric unit. During her time there she gained both clinical and operational experience. She 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.

She is driven to help her colleagues make the necessary adaptation, to ensure that autistic patients have equal access to the services available.  This led to her joining BARA in November 2022.  In her free time, Michaela enjoys baking, crocheting, and spending time with her cats.

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.

In her free time, Lilya enjoys reading, horse riding, walking her dog in the countryside and baking.

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.

In her spare time, Linda loves to travel, going to concerts and the theatre and walking her dog and spending time with family and friends.