Transform Your Learning Journey

I’m Emma Austin, a parent of two incredible neurodivergent children with very different needs  and the founder of The SEND Compass. My journey into this work is deeply personal because I’ve lived through the overwhelm, the endless meetings, and the sleepless nights wondering if I was doing enough.

For years, I dragged my son into school kicking and screaming, convinced that persistence was the answer because that’s what I’d been told. Every fibre of my being screamed that something wasn’t right, but I ignored my gut and in doing so, caused him untold school trauma.

My daughter? The opposite. Calm, quiet, masking so perfectly that she’d go under the radar in any classroom. Two children, two completely different presentations, but both struggling in a system that wasn’t built for them.

Through all of this, I found myself in constant survival mode  trying to understand EHCPs, challenge school decisions, and hold my family together. It was exhausting and isolating. And yet, those experiences gave me something invaluable: clarity in the chaos.

Alongside being a parent, I’ve spent the last five years working as a teacher and mentor for young people with varying levels of need and neurodiversity. Through this work, and through co-founding Be Creative Cornwall, I’ve supported countless families who felt completely lost in the SEND system.

What I kept seeing over and over was this:

Parents weren’t failing. The system was failing them. And between the school gate and the tribunal room, there was almost nothing to bridge the gap no safe, non-judgmental space for parents to stop, breathe, and make sense of what’s next.

That’s why I created The SEND Compass. To be that in between.

To take parents out of the fog of survival mode and into clarity.

To strategically unpick what’s gone wrong, what support is missing, and what the next steps need to be so that you can stop drowning in paperwork and start focusing on your child and your family.

This isn’t just consultancy for me. It’s personal. It’s practical. And it’s built from a place of empathy and experience. If you’re feeling lost, I’ll help you find the map.

Customers have questions, you have answers. Display the most frequently asked questions, so everybody benefits.