A selection of neuro-affirming, progressive educational resources to support everyone – especially neurodivergent, disabled and minority groups.
Human Restoration Project maintains a collection of works, from peer-reviewed articles to influential books, that highlight the need for a human-centered, progressive education. This pressing need for reformed schooling practices has been backed up by extensive research spanning the past century.
Check out their amazing FREE open-source library via Zotero.
Primer: Progressive Education is a free downloadable E-Book from Human Restoration Project
This Primer is designed to introduce educators to humanizing education practices and start a journey toward radically student-centered practice. It includes readings, reflections, and practices for adapting these systems to any classroom.
Check out the new website:
Barriers to Education
Barriers to Education – A free, neuro-affirming resource created by the Spectrum Gaming Team, offering practical tools and frameworks to help schools and families understand and reduce barriers to attendance.
It’s built around the WARMTH Framework (Wellbeing, Affirming Practice, Relational Approach, Mutual Understanding, Timely Response, Holistic Support) and includes co-produced guidance on topics such as burnout and recovery, which I was honoured to support alongside many other volunteers.
Check out the website: barrierstoeducation.co.uk
Check out Stimpunks pages:
Stimpunks — Learning Pathways / “Pathways”
Stimpunks frames learning pathways as self-directed routes through their content modules.
The Education Pathway is a curated route through the site that critiques the ableism of mainstream schooling and explores neuroaffirming, human-centred alternatives—from access and behaviorism to home education and inclusive practice.
Stimpunks — Glossary: Education
In the Stimpunks glossary, Education is described not as mere conformity or memorization, but as the ability to “author your own life” and resist being passed through systems that compel compliance.
It argues that genuine education should enable autonomy, social connection, critical thinking, and self-awareness—not just knowledge injection.
Stimpunks Foundation
https://stimpunks.org/pathways/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/education/
Check out Diverse Pathways
Diverse Pathways (founded by Kerry Murphy) is a strengths-led, neurodiversity-affirming project focused on early childhood development. Diverse Pathways offers developmental insights, resources, and training for educators, caregivers, and professionals, emphasizing non-pathologizing, justice-oriented approaches. Diverse Pathways
The project frames itself as reimagining the SEN(D) system rather than fixing it, promoting dignity, difference, and possibility in how we understand young children’s development.
I am honoured to be a part of this project!
What would you add?
Do you know of a resource, organisation, book or piece of research that should be here, or have you spotted a link that has stopped working? I would love to hear from you, as this guide grows with our community.