Clare Ward
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Practitioner
Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Clare is a founding member of Special Networks. She originally trained as a Speech and Language Therapist and spent over twenty years working in the NHS, Social Services and Education with adults, children, schools and families. Her practice now combines her SLT experience with ‘Third Wave’ Cognitive Behaviour Therapies such as Acceptance and Behaviour Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, to offer flexible solutions to a wide variety of life challenges.
Clare developed an interest in autism early on in her career and spent many years developing alternative communication systems for people who are minimally verbal, followed by work in mainstream schools, where she began to explore the use of cognitive behavioural approaches, initially to support people experiencing situational mutism.
In collaboration with the lived experience consultants at Special Networks, she takes a more progressive, neuroaffirmative perspective with a focus on helping children and young people develop greater self understanding and self compassion as they manage the difficult thoughts and feelings that show up for us all, particularly when when we feel excluded or rejected. She uses play and creativity to help young people between 11-25 learn to sit with their uncertainty in a space where it’s safe to be aware of it.
Alongside this work she hopes to help parents, carers and professionals to understand the power of ‘belonging’ and how, by building more universally inclusive environments we can create a place for children and young people where they can feel psychologically safe, learn and connect with others.
With Jamie Galpin she has co-authored (and illustrated) The Anxiety Workbook for Supporting Teens Who Learn Differently (Jessica Kingsley Publishing 2021), which applies current psychological theory to the challenges many young people face in secondary school. Their second book (with Special Networks’ OT Judy Courtney) My Senses are Like Cups is written for anyone aged 7+ as an attempt to explain sensory uncertainty in a fun, meaningful and accessible way.
Clare is registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and is also a member of the Association of Behavioural and Contextual Science. She has completed British Psychological Society approved training certificates in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Children and Adolescents and Acceptance and Committment Therapy training for all.
She is a lifelong learner and is currently investigating the application of Internal Family Systems (Schwarz 1995) in her work with neurodivergent youth, whilst studying for a master’s degree in Systemic Approaches to Working with Individuals, Organisations and Families at the Tavistock Insititute in London.
