Sensory Integration Education is led by an exceptional team of professionals who dedicate their passion and expertise to improving the treatment of individuals with sensory integration and sensory processing difficulties.
We are proud to be a not-for-profit organisation, investing surpluses back into course development and supporting early-career researchers. Our highly-experienced Board of Directors oversees our organisational direction and is ably backed by our friendly and professional Support Team.
We work closely on course development and delivery with our higher education partner Sheffield Hallam University.
Our ever-growing and highly-valued team of Contributors create training content; deliver lectures and workshops; and mentor SIE students training to be SI Practitioners and Advanced Practitioners. If you would like to be an SIE Contributor, we’d be delighted to hear from you.
Established in 2010, Fellowship of Sensory Integration Education is awarded to individuals in recognition of significant and sustained contribution to the organisation and it’s goals of improving awareness and understanding and the treatment of sensory integration and sensory processing difficulties.
Chair Rosalind Rogers
Rosalind has an enviable track record of working to develop national standards of high-quality education. She was on the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency’s group which developed the first Benchmark Statements for pre-registration health courses. She led the development of the UK Standards for Work-based Learning for Speech and Language Therapy and represented the UK professional body, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, to develop the Health and Care Professional Council’s Standards for Education and Training. She was a Partner for the UK Regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council, the body that upholds standards in order to protect the public.
Chief Executive Officer Fiona Insch
Fiona Insch has a strong business background with over twenty years of experience in a blue-chip top 100 FTS company. As a Finance Manager, she was responsible for the management and delivery of the Profit & Loss, Management Information and Systems. She always was passionate about the training and development of others - it was therefore a natural progression into delivering Finance Training across the company’s suite of UK technical finance courses.
This commercial training and development experience was sought after by Ashridge Business School, where she worked in a joint venture to develop the leaders of the future across the breadth of the organisation. Fiona was headhunted into Sensory Integration Education in 2009 in order to apply her leadership and management skills in developing a professional learning organisation, true to its not-for-profit values, yet efficient and effective with its processes.
She provides wise financial and business counsel to the Board of Directors, while also leading on the implementation of professional education and research, and membership decisions. In 2017, this leadership role was formalised at a Director-level. She has built up one of the strongest operations teams. She leads so positively, and her passionate commitment to the goals of Sensory Integration Education is energising and uplifting to those around her.
Director of Research Dr Sylvia Taylor-Goh
Sylvia is the Director of Research at Sensory Integration Education where she facilitates and promotes research to inform and enhance clinical practice. She works closely with Sheffield Hallam University supporting the MSc in Sensory Integration students throughout their dissertation journey.
Her professional background encompasses clinical, management and research roles in the NHS, working alongside NICE to incorporate the service user voice within clinical guidance. She led the development of evidence based clinical guidelines for her professional body. She taught undergraduate and postgraduate students for over 10 years at City, University of London, and completed her PhD at King’s College London.
She has been actively involved in professional activities and her professional body, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists for many years, as a clinical advisor and committee member, and most recently was Deputy Chair of the Professional Practice and Policy Committee.
Her clinical practice, Relational Communication Practice Ltd, provides assessment and intervention for young people and adults with complex congenital and acquired neurological disorders, specifically acquired brain injury. She also works as a medico-legal Expert Witness within this clinical specialism. She is an Advanced Practitioner in Sensory Integration.
Her current areas of research include developing a sensory processing assessment for acquired brain injury, investigating the impact of vestibular disorders on communication, developing an assessment of interoception for voice disorders and evaluating the impact of teaching clinical reasoning.
Director of Culture and Engagement Cathy Maguire.
Cathy’s clinical background is as a physiotherapist, working initially in musculo-skeletal outpatients before moving into the field of paediatrics. She has worked in a variety of environments during her career, including acute ward settings, outpatient clinics, child development centres and special schools. Her particular areas of interest include learning difficulties, complex needs, hydrotherapy, posture and gait and looking at SI theory and practice from a physiotherapy perspective. She gained her advanced sensory integration practitioner status in 2014 and sees this landmark as “a real personal highlight and one of the achievements I value most in my professional career”.
Cathy also has a strong background in leadership, which is of great value to the organisation in her role as Culture and Engagement Director. She has a MSc in Clinical Leadership for Allied Health Professionals and understands well the dynamics of managing and working effectively in multi-disciplinary teams and across the diverse inter-professional boundaries. Her knowledge of how students learn their ASI knowledge and skills has been honed through her mentoring, e-mentoring and lecturing roles on the SI MSc Pathway. In recent years she has led and developed the academic e-Mentoring team for the online modules and been pivotal in supporting students to study successfully online and feel part of a strong, inclusive, active community of learners.
Director of Postgraduate Education Stephanie Ruppel.
Stephanie Ruppel is a Specialist Occupational Therapist and Advanced SI Practitioner supporting children and young people with Autism. She consistently uses her knowledge of Sensory Integration theory to guide her practice as part of a trans-disciplinary team consisting of speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. Stephanie found the journey to complete her MSc in Sensory Integration a positive and invaluable part of her career.
Facilitator and Professional Advisor for Lifelong Learning and SHN Online Therapy Advisor Lelanie Brewer
Originally qualifying as an OT in South Africa, Lelanie gained her MSc in OT at Brunel University, London and is currently a part-time PhD student at Newcastle University’s Population Health Sciences Institute. Her research is focussing on self-care in children with and without motor difficulties.
Lelanie has a background in clinical practice and higher education. As a clinician, she has worked in the NHS, charity and the private sector, and spent the majority of her clinical career working with children and young people with sensory integration difficulties. She is an Advanced Practitioner in Sensory Integration.
Prior to joining Sensory Integration Education in 2018, Lelanie was a Senior Lecturer in OT and MSc OT programme lead at Northumbria University. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Programme Facilitator Beth Smithson
Beth Smithson is an accomplished Occupational Therapist and Advanced Sensory Integration Practitioner. Her diverse career spans roles in the NHS, special schools, mainstream schools, community trusts, and NGOs overseas.
Beth's journey into sensory integration began with a Vietnamese NGO, where she spent two years educating staff in sensory integration theory and sensory-based interventions. Motivated by positive outcomes, she completed training with Sensory Integration Education in 2016, becoming an Advanced SI Practitioner.
In clinical roles, Beth applied sensory integration with children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in mainstream schools and students with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) in a specialist secondary school provision. Recently, Beth managed Occupational Therapy services in the NHS, successfully advocating for and embedding sensory processing and integration practice into routine NHS service delivery.
Committed to advancing sensory integration, Beth supports others in their learning journeys, empowering clinicians, parents, and schools to advocate confidently for sensory integration practice.