Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Haley Graham : A Conversation on Mental Health, Autism, and Finding Your Way
Wed, 30 Apr 2025
Send us a text Psychotherapist Haley Graham shares her journey from pharmacist to mental health advocate after her son's struggle with school led her to found the Bounce Brighter Futures Foundation. Her personal experience with neurodivergence drives her passion for supporting children, parents, and teachers through therapeutic storytelling and compassionate understanding. • Founded Bounce Brighter Futures Foundation in 2019, now supporting 90 families weekly with 12 therapists • Approximately 50% of children seeking support are neurodivergent (autistic or ADHD) • School attendance difficulties often stem from not belonging in the system rather than just peer bullying • Cautions against therapists inadvertently teaching autistic children to mask better • Uses storytelling with woodland animals to help children explore mental health challenges • Created "Shadow Monster" story as metaphor for facing anxiety and OCD • Developing new book based on interviews with late-identified autistic adults • Believes autism itself isn't the problem—fitting into society creates mental health challenges • Emphasizes curiosity about children's experiences rather than trying to fix them • Advocates for thoughtfulness and empathy when supporting neurodivergent individuals Find Haley Graham on LinkedIn, Instagram (hayleygrahauthor), and at Bounce Brighter Futures website. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: Who is Haley Graham and what is her background?
If you would, tell us a little bit about what you do.
I'm a therapist, so I trained first as an adult psychotherapist, and then I went on to train as a child psychotherapist. In 2019, January 2019, I founded a mental health charity for children here in Devon. Also, I write books. I post stuff on LinkedIn about autism and consider myself sort of to some extent on a very sort of low level to be sort of an advocate for autistic people.
Now you have a charity. Can you expand and explain to us a little more about your charity?
Chapter 2: What is the Bounce Brighter Futures Foundation and how does it support families?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it started off in 2019, basically with me providing pro bono work two days a week to local schools. And now today we're sort of a team of 20 people. We've got 12 therapists working and providing support to 90 families a week. So that's sort of one-to-one specialists, psychotherapeutic support for children, young people and their parents.
You know, we also provide some support to sort of teachers in schools and that sort of thing as well.
Where you work with the school systems, what are some of the challenges you find yourself facing?
In running the charity, the biggest challenge, 100%, is money. It's funding. It's such a hand-to-mouth existence. You know, you're in a position where you've only got three months' money. And you're sort of building sandcastles in the air. So, you know, it's because you're sort of trying to sort of plan and grow and think about the future.
And at the same time, you know, if the money doesn't come through, you're going to have to fold. And that's what it's like. I mean, it's such a hand-to-mouth existence. And it's not getting any easier, you know, getting harder to get money.
Yeah, I understand that. It's tough all around. Now, do you deal with more autistic people or mental health?
So our sort of clients, if you like, our service users, I mean, we provide mental health support. And we were having a conversation the other day as sort of a small, you know, just small group of us in the team. And I would say... Probably 50% of the children and young people that come through our door either have a diagnosis of autism or are on the pathway or, you know, have a diagnosis of ADHD.
So it's a very, very high proportion of the children and young people that we work with are neurodivergent.
Yeah, okay. Now... With all the people that you do work with, what are some of the issues that you have to work with and how complex does it get for you?
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Chapter 3: What challenges do autistic and neurodivergent children face in school?
Do you find that you often deal with kids that may have bullying as an issue because they don't have their social skills the way they might need to be to avoid that?
Yeah, I mean, you know, I suppose it's across the board. I think bullying definitely is part of the picture, often online. I would say, and I guess people might disagree with me, But I would say that bullying is probably secondary. I would say that kids feel like they don't necessarily belong. But I think that they really struggle with the system.
And I think it's more about the whole school environment than bullying. simply being bullied by other kids i mean that that's sort of that's my feeling i think it's a whole system thing and a sense of of not belonging in that system and not being able to find a place within it particularly you know spaces where they can feel safe i suppose you know they're very intense environments
Yes, it can get very difficult for the kids, unfortunately. When you deal with the teachers, what do you find that you're addressing in that capacity?
Well, I mean, I suppose at the moment, mainly what we're doing is we're providing support for teachers because it's a difficult job for them. You know, they're now having to deal with a lot of children who are struggling and They're sort of trying to provide mental health support when actually what they want to be doing is they want to be teaching. They want to be educating.
And, you know, they're seeing a lot of stuff. They're hearing a lot of stuff. So they need support. And actually what we're often doing is we're often supporting them to think about children and to think about what the needs of that child might be, but also to support them so they can go back to class and support that child. Because it's a difficult job.
You've got 30 kids in a class, and you've got five, six kids in that class who are struggling in some way or another. It's a difficult job.
Yes, it is absolutely a very difficult job. When you start working with a child or children, you see they are having some struggles. What are some of the things that you do to give them a pathway for a better mindset and to a better future?
Yeah. Okay. I think that's really tricky. I think that it's, again, we have these conversations. We talk about these things. I think it depends on the motivation of the child or the young person. And I think if they really want to be in school, then you can help them. You can give them strategies if they're highly motivated. You know, to help them sort of manage their anxiety, for example.
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Chapter 4: How does Haley support teachers and children through her charity?
That's great. I think anything you can do to help people like that is a good thing. Now, what led you down this path to do what you're doing now?
So I started out my career as a pharmacist. So I graduated from university as a pharmacist. It was back, I guess, in, would have been about 2005, something like that. I have two sons and my youngest at that time would have been seven. And he was really struggling. He was really struggling with school. We could not get him to go. He was very unhappy.
You know, he would be hanging onto the door frames in the morning and we would be sort of peeling his fingers on the door frames and carrying him, you know, to the car, putting him in the car and then sort of taking him to school and trying to get him out the other side. I mean, it was, it was, it was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. And we had absolutely no idea what was going on.
You know, I looked. I looked for help. I tried to get help. I sort of went to the GP and, you know, see if I could sort of get a referral to CAMHS, which is, you know... statutory service over here CAMHS and you know they were interested to be perfectly honest and you know I was looking for private help and I couldn't I just couldn't find any help and we couldn't make any sense of it.
Ultimately, we decided to withdraw him from school because I could see, I mean, anybody could have seen it. I mean, my son became very anxious, very withdrawn, quite low, I would say. And we took him out of school. There was just no, nothing else to do. I mean, there was no other answer. And I gave up work to home educate him.
And it was at that point, really, I thought, OK, I just need to try and make sense of this. So I started doing a relatively local psychotherapy training, but that was an adult training. And that was over a period of four years. And then I did that. And at the end of it, then I decided to go on and do a child training.
And that was driven entirely by my need, my desire to sort of make sense of things and also to help ourselves as a family.
When you was going through all this, how did you approach it? Did you take any steps with doctors? Did you find out he was autistic? What were your findings on this?
So, I mean, we just sort of carried on the best we could. My son then, as an adult, he's now 27, decided that he would put himself forward for an ADHD diagnosis, which he has now. I think he would self-identify as autistic too. And I think that was, you know, that's been the change for us really, I guess.
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Chapter 5: What are the risks of masking for autistic children and how can therapists help?
Maybe that's not quite the right word. You know, it's not rocket science, then, what I'm suggesting. It's still things like just being curious, you know, being curious about their experience, what's going on for them.
I think that sort of curiosity is so important because I think for me personally, and I think I can say, you know, for my family, what I see in the people that I work with, whether they're adults or kids, you know, is this sort of negation of experience. We're told it can't be that way. It can't be like that.
So actually, for somebody to be curious about your experience and be open and accepting and empathic about that experience, you know, it can be absolutely life changing. That then helps to support the mental health, the mental health difficulties that arise as a result of autism.
That's a great help. That's a great way to look at it.
From where I stand, you know, autism in itself is not a problem. It's fitting into society that makes it a problem. And mental health problems result from that. So actually, we're helping these children with their mental health.
Absolutely. I could not agree more. Now, I understand that you've written a book or two.
Well, I've written one. I've written two, but the second one hasn't been published yet.
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Chapter 6: How does Haley use storytelling and social media to advocate for mental health?
Can you give us a little information about the book?
The first one is about mental health. So it uses stories about woodland animals to explore trauma, anxiety, OCD, loss, shame, attachment. The idea is that it helps educate, but helps sort of improve understanding. And I think through understanding, then we find compassion and empathy. Also to help big people, adults have compassion.
conversations with children and young people, because that's so important. Being able to talk about our mental health is so important.
Yes, the ability to talk about anything like that is very, very important. Now, tell me about your book. I believe you said that it's a story-driven book. What's one of the favorite stories that you seem to get the most feedback on?
One of the sort of favorite stories, it seems, is one called Shadow Monster. And the analogy there is they don't have names. They're just the names of the animals. So there's a mouse and a badger. The mouse has a monster in the cellar.
and the monster is obviously a metaphor for anxiety I mean it's really exploring OCD actually you know it's more than anxiety but I know that sort of people working with kids have used it to explore anxiety and I've done some sort of great work with it so you know they're sort of full of those sorts of
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Chapter 7: What personal experiences led Haley to become a psychotherapist and founder?
metaphors and in the story the journey of the mouse is actually having to face the fear so he has to look the monster in the face and when he looks the monster in the face you can finally see that actually it's not a monster at all it's actually a load of brambles that are sort of down in the cellar that have grown through a small window but he has he has to face it first and he has to attack it and he has to be very brave then it just disappears
I like that. That's really nice. Now, how's the feedback been? It's always nice to hear something positive. Have you found that it's helped the kids in the way that you hoped it would?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had some great feedback from parents, but I'm also from teachers, you know, working in pastoral roles or in send roles within schools, doing that work as well. And therapists, some of my own, I say that my own therapists that don't belong to me, but the therapists that I have working for the charity, they use them too, which is just wonderful.
So, yeah, I mean, I think that the distance, you know, having that degree of separation, making it about animals and sort of having those metaphors really can help us to engage with something that otherwise could be too scary, too scary to look at.
Yes, I think that's a great idea. Just a great way to put things across in a very subtle way.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I hope so.
Oh, I'm sure it's working well. You mentioned a second book. What is that one about?
Okay, so the second book is based on a series of interviews I did with late identified autistics. In those interviews, they told me their stories. And out of all the interviews, themes arose related to autism. And the themes that arose were loneliness, masking, vulnerability to abuse, sensory sensitivities, and persistent drive for autonomy, PDA, whatever people want to call it.
So actually, what I've done is I've used a similar sort of idea. So I've written five stories individually.
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Chapter 8: How was Haley's son diagnosed and how has that influenced her work?
That is just a great attitude and philosophy to carry through life.
Yeah. I mean, it's sort of distilling it down, I suppose. But I sort of think that, you know, it's easy, isn't it, just to say this is right, this is wrong, you know, take a side. But it's about taking some time to think and be more thoughtful.
Absolutely. This has been great. Good conversation, good information. I appreciate you taking the time to come on my show.
I am very grateful for the offer to come along.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantor.com. Contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask, tell everyone, everywhere, about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.
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