LIZ YEATES

For 25 years, Liz Yeates has been a community organiser and trade union activist. She spent 15 years working with looked-after children for a local authority and more recently returned to education where she gained a degree in Human Geography, her research including the geographies of disability, a relational social model of disability, and Non-Representational Theory as a tool for expanding neurodivergent geographies. 

Liz was part of a small group of activists in Leicester that launched Leicester Mutual Aid during the COVID crisis, providing an umbrella organisation for local mutual aid groups to share information, resources, and support. Liz wrote her dissertation on networks of solidarity during COVID.

Whilst employed by the local authority, Liz worked with autistic children and young people, developing self advocacy skills, and developing practices that include children with learning disabilities in the development of policy. Liz also sat on the authority’s heritage panel, on which she advocated for children with multiple and complex needs to have their social, psychological and cultural needs met.

Liz has previously worked in educational settings with excluded children and young people. She was the founder of Leicester Pride in 1999, which involved fundraising, event management and community organising. Liz is currently involved in community projects around sustainability and local food security.

Liz was diagnosed with Dyslexia in 2010, ADHD in 2018 and Autistic in 2019.

Liz brings experience, talent and social media expertise to Red in the Spectrum’s team of neurodivergent organisers.