Built from lived experience

Meet the Founders

We built Simplified Support from the inside — not from theory, not from distance, but from the reality of living this system.

Jessica Buckle

Jessica Buckle MABP

Co-Founder · SEND & EHCP Law Specialist

IPSEA L1·L2·L3National SpeakerCare Act Trainer

Jessica is a national SEND speaker and IPSEA-trained law specialist with deep expertise in Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), transition to adulthood, and inclusive education. As a neurodivergent parent carer who built a bespoke Education Otherwise Than At School (EOTAS) package for her own son, she translates statutory frameworks into plain English that families, schools and local authority caseworkers can actually act on. Her own neurodivergent lived experience sits underneath every template and tracker, so the platform never asks families to mask, perform or push past their limits to get heard. Her training spans all three IPSEA legal pathways and her advocacy work runs from kitchen-table casework to national conference platforms.

Beyond the legal training, Jessica designed, secured and now manages her own son's full EOTAS package, building it from the ground up after mainstream provision broke down. She coordinates tutors, therapists and specialist provision week to week, holds the local authority to its statutory funding and review duties, manages contracts and invoicing for every provider, and keeps the package legally watertight at every annual review. She lives the paperwork, the timetabling, the funding negotiations and the daily regulation work that families navigate, and she brings that operational reality straight into the platform so every tool, template and tracker reflects what actually has to happen at home, in real time, on a real week, for a real child.

L1·2·3
IPSEA Legal Training
GOSH
Research Contributor
National
Conference Speaker

IPSEA-Trained SEND Law Practitioner

  • IPSEA Level 1. SEND Law FoundationsChildren & Families Act 2014, SEND Code of Practice & statutory duties
  • IPSEA Level 2. EHC Needs Assessments & PlansDrafting, challenging, and securing legally compliant EHCPs
  • IPSEA Level 3. SEND Tribunal & AppealsFirst-tier Tribunal preparation, evidence, and case strategy

Practice, Research & Training

  • National Conference SpeakerEHCP law, SEND reform, parent rights & tribunal advocacy
  • CPD Trainer for Education & Social Care ProfessionalsCare Act 2014, Children and Families Act 2014 and SEND Code of Practice training delivered to frontline professionals nationally
  • Research Contributor. Great Ormond Street HospitalContributing lived-experience insight directly into clinical research
  • EOTAS Pioneer & Parent CarerBuilt and runs a successful Education Otherwise Than At School package for her own son
  • EOTAS Operational LeadManages tutors, therapists, contracts, invoicing and statutory annual reviews week to week
  • Member, Association for Business Psychology (MABP)Workplace and organisational psychology expertise applied to SEND workforce design
  • Family-Facing Translator of SEND LawTurns the Children and Families Act 2014, the SEND Code and Tribunal practice into language families can act on

"Families shouldn't have to burn out to get their children what they need."

Nicola Middlehurst

Nicola Middlehurst FMBPsS

Co-Founder · Neurodiversity-Affirming Psychologist · Strategist & System Architect

BPS Full MemberFounder & System ArchitectParent Carer

Nicola is a Neurodiversity-Affirming Psychologist who takes an interdisciplinary approach, holding membership across seven British Psychological Society Divisions and Sections spanning education, developmental, social care, coaching, occupational, social and political psychology. She works fluidly across psychological approaches and disciplines, drawing on developmental, behavioural, systemic, trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming frameworks so no single lens limits what a child or family gets. As a neurodivergent psychologist and parent carer, she brings that lived experience directly into how the platform is designed, so the tools work with neurodivergent thinking rather than against it. That breadth lets her read the whole SEND system at once — statutory duty, school workforce reality, family lived experience and child psychology — and turn that view into usable design.

7
BPS Divisions & Sections
10+
Years Across Statutory & Lived-Experience Work
Founder
Business, Operations & Platform Delivery

British Psychological Society Memberships

  • Psychology of Education SectionUnderpins all SEND & EBSA content authority
  • Developmental Psychology SectionChild development & milestone frameworks
  • Special Group for Psychology & Social CareShapes how statutory social care duties are translated into family-facing tools
  • Division of Coaching Psychology (DoCP)Parent empowerment & guidance methodology
  • Division of Occupational Psychology (DOP)Workforce training & competency design
  • Social & Political Psychology SectionsMulti-agency dynamics & SEND reform advocacy

Practice, Strategy & Platform Infrastructure

  • Chartered-Route Psychological Authority (FMBPsS)Full BPS membership across seven Divisions and Sections, giving the platform interdisciplinary clinical credibility funders and commissioners can cite
  • Whole-System Clinical LensReads child psychology, school workforce reality, statutory duty and family lived experience together, so no single discipline limits what gets built
  • Trusted Across Statutory & Lived-Experience SectorsWorks with local authorities, schools and family-led organisations, translating policy into tools each side will actually use
  • Service Designer for Frontline SEND TeamsDesigns pathways, tools and training that hold up under real caseloads, not just on paper
  • Founder & Architect of Simplified SupportBuilt the platform end to end, from psychological model and data architecture to live product used by families, schools and local authorities
  • SEND Reform StrategistBridges statutory systems with the lived experience of the people inside them, so reform actually lands where it's needed

"When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment. Not the flower."

Our Shared Mission

We've sat in the meetings where our children were misread, watched them mask until they fractured, and held the line through the late-night panic. We didn't build Simplified Support from a whiteboard. We built it from the inside of a system that was failing the people it was written for — and we built it so no family, school or local authority has to keep working that hard for the basics.

As two neurodivergent parent carers, we know what it costs to translate yourself before anyone will translate the law back to you. That's the bar Simplified Support is built to meet — for families who need clarity, dignity and a way to be believed; for schools who need tools that work on a Monday morning, not just on paper; for local authorities who need defensible, audit-ready evidence without adding to caseload; and for NHS and healthcare professionals whose advice and contributions shape EHCPs and need to land in a format families and settings can actually use. For funders and commissioners, this is an opportunity to back a delivery partner with first-hand lived experience, full British Psychological Society membership across seven Divisions and Sections, and a live platform already in the hands of the people it was designed for. This is what it looks like when the people who've lived the problem are trusted to design the answer.