Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead 2025 SEND Conference & Exhibition

Dr Luke Beardon

Luke has been working for decades in the autism field, in capacities ranging from practitioner to researcher to trainer, first working with autistic children as a volunteer aged fourteen. He worked for The National Autistic Society (NAS) as a co-ordinating the development of a residential service for young autistic adults. He worked within this service supporting young adults with a range of complex needs, from those with high dependency needs and severe learning disability, to autistic individuals accessing Higher Education; prior to this he worked in the voluntary sector in the learning disability field. He went on to hold three additional posts at the NAS working with Local Authorities developing provision and support culminating with being Head of Training and Consultancy before moving to Sheffield Hallam University. His most recent post is with Sheffield Hallam University, as Senior Lecturer in autism. He runs courses at different academic levels in autism and is the Course Leader for the Post Graduate Certificate in Autism, while continuing to research in the field. He has provided consultancy around how to work with and support autistic individuals, organisational consultancy, and consultancy to Local Authorities and National bodies, and have spoken at numerous National and International conferences on a variety of autism related topics. His interests are anything related to autism, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else.

Vikie Shanks

Vikie is a true ‘super-mum’. Vikie’s book, Unravelled – The inspirational true story of a journey out of darkness, sees Vikie left to raise her seven children – all with special needs – alone, after her husband tragically took his own life. Her family star in a remarkable Netflix film, Kingdom of Us. She now campaigns for better awareness and understanding around autism, mental health, and suicide. Vikie was born in 1958 in Aden (now South Yemen), where her father was stationed in the RAF, the youngest of three children, and lived from the age of five in Waterbeach near Cambridge. At the age of seventeen she left home and moved to London to start work as a trainee buyer in Harrods but left after a year and became a croupier. After two years working in London and a further year in Spain she became a full time model back in the UK. Aged twenty five she met Paul Shanks, who was to become her husband and father to her seven children. It transpired Paul was mentally very ill and he took his own life aged 51. Since 2007 she has been a single mother to her seven children. Six of them are Autistic and one Dyslexic – plus the two youngest also have Cerebral Palsy. She now works full time writing, blogging, speaking and working with families affected by Autism.