How we work

Our approach

Families arriving with a child who has cerebral palsy, autism, a brain injury or a genetic epilepsy are rarely short of offers. What they are short of is a way to put those offers in order. This is the order we use.

A name for the problem comes first

Before any treatment decision, the question is whether we actually know what we are treating. A precise diagnosis occasionally unlocks a licensed medicine, frequently changes which ordinary medicines are right, and always makes the prognosis something better than guesswork. It is almost always the best place to spend the first money. Getting a precise diagnosis →

Established care before anything experimental

The interventions that guidelines recommend and trials support are the ones most likely to change a child’s day: early intervention, goal-directed training, physiotherapy, communication, tone management, vision. If those are not fully in place, adding an experimental treatment on top rarely makes sense — and the money spent on it is money not spent on the therapy that would have worked. Conventional care →

Experimental treatments are discussed, not dismissed

Cells, light, magnetic stimulation and peptides are not fraud, and families who ask about them are not being foolish. They are open questions. Our position is that a family is entitled to know exactly how open: what has been tested, in whom, with what result, and what is simply hoped for. A treatment can be worth trying while still being unproven, and saying so plainly is more useful than either selling it or refusing to discuss it. Research-stage treatments →

The decision stays with the family and their own doctor

Nothing on this site is a recommendation to start, stop or pay for a treatment. It is written to make a conversation with the doctor who looks after your child a better conversation — with sharper questions and a clearer sense of what a good answer sounds like. How to judge a therapy →