Mazza's Place
Welcome to
Mazza's Place
Empowering parents and teachers to support children with neurodivergent traits (with or without a diagnosis).
Mazza's Place is a safe, non-judgmental and supportive environment for parents of children and adolescents with neurodivergent traits. We offer 1:1 sessions with parents, group sessions for parents and educational advocacy.
Mazza's Place is on a mission to provide training to empower teachers within schools and nurseries in supporting the neurodivergent children in their care. Every child has the right to thrive at school and here at Mazza's Place, we feel that giving teachers the toolbox to support them, has the greatest impact.
We provide you with the support you need to help your child flourish. Neurodivergent young people have brains that work differently to those of a neurotypical person, asking them to do things in the same way as a neurotypical young person, is like trying to bash a square peg into a round hole to make it fit. In the process, it will become battered and bruised. As one parent said, “Why can’t we just make the round hole bigger so that the square peg fits.”
At Mazza's Place, we are passionate about supporting you in understanding how your child’s brain works so that together, we can find ways to make the round hole bigger, to enable your child to thrive and achieve their potential, rather than to feel battered and bruised.
What Does Mazza's Place Offer?
These sessions will have a structure to them, however, they will be parent led. If there are issues that parents want to discuss, there will be space to raise these. There will also be a chance to connect with other parents of neurodivergent young people and share experiences over coffee/tea and some delicious cookies! We will be looking at the traits that tend to cause difficulties for the neurodivergent child, as well as often having an impact on family and home life. You can find out more about the structure of the group sessions here.
Our group and 1:1 sessions will combine exploring and understanding your child, alongside discussing strategies to support them. We will be looking at neurodivergent traits and how these can often be behind a child’s challenges. We want to empower parents with understanding their child’s behaviour and knowing how to support them, rather than using the “neurotypical toolbox” and trying to bash a square peg into a round hole, which in our experience leaves everyone feeling bruised and battered.
What do you get from the group sessions?
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Sessions led by a fully trained child psychotherapist who specialises in neurodivergence and a school SENCO/teacher who knows the ins and outs of the school system.
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Honest discussions with Lottie who is diagnosed with ADHD. Autism and dyslexia, about her experiences and what has helped/hasn’t helped.
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Advice on how to support your neurodivergent child with exam stress, university and interviews.
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A document to accompany the sessions, which explains everything that we cover (with space to annotate and make notes)
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Time at the end of the session to discuss anything further and an opportunity to put forward something to focus on the following session.
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Time to connect with other parents of neurodivergent children.
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Top reading recommendations document, made for parents by our parent representatives.
OUR AIM
Is for you to feel empowered in understanding your child’s behaviour and knowing how to support them with a neurodivergent toolkit rather than a neurotypical one, which in our experience, often does not work.
We aim for you to finish the sessions, armed with knowledge so that you can advocate for your child, and even better, you can help your child to advocate for themselves.
Lastly, we hope to provide a space for you to connect with other parents, as from personal experience, we know how isolating it can feel.
Is Mazza's Place for me?
These are some of the challenges that neurodivergent children may face and that we will be discussing in the parent sessions. We will also be sharing lots of practical strategies to help your child in the different areas discussed.
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Black and white thinking (things are either good or bad)
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Inflexibility (difficulty with change to plans or doing things a different way)
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Difficulty with transitions (such as moving from one activity to another)
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Challenges with theory of mind (being able to see things from another person's perspective or being aware of the impact of their behaviour on other people)
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Sensory averse or sensory seeking behaviours (in response to noise, taste, texture, smell, touch, crowds, movement etc.)
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Social communication challenges (difficulty with reading people's intentions, literal interpretation, can find two-way conversation challenging).
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Masking (appearing to be fine when struggling underneath, trying to adapt to fit in).
Here are some thoughts from people that Mazza and Lottie have worked with.
Testimonials
Former Employer
"Lottie was a fantastic SENCO, always providing the teachers and parents with practical and sensible ideas to support the children. She communicated with the parents calmly and professionally and always has a warm and smiley approach. If you are lucky enough to work with Lottie, you are in very capable hands."
Parent
"We met Mazza when we felt overwhelmed and a little lost and she turned our lives around. She is a complete gem. Mazza is kind, extremely knowledgeable, empathetic and experienced and approaches life with heart and a sense of fun. She has had a life-changing impact on our family and has supported us to reset our outlook and has engrained us all with hope and positivity. We will be forever grateful to her kindness, love and support."
Parent
"I want to express the gratitude that my family has for Ms. Lottie. In fact, there are no words to explain the things she did for my older son and the whole family.
When he reached Reception, we had some issues in his previous nursery year. My wife was pregnant of twins, and when they came home, he stared to have more issues. At that point, we had endless meetings with the school with behavior issues. She noticed that the issues he had were sensorial, rather than behavioural. He had sensitivities with sound and his lack of concentration also came from other sensorial issues. She started to use all the recourses and skills she has, to understand how he responded to different strategies. Ms Lottie helped him to change radically. My whole family will always be grateful to her."