About Us
Mustard Seed Autism Trust is a registered charity providing support to autistic children, their parents and siblings. Our Vision is to create a world that understands autism. Our Mission is to equip children, empower parents and educate society. We work with children with a diagnosis of autism (aged 3 – 11) and their families, from Rushmoor, Hart, Surrey Heath and Farnham.
Our Team
Sarah Clements
Charity Coordinator & Specialist Teacher
Sarah qualified as a primary school teacher in 1995 and has worked with autistic children for over 23 years. She has developed our anxiety management courses, social understanding groups, communication groups and 1-1 programmes with children. She also manages our parent courses, volunteer training and workshops for parents, schools and local organisations. Sarah leads our sibling support group for primary aged children.
Francis Bland
Senior Occupational Therapist
Francis is a qualified occupational therapist (OT) with over 20 years experience of working in paediatrics. She worked as an OT for the local authority children’s services and the NHS children’s therapy services before starting Mustard Seed in 2011. Francis has post graduate training in Sensory Processing Disorder and autism; DIR Floor Time; Motor Coordination Disorders and Therapeutic Listening. Francis leads our teens sibling support group.
Stacy reilly
Family Support Worker
Stacy is a family support worker for Mustard Seed. She previously worked in an autism specific school and has also worked in a local special needs school for children with a range of difficulties. Stacy is a mum of three. Her eldest daughter is autistic and she has a son diagnosed with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Stacy runs our anxiety management courses, social understanding groups, communication groups and 1-1 work.
Georgina Iverson
Occupational Therapist
George is an occupational therapist (OT) with over 25 years experience working in paediatrics. She has worked both in NHS children’s therapy services and independently. George works in mainstream and specialist schools and provides regular occupational therapy in a specialist centre for autistic children within a secondary school.
George has been providing occupational therapy services for Mustard Seed since 2015. George has post graduate training in sensory processing, motor co-ordination disorders, handwriting difficulties, Therapeutic Listening® and the CO-OP Approach™
Nicola Wilson
Office & Finance (AATQB)
Nicola has over 20 years administration experience and has been with us since 2022. She is the first point of contact for the charity on the main phone number and email address, looking after the booking of all appointments and initial queries. She also looks after our bookkeeping, website and database.
Nicola has two children, the eldest diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.
Michelle Sharpley
Family Support Worker
Michelle has worked with families through Home Start and volunteered with Mustard Seed, before joining our staff team as a family support worker. She runs groups, provides 1-1 work with children and supports our parent courses. Michelle is mum to two autistic young people and brings a wealth of lived experience to her role.
Pippa Chapman
Contracted Occupational Therapist
Pippa is an occupational therapist (OT) and is contracted by Mustard Seed to support our work with autistic children and our OT for Schools Service.
Julia Lodge
Contracted Play Therapist
Julia qualified as a play therapist in 2018 and is a registered British Association Play Therapist (BAPT). She is also a mum of three and worked in a school as an LSA for 10 years before deciding to retrain. As a trainee play therapist Julia completed her placement work with Mustard Seed and is now our play therapist. In addition, Julia runs play therapy sessions in schools across North East Hampshire and Surrey.
New role
Service Delivery Manager
News on our new member of staff coming soon!
Our Trustees
Caoimhe McManus
Chair of Trustees
Natalie Walker
Treasurer
Elaine Ninnes
Mary Prior
Shelley Reddall
Simon Martin
Graham Burrell
Linda Casey
Partners
We have many wonderful partners and funders who support Mustard Seed in a variety of ways.




What People are Saying About Mustard Seed
I feel that we were listened to and given excellent support and possible solutions going forward. I don’t think we would be in as good a place as we are now without this support. The staff were all fantastic!
The support is amazing and we have already seen the impact of the practical suggestions and strategies that we have learnt from the course. The dressing chart, social stories, reference to the literature – the list goes on!
My daughter has made life- long friends through sibling group and it has been incredibly important to her and continues to be. She loves the cooking and arts and crafts activities and the trip out at the end of the year too.
The support offered by Mustard Seed is outstanding. I am not aware of anything of this sort being available elsewhere without going through a private route which is cost prohibitive. Thank you so much for doing what you do. It helped my son very much and he enjoyed the sessions.