Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism

Building the Infrastructure of Neurodiversity Justice

Initiatives

  • Neurodiversity Coalition of America

  • Neurodiversity Studies Graduate Degree Program

  • Neurodiversity Consultant Professional Credential

  • Neurodiversity Justice Bookshelf Virtual Book Club

  • NeuroStage Presentation & Performance Series

  • Neurodiversity Pride Parade in New Orleans, Louisiana

  • NeuroJustice Summit

Upcoming Events

  • Neurodiversity Justice 101: Rethinking Inclusion, Power, and Access

    February 24, 2026

    This workshop introduces the framework of neurodiversity justice as a way to understand why so many autistic and ADHD adults have struggled in systems that were never built for their minds. It helps participants see neurodivergence as something profoundly shaped by environment, culture, and power rather than personal deficit. Individuals attend because they want clarity, validation, and language for their lived experience. Teams attend because they want a deeper foundation for inclusion work. By the end, participants understand why genuine equity requires redesign rather than adjustment.

    Intended audience: Neurodivergent adults, late-identified autistic and ADHD people, clinicians, educators, graduate students, nonprofit staff, and anyone entering this work for the first time.

    Presenter: Bridgette Hamstead

  • Building Neurodiversity-Affirming Institutions: Policy, Practice, and Culture

    March 31, 2026

    This workshop offers a structural exploration of what it takes to transform an institution into a place where neurodivergent people can actually thrive. It looks at workflow design, communication norms, organizational culture, leadership practice, sensory environment, and policy through a justice-centered lens. Individuals gain a deep understanding of how institutions have shaped their personal burnout patterns. Institutions gain clarity on how to move beyond accommodations and into redesign. The session provides a framework for meaningful, sustainable change.

    Intended audience: Neurodivergent adults seeking systemic understanding, institutional leaders, HR teams, DEI practitioners, disability services, clinical directors, educators, and anyone responsible for shaping organizational culture.

    Presenter: Bridgette Hamstead

  • Beyond Awareness: Building Neurodivergent Belonging Through Culture and Governance

    May 26, 2026

    This workshop explores the cultural conditions that allow neurodivergent people to experience genuine belonging. It looks at communication patterns, conflict norms, leadership structures, decision-making processes, and relational expectations. Individuals learn why they have often felt misunderstood or misattuned within institutions and relationships. Teams learn what it means to shift power, change culture, and create spaces where neurodivergent people no longer have to mask in order to be accepted.

    Intended audience: Neurodivergent adults, community leaders, nonprofit boards, governance teams, executive leadership, educators, and institutions ready to move from messaging to cultural transformation.

    Presenter: Bridgette Hamstead

  • Neurodiversity Inclusion and Accessibility in Conference Design

    June 30, 2026

    This workshop offers a deep exploration of how conferences either support or overwhelm neurodivergent participants. It examines registration flow, room layout, lighting, sound, pacing, scheduling, crowd physics, and communication design. Individuals gain clarity on why conferences have historically been so difficult. Teams learn how to build events that are not just survivable but genuinely accessible and welcoming to divergent nervous systems. The workshop moves conference design far beyond the quiet room and into a fully reimagined model rooted in sensory stability, clarity, and care.

    Intended audience: Academic conference organizers, nonprofit staff, corporate learning teams, museum educators, symposium planners, arts organizations, and neurodivergent individuals who attend or speak at conferences.

    Presenter: Bridgette Hamstead

  • Moving From Awareness to Activism: Neurodiversity Justice as a Framework for Change

    July 28, 2026

    This workshop is an invitation to move beyond awareness and into collective action. It examines the limits of awareness-based models and offers a clear pathway into advocacy, movement participation, and structural change. Individuals find language for their personal shift from identification to activism. Institutions learn why awareness does not produce equity and how to evaluate their practices through a justice-centered lens. By the end, participants have a clearer sense of their role in the larger movement for neurodivergence liberation.

    Intended audience: Neurodivergent adults seeking a place in the movement, emerging advocates, graduate students, nonprofit and community workers, educators, clinicians, and institutions ready for deeper engagement.

    Presenter: Bridgette Hamstead

  • Serving Neurodivergent Adults: A Justice-Centered Framework for Nonprofits/Leaders

    August 25, 2026

    This workshop is designed specifically for nonprofits that support autistic and ADHD adults. It looks at intake processes, case management structures, communication norms, sensory design, power dynamics, and service delivery models. Individuals who use services attend to understand their own experiences more clearly. Nonprofits attend to learn how to build programs that create dignity, autonomy, and belonging rather than compliance and control. The workshop offers a humane, justice-aligned approach to adult services that centers the leadership and agency of neurodivergent people.

    Intended audience: Nonprofit staff and leadership, case managers, social workers, funders, community advocates, government agencies, and autistic and ADHD adults who engage with services.

    Presenter: Bridgette Hamstead

Our
Company Ethos

Fish in a Tree is a neurodivergent-led organization rooted in the Neurodiversity Justice Framework, the intellectual and strategic foundation of the neurodiversity justice movement originated and architected by our Founding Director, Bridgette Hamstead. Everything we do flows from a core conviction: neurodivergence is not a problem to solve. It is a source of knowledge, creativity, and power to build around, and the systems that have failed neurodivergent people must not be patched but transformed.

Our work goes far beyond awareness and checkbox inclusion. We partner with universities, corporations, nonprofits, cultural institutions, and technology innovators to create meaningful, lasting change through consulting, training, keynote speaking, and coalition-building. Every engagement is designed to be practical, collaborative, and transformative, centering neurodivergent leadership, expertise, and lived experience at every step. We do not bring neurodivergent people in as an afterthought. We begin with us.

We are building the infrastructure the neurodiversity movement has long needed and never had. That infrastructure includes the Graduate Program in Neurodiversity Studies, which will establish the first rigorous academic pathway in the field; the Board Certified Neurodiversity Consultant (BCNC) credential, which will set professional standards for the growing neurodiversity consulting field; and the Neurodiversity Coalition of America, which sets the annual U.S. Neurodiversity Justice Agenda and coordinates national advocacy across education, healthcare, housing, employment, institutionalization, aging, and beyond. Each year, the Neurodiversity Coalition of America convenes the NeuroJustice Summit, bringing together neurodivergent leaders, advocates, researchers, and organizers to drive the working groups, set the agenda, and disseminate the latest thinking in neurodiversity justice. These initiatives extend our direct work into lasting systems change, establishing standards, pathways, and collective strategies that carry the neurodiversity movement from awareness into justice.

Our ethos is grounded in a principle at the heart of the Neurodiversity Justice Framework: neurodivergent people are not stakeholders in systems that affect them. They are the rightful architects of the solutions. We will not replicate broken systems. We will help build new ones where neurodivergent people, and by extension everyone, can thrive.

Learn more

Contact Us

Inquiries regarding Fish in a Tree’s work

Fish in a Tree is a neurodivergent-led education and advocacy organization working at the systems and institutional level. Organizations engage Fish in a Tree for consulting, speaking, education, and project-based work as outlined on our Services page.

Before submitting an inquiry, we strongly encourage you to review our FAQs, which address common questions about our scope of work and what we do and do not offer.

Fish in a Tree does not provide individual-level services, assessments, therapy, coaching, referrals, or unpaid labor. We are not a service provider, help agency, or hiring pipeline.

This form is for specific, clearly defined inquiries or proposals only. Please include concrete details about the purpose of your message, the service or initiative it relates to, and the nature of your request.

Due to volume, only inquiries that align with our stated scope and include clear parameters will receive a response.

If you are looking to follow Bridgette Hamstead’s writing and analysis, her work is published on Substack:
https://bridgettehamstead.substack.com