Kristy Forbes is an Australian based autism & neurodiversity support specialist

with experience working with clients both nationally and internationally.

This includes neurodivergent people and their families; and professionals who wish to support them, such as educators, psychologists, paediatricians, allied health professionals, support workers and integration aides.

Her work is informed by her extensive professional experience as an educator (Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary teaching), integration aide and childhood behavioural and family support specialist.

Kristy has degrees in Political & Social Sciences, Education with a disengagement specialisation, Literature, Film and Art.

Her most valuable insights, however, come from lived experience.

Kristy is formally identified (diagnosed) autistic, ADHD and has a PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) expression of Autism; as well as being a parent to four neurodivergent children, all with varying neurodivergent experience and expression including being non speaking, experiencing apraxia, dyspraxia, tourettes and PDA.

She has the unique experience and insight of many perspectives: the teacher, the support specialist, the parent, the partner and of course, being the neurodivergent individual.

Kristy understands the very real challenges neurodivergent people and their families face, and the often misunderstood and undermined position they are in.

Her own personal journey as an autistic person, and the story of her family is often documented throughout her work in her writing, her speaking, her many programs and webinars and in private consultation with others throughout the deeply personal process of empathy and compassion.

Kristy left school at the age of fifteen, after a series of behavioural and conduct programs, and being placed in isolation away from peers. She has experienced addiction, family violence, homelessness and became a parent at just 18.

Kristy's work and approach to parenting and connecting is through the lifelong lens of truly seeing and valuing the individual, and the way they experience & respond to the world. 

Her most impactful work is in the PDA space, having experienced incredible adversity as a result of her own experience of compromised mental and physical health as a youth, being in and out of the juvenile court system, and experiencing other outcomes of chronic and systemic misunderstanding of how and who she was.

She has a special interest in PDA related trauma and burnout and works with individuals and families in private consultation, programs, speaking and writing.