Why Teachers, Police, GPs, and Other Professionals Need Better Mental Health and Neurodivergence Training (A Rant, With Receipts)

"She just needs to apply herself." "They're just being difficult." "There's nothing wrong with you." The cost of ignorance isn't just hurt feelings. It's lives.

I've been "dealt with" by professionals my entire life. Teachers who told me I wasn't applying myself. GPs who nodded and handed me a leaflet. Police officers I've never encountered directly but whose training—or lack of it—I've read about in coroners' reports. And in every single one of those interactions, the professional meant well. They were doing their best. And their best was nowhere near good enough.

Because here's the thing: if you're a teacher, a police officer, a GP, a benefits assessor, a paramedic, a social worker, a judge—basically anyone whose job involves interacting with the public—you will encounter people with mental health conditions and neurodivergent brains. Daily. Constantly. You already are. And the overwhelming majority of you have not been trained adequately to recognise what's in front of you, to communicate effectively, or to respond in a way that doesn't cause harm.

This isn't a personal attack. It's a systemic failure. And it's costing lives.

Let me walk you through what's happening, profession by profession, with the receipts to back it up. Because I'm tired of hearing "we need more training" as a vague aspiration. We need to understand exactly what's going wrong—and what it costs when it goes wrong.

🏫 Teachers: The Front Line (And the Ones Who Missed Me)

Teachers spend more waking hours with children than almost anyone else. They're in a unique position to notice when something's different, to flag concerns, to be the first person who says "I see you" instead of "why can't you just...?"

And yet.

I was the child who couldn't focus, who lost things constantly, who was "bright but doesn't apply herself." I was the teenager who was "too sensitive," who cried easily, who seemed to feel everything more intensely than my peers. I was the student who burned out before the term ended, every single term, and nobody asked why.

Decades later, I started reading about ADHD and autism. And I cried. Not sad crying. Recognition crying. Because someone—anyone—could have noticed. Could have asked. Could have known what to look for. And nobody did.

The Scale of the Problem

I wasn't an isolated case. The statistics are staggering. In the UK, the number of pupils in schools in England with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) indicating autistic spectrum disorder has risen from just over 100,000 in 2021 to over 142,000 in 2025—a 42% increase. And that's just the children with formal documentation. It doesn't count the ones who haven't been assessed yet, or the ones waiting on NHS lists that stretch to three, four, five years. It doesn't count the children whose diagnosis has been missed entirely because they mask well, or because they're girls, or because they're "well-behaved."

The Burnout Crisis Among Staff

And it's not just the children who are suffering. School staff are burning out at an alarming rate, with inadequate training to support their own mental health, let alone their students'. In a 2025 survey of nearly 1,000 school staff, over 76% experienced symptoms of burnout. The same percentage said they could not access timely support for their own wellbeing. Over a third had been told not to seek help for their own mental health at work.

When the teachers themselves are drowning, when they're told their own struggles are a "career-limiting move," what hope do they have of holding space for a classroom full of children with complex, invisible needs?

The Call for Change

The Association of School and College Leaders is now calling for better mental health training for all school staff. So is the Welsh government. So are parent advocacy groups. So are the young people themselves. The NASUWT has called for "no more empty promises and warm words" and demanded fully funded mandatory training. The Children and Young People's Commissioner in Scotland found that the presumption of mainstream education is failing autistic pupils, with nearly 14% of children excluded reporting they are autistic. Nationally, the suspension rate for pupils with ASD is higher than for those without.

The evidence is overwhelming. The need is urgent. And yet, mandatory training for teachers on neurodivergence and mental health remains patchy, optional, and underfunded.

👮 Police: Where a Lack of Training Can Be Fatal

If teachers are the front line of childhood, police are the front line of crisis. They're the ones called when someone is standing on a bridge. They're the ones who encounter people in the midst of psychotic episodes, panic attacks, autistic meltdowns, suicidal crises. They're expected to de-escalate, to assess, to make split-second decisions about whether someone needs a cell or a hospital bed. And they're doing all of this with minimal training.

The Justice System Is Failing

A landmark 2025 report found that the justice system is "failing vulnerable defendants"—with mental health issues, learning disabilities, and brain injuries going routinely unrecognised in courts. The most comprehensive study of its kind reviewed 289 cases and found that a quarter of defendants who received mental health or disability support in the community did not go on to reoffend within two and a half years. But that support was often the exception, not the rule.

Custody Is Full of Neurodivergent People

The numbers tell a devastating story. Over a quarter of people in police custody report having a mental illness. Nearly 70% of young people in police custody meet the criteria for special educational needs. Autistic people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system—often because their behaviour is misinterpreted as aggression, non-compliance, or dishonesty.

Think about that. An autistic person might avoid eye contact because it's painful. A police officer, untrained, might interpret that as deception. An autistic person might shut down verbally under stress, or stim, or repeat themselves, or have a meltdown that looks like violence. Without training, those behaviours are read as threatening. With training, they're recognised for what they are: communication, regulation, survival.

The Consequences Are Fatal

When the system fails, when training is absent, when neurodivergence and mental illness aren't recognised—people die. Chris Kaba, a young Black man who was shot and killed by a Metropolitan Police officer after a police pursuit, was not known to have a mental health condition. But data shows that Black people, particularly Black men, face a double burden: police officers are more likely to perceive them as threatening, and they are less likely to be offered mental health support when they need it. The intersection of neurodivergence, mental health, and race can be lethal in the wrong hands.

🩺 GPs: The Gatekeepers (With Six Minutes and a Leaflet)

GPs are the gatekeepers of the NHS. They're the ones who decide whether you get referred, whether you get medication, whether you're believed. And they're operating under impossible conditions—six-minute appointments, overwhelming caseloads, and a training curriculum that historically devoted almost no time to mental health or neurodivergence.

The Menopause Knowledge Gap

A 2025 survey by the Fawcett Society found that 41% of women who had visited their GP with menopause symptoms were not offered any information or treatment options. Let that sink in. Nearly half of menopausal women—a group for whom anxiety, depression, brain fog, and mood swings can be severe and disabling—walk into their GP's office and walk out with nothing. Not because they're not suffering. Because their GP doesn't know enough to recognise what's happening or offer appropriate support.

The Neurodivergence Knowledge Gap

And if menopause—a universal female experience that affects half the population—is poorly understood by GPs, what do you think happens when you bring up ADHD? Autism? "But you're making eye contact." "You've held down a job." "Everyone's a bit like that these days." Women in particular are dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told they're "too complex" and passed from service to service. My own daughter Leah was diagnosed with EUPD. We both believe it's a misdiagnosis—that what she's actually dealing with is undiagnosed ADHD and autism. But convincing a GP of that? That's a battle. And she shouldn't have to fight it.

💰 Benefits Assessors: The "Fit for Work" Fiction

I recently went through a work capability assessment. The assessor asked me a series of questions designed to assess my physical function. Could I walk? Yes. Could I stand? Yes. Could I lift things? Yes. They found me fit for work.

What they didn't ask: can you manage the sensory overwhelm of an open-plan office? Can you navigate the social demands of colleagues? Can you function when your executive dysfunction has you paralysed? Can you cope when your anxiety is so loud you can't hear yourself think? Can you perform "normal" for eight hours a day without collapsing at the end of it?

No. They didn't ask any of that. Because the assessment isn't designed to capture the reality of neurodivergence or mental illness. It's designed to capture whether you can physically move from A to B. And if you can, you're fit for work. I'm currently waiting for a mandatory reconsideration. I don't know what the outcome will be. But I do know that the system is broken. And thousands of genuinely disabled people are being found "fit for work" every month because assessors aren't trained to recognise what's in front of them.

💔 What This Costs (The Short, Brutal Version)

The cost of inadequate training isn't abstract. It's measurable. It's devastating.

• Autistic people have a life expectancy up to 16 years shorter than the general population. A significant part of that gap is due to suicide, but also to preventable physical health conditions that are missed or dismissed because healthcare professionals don't know how to communicate with autistic patients or recognise their symptoms.
• People with severe mental illness die 15–20 years earlier than the general population. Again, not just from suicide—from treatable physical conditions that go untreated because their symptoms are written off as "part of their mental illness."
• Over a quarter of people in police custody report having a mental illness. Nearly 70% of young people in police custody meet the criteria for special educational needs.
• 41% of menopausal women who sought help from their GP were offered no information or treatment. Not because treatment doesn't exist. Because the GP didn't know enough.

Behind every one of those statistics is a human being. Someone's child. Someone's parent. Someone who might still be here if the professional they encountered had been trained to recognise what was happening.

🛠️ What Needs to Happen (Because I'm Not Just Here to Rant)

I wouldn't be me if I just complained without offering solutions. So here's what needs to change.

1. Mandatory Training (Not Optional, Not "Awareness-Raising")

Every teacher, police officer, GP, benefits assessor, paramedic, social worker, and judge should receive mandatory training on mental health and neurodivergence. Not a one-hour e-learning module. Not a leaflet. Proper, in-depth, ongoing training developed with neurodivergent people and people with lived experience of mental illness. Training that covers the full spectrum of how these conditions present—not just the stereotypes.

2. Lived Experience at the Centre

You cannot understand neurodivergence from a textbook. You need neurodivergent trainers. You need people with mental health conditions in the room, co-designing the curriculum, sharing their experiences, setting the priorities. Nothing about us without us. It's not a slogan. It's the bare minimum.

3. Trauma-Informed Practice

Many neurodivergent people and people with mental health conditions have experienced trauma—often in the very settings where they're now seeking help. Schools, hospitals, police stations. Training needs to recognise this. Professionals need to understand that a person's reaction in the moment might be rooted in years of being dismissed, disbelieved, or harmed.

4. Accountability

Training isn't enough without accountability. When a police officer mistreats a mentally ill person, when a GP dismisses a menopausal woman, when a teacher fails a neurodivergent child—there need to be consequences. Not just for the individual, but for the system that failed to equip them. We need to track outcomes. We need to measure whether training actually changes practice. And we need to be honest when it doesn't.

5. Investment

Training costs money. You know what costs more? Coroners' inquests. Prison beds. Crisis interventions. Lost productivity. Lives cut short. This is a false economy. Funding proper training now saves money and lives later. It's that simple.

6. Recognise Intersectionality

Neurodivergence doesn't exist in a vacuum. It intersects with race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. A Black autistic person faces different barriers than a white autistic person. A working-class ADHD woman faces different barriers than a middle-class one. Training needs to recognise these intersections, not treat neurodivergence as a one-size-fits-all experience.

🧠 One Final Thing

I'm 52. I've spent decades being failed by professionals who didn't understand my brain. Teachers who thought I was lazy. GPs who handed me leaflets. Assessors who ticked boxes. I'm still here. But a lot of people aren't.

The cost of ignorance isn't just hurt feelings. It's lives. It's the life I might have had if someone had noticed sooner. It's the lives of autistic people who die 16 years too early. It's the lives of mentally ill people who are criminalised instead of helped. It's the lives of menopausal women who suffer in silence because their GP didn't know what to offer.

Training isn't a luxury. It's not a "nice to have." It's a lifesaving intervention. And we're not doing nearly enough of it.

If you're a teacher, a police officer, a GP, a benefits assessor, a paramedic, a social worker, a judge—this isn't an attack on you. I know you're doing your best. I know the system is failing you too. But your best isn't good enough if it's not informed. And it's not your fault you haven't been trained. But it is your responsibility to demand better. For yourself. For the people you serve. For the people who might not survive another encounter with a system that doesn't see them.

Anxiously Ever After is written by me, Jennie, a 50-something-year-old woman with lifelong anxiety, diagnosed GAD, and currently on the waiting list for ADHD and autism assessments. I have been failed by multiple professionals over multiple decades. I write about it so that maybe—hopefully—someone else won't have to go through the same thing.