Maria Bell

Maria is the Learning and Development Lead for the Estia Centre. She delivers many of our Module 1 and 2 clinical education courses to health and social care staff on autism and learning disability, from short course webinars to multi-day-long workshops, including City & Guilds assured programmes. She is passionate about co-production and centring the voices of people with a learning disability and autistic people in the development of services and training, working with our experts with lived experience of learning disability or autism to develop and deliver courses. She conducts learning needs analyses with external customers to identify training solutions to bridge knowledge and skills gaps and address organisational challenges. She uses our online user management and virtual learning environment, Oracle, to create engaging online content for our learners and manage self-directed and blended learning.

 

Maria is a qualified Lead Trainer in the Tier 2 Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Autism and Learning Disability, and delivers the Lead Trainer courses, together in partnership with the National Autistic Society, who she has also worked with to update the materials in a project commissioned by NHS England.

 

Maria has spent her career working with autistic people and people with a learning disability. Before joining the Estia Centre, Maria worked in the City & Hackney Crisis Pathway where she provided autism training to NHS staff and supported autistic and neurodivergent people experiencing suicidality and psychosis by providing tailored social and mental health support and access to reasonable adjustments. 

 

Maria has experience in conducting academic research in autism at University College of London and at Emerson College in Boston, USA, and holds a first-class degree in Psychology from the University of Bath. Maria's background in psychology has informed her passion for supporting and working with autistic people and people with a learning disability. She has led on projects to improve reporting of autism and learning disabilities on clinical systems; increasing access to reasonable adjustments; and pushed for crisis services to have sensory friendly assessment environments. She is undertaking a Level 5 Learning & Skills Teacher Apprenticeship to formalise her knowledge and experience in developing and deliver high-quality training.