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Hello, I'm Amanda
I’m that person you meet who goes quiet for a moment, asks a question you weren’t expecting, and somehow makes a complicated situation feel a little more possible.
My first instinct, in any situation, is to take a step back. Not because I don’t know what to do, but because I’ve learned that the most useful thing you can bring to any room is genuine curiosity about the whole picture, before anyone rushes to a solution.
As an occupational therapist, I’m always thinking beyond the child in front of me. What’s happening around them. The systems, routines, supports and structures they’re part of. What they’re trying to do and engage in. How all of these pieces come together to shape how things are playing out.
Because when a child is having a hard time, it’s rarely just about the child.
Education
Master of Occupational Therapy Studies
The University of Queensland, Australia
Master of Philosophy
Griffith University, Australia
Work Focus
Community Health
Queensland Health, Australia
Neurodivergence across the lifespan
National Disability Insurance Scheme
Sensory and nervous system experiences
National Disability Insurance Scheme
Women's Health
National Disability Insurance Scheme
Through my work and my own experience as a parent, I began to notice the same patterns, and how much of what shapes a child’s experience sits beyond the child themselves.
I built Many Minds to help shift the focus toward the environments, systems and supports that influence everyday life for all children.
I look beyond the child.
To what’s shaping their experience every day at home, school and in the community.
A different view
There is the child who moves quietly through their day, adapting and complying, holding it all together at school and then falling apart once they're home. There is the child who is harder to miss, restless, dysregulated, pushing back, taking up space in ways that can feel like a lot.
Both are telling a story. Around both, there is so much shaping that story. The adults in their world, how they respond and what may be driving those responses. The environments they move through. The routines, systems and expectations placed on them. The moments where things escalate, and the moments where they don't.
These patterns are rarely random. Once you begin to see the whole picture, you can't unsee it.
Getting curious
Getting curious is where it starts. Not assuming, not rushing to fix, but slowing down to understand what is actually happening beneath the surface.
That means learning to look at the whole picture. The child, the environments around them, and what they are trying to do within those spaces. The perspectives of everyone involved, children, parents, educators, and how their experiences, expectations and nervous systems may be shaping what is unfolding.
There are always more pieces to the picture than first appear. Learning to see them is where everything begins to shift.
What becomes possible
Something shifts when the focus moves beyond the child alone, to the environments, systems and supports shaping their experience every day.
It rarely requires doing more. More often it means doing things differently. Adjusting what can be adjusted, simplifying what has become overcomplicated, and aligning expectations more closely with how children actually experience the world.
Sometimes a different way of seeing things is all it takes to change how a situation feels. And when that happens, things don't just improve for one child. They begin to feel different for many.
My Story
Long before I had language for any of it,
I was watching closely
Trying to understand people, environments, expectations, and the invisible rules that seemed to shape how everyone moved through the world. I have always been someone who looks for patterns, who wants to understand how things fit together and why. That way of thinking naturally led me into occupational therapy, work that asked me to understand people in context, not in isolation.
Parenthood shifted things more deeply
Becoming a mother led me into a different kind of questioning. I found myself drawn to understanding child development in a way that felt aligned with my values, questioning advice that focused only on behaviour and becoming more interested in what sat underneath, what children might actually be experiencing.
After the birth of my second child, I experienced postnatal depression. Around that time, through both my work and the stories of the people I was supporting, I began to recognise parts of myself I hadn’t previously had words for.
I was later diagnosed as autistic and ADHD
With that came a deep sense of clarity
The noticing, the need to understand, the way I had spent my whole life observing and adapting to make sense of the world, it all made sense. It also shifted how I saw my children and the people around them. I began to understand more deeply how different nervous systems experience the world, and what it feels like to move through environments that were never quite designed with those differences in mind.
Since then, much of my focus has been on understanding neurodivergence not just through study, but through lived experience. Experimenting with what supports regulation. Adjusting environments and expectations. Advocating when needs are not recognised or understood.
Over time, one thing became increasingly clear. So much of what shapes a child’s experience sits beyond the child themselves. In the environments they move through, the systems they are part of, the expectations placed on them, and what the adults around them notice, understand and respond to.
The more I saw this, the more I felt drawn toward work that could reach beyond one person at a time. Work that could help parents, educators and communities see differently, understand more deeply, and make the kinds of shifts that ripple outward. Not just improving things for one child, but beginning to feel different for many.
That is what sits at the heart of Many Minds
Contact
If you are interested in contacting Amanda regarding Many Minds Occupational Therapy, please email a.betts89@gmail.com