Publish date: 29 September 2022
Patricia Avery works at West London NHS Trust as an MSK podiatrist. Here she shares how she brings the skills and experience she’s developed through her role to support her patients, and how they’ve also helped support her daughter with Autism and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
"My name is Patricia and I have been working as a MSK Specialist podiatrist for the NHS for over 30 years.
In my role, I have always wanted to help the mental health of patients in my care and my journey with my daughter as provided some useful skills in this area.
Charlotte, my 16-year-old daughter is registered disabled and is diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. Charlotte was diagnosed aged 7 and found school life incredibly challenging. Her sister Katie aged 11 is a Richmond registered young carer for Charlotte and helps her with most of her communication needs socially.
She attends a specialist school provision in a mainstream school in Twickenham, for girls with social communication needs.
We were lucky enough to have been helped along her journey by the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and many Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)/ADHD charities, to ensure her needs were met as best as possible during her education.
She took a reduced education pathway and has just passed her GCSE's and will be the first girl to have enough qualifications to be able to attend 6th form at her school from the Specialist provision. We are so enormously proud of her.
I have been supporting other parents on their post-Autism/ADHD diagnosis journey by creating a voluntary support group at the school. This in turn, has also helped by clinical practice with patients who have with learning disabilities."
A truly inspirational story.
We offer a CAMHS service at the Trust which you can find more about here.