Guerilla Aspies Podcast 3 - Dr. Catriona Anne Stewart OBE Scottish Women's Autism Network founder and mother . - a podcast by Paul Wady

Any feedback or suggestions? HoxtonPaul@Outlook.com or GuerillaAspies@gmail.com

Catriona founded SWAN: Scottish Women’s Autism Network, in 2012, after completing her PhD research, which focussed on experiences of anxiety for Asperger girls. SWAN has grown to run online peer-support forums, regular ‘meet-up’ groups across Scotland, includ-ing for ‘Young Swans’ aged 15-17 and Learning Event conferences. SWAN offers training and professional support across sectors. 

Scottish Autism commissioned Catriona to develop their Right Click online resource for autistic women and girls, funded by Scottish Government in 2015. Developing the re-source involved primary research into the lived experiences of autistic women, girls and their families and many interviews with professional experts in the field such as Dr Judith Gould, Tony Attwood, Richard Mills, Sarah Hendrickx, Carly Jones MBE and many other autistic women and girls. Scottish Government funded Catriona’s initiative - to evidence the impact of peer mentoring - through a SWAN/Scottish Autism partnership delivered 2018-2019. Modelled as a co-production and pilot study, the Under Our Wing peer-mentor-ing project was designed and led by autistic women, with administrative support provided by Scottish Autism. 

Catriona was an ‘expert’ and advisor to the highly regarded 3 year UK-wide National Aut-ism Project. She was advisor to the 2 year-long Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, Scotland, recently completed in Dec 2019. On behalf of SWAN she is currently acting as Regional Delivery Partner to the Scottish Government ‘Improving Understanding of Aut-ism’ campaign. 

She has delivered training, presentations, conference papers and workshops over many years and to a wide range of contexts, professional organisations, charities, parents groups and Local Authority staff. 

With a tendency to sign up for academic or training courses whenever a small gap ap-pears in her calendar, Catriona has, over the years, collected a range of degrees and oth-er qualifications, including: BA (Hons) Fine Art, PGCert Community Work, PGDip Western Herbal Medicine, PG Dip Gender Studies, MSc In Diagnostic Issues in Autism, PhD. Like many autistic people, she’s also had an eclectic mix of jobs, from 2 years as full-time paid student union officer and politician, to working for 9 years within film and TV art depart-ments, to being a health clinician, to teaching, university lecturing and student mentoring.

Catriona contributed to the collection of essays, “Spectrum Women” published by JKP in 2018 which was listed by the Independent as their 2019 #1 Best Buy book on autism. 

Catriona was included in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list, 2020, as an OBE.

Opinons? HoxtonPaul@hotmail.co.uk and guerillaaspies@outlook.com

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