Why the name 'Aûtentic' ? 

Lacul Roșu/Red Lake - Romania

'Aûtentic' is the Romanian word for 'Authentic', a reference to Catherine's status as an autistic person and their  philosophy, which is centred on creating a society where autistic people can authentically be themselves and thrive.

'Au' are the first two letters of the word 'Autism' and 'Au' is the periodic symbol for gold, a strong, rare and beautiful metal, which many of the autistic community have adopted as representative of autism.

Aûtentic philosophy

We believe that the voices of neurdivergent people should shape and lead services and best practice approaches to ensuring that neurodivergent people can authentically be themselves and thrive in all aspects of life.

Catherine has a background in engineering and self-recognised as autistic in 2002. They began their autism career in 2014 with The National Autistic Society,  delivering employability courses and providing 1:1 workplace support for autistic employees before specialising in Employment consultancy and training. Catherine was diagnosed as autistic in 2015, and since 2021 has been designing and delivering training and resources for parents and carers, healthcare and mental health professionals and NHS Mental Health Trusts, Careers Professionals and the Autism Education Trust.

Catherine regularly reaches out to the autistic community for their voice in Catherine's work, balancing their own lived experience of being autistic, as an autism professional, and the parent to a 23 year old autistic person.