What We're Building: Introducing Fish in a Tree

By Bridgette Hamstead

Fish in a Tree began in New Orleans as a local neurodiversity community center, part gathering space, part support system, part experimental laboratory for justice. But what started as a small, place-based project has quickly grown into something larger, deeper, and more urgent: a neurodivergent-led hub for education, advocacy, and activism with national and global reach. Today, Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism stands as a justice-oriented organization focused on systems change. Every aspect of our work is designed to shift power, elevate lived experience, and create new pathways for equity and liberation, led by neurodivergent people ourselves.

Our mission is simple, but radical: to build infrastructure for equity and liberation by creating spaces where neurodivergent people, especially those who are multiply marginalized, are not only included, but centered as leaders, innovators, and truth-tellers. We are working to transform the world we move through, not by asking for access to systems that were never built for us, but by redesigning them altogether.

At the heart of our work are a number of bold initiatives that push the boundaries of what neurodiversity advocacy can look like. One of our flagship projects is the development of the first graduate-level academic pathway in Neurodiversity Studies in the United States. This is not a single course or training, but a full-scale master's program, an academic home for the knowledge, history, and cultural contributions of neurodivergent people. Alongside it, we are launching the Board Certified Neurodiversity Consultant (BCNC) credential, the first global certification to professionalize and standardize the work of neurodiversity consulting. These initiatives represent more than programming; they are infrastructural interventions, creating legitimacy, rigor, and sustainability for an emerging field.

We also offer professional mentorship for neurodivergent adults working in advocacy, education, systems-change leadership, and public visibility. Through cohort-based models, we provide support and guidance for those navigating careers in environments that often marginalize or tokenize their perspectives. Our commitment to public writing and thought leadership is ongoing, through articles, books, and media, we advance narratives that are rooted in neurodivergent knowledge, cultural memory, and the politics of liberation.

Fish in a Tree is also the founding home of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America, a national coalition of neurodivergent-led organizations working together to address systemic inequities in housing, employment, education, aging, institutionalization, and more. Our model is collaborative, justice-aligned, and unapologetically movement-oriented.

Every program and project at Fish in a Tree serves one larger set of goals: to elevate neurodivergent leadership in education, workforce development, and policy; to open new professional and economic pathways for autistic and ADHD communities; to move beyond tokenism and performative inclusion by creating standardized, justice-centered frameworks; to unite fragmented efforts into a shared national agenda; and to reshape the structures that define our lives through neurodivergent-designed models of access, equity, and power.

Our work is rooted in lived experience, but we are not just storytelling. We are designing systems. We are training professionals. We are building coalitions. We are advising institutions. We are influencing policy. And we are doing it all from the inside, led by autistic, ADHD, and otherwise neurodivergent people who bring not only their identities, but their analysis, strategy, and leadership to the table.

Fish in a Tree is uniquely positioned to carry this work forward. We are a neurodivergent-led organization, founded and directed by late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD adults with deep lived expertise. We are coalition-driven, working in partnership with international and national institutions, including the Neurodiversity Foundation and Rowan University’s Center for Neurodiversity. We are systems-focused, committed to tackling structural inequities across education, healthcare, housing, employment, and long-term care. And we are fully movement-aligned, participating in a global shift from awareness campaigns to true justice work.

Our projected impact is measurable and concrete. We aim to establish Neurodiversity Studies as a formal academic field and professional discipline. We plan to train and credential hundreds of neurodiversity consultants to transform institutions across sectors. We will continue to provide mentorship and visibility for neurodivergent professionals navigating complex systems. We are actively working to shape national policy conversations on housing, employment, and aging, especially for late-diagnosed and underrepresented populations. And, above all, we are building sustainable, coalition-led infrastructure for neurodiversity justice, both in the U.S. and globally.

Fish in a Tree is not simply a nonprofit or a community center. It is a living, breathing mechanism for structural change. It is an engine for the future. It is where culture meets policy, where lived experience meets institutional design, and where neurodivergent leadership is not the exception; it is the foundation, and we’re just getting started.