Less fixing. More living.
What if support stopped treating the person as the automatic problem?
FREE 2B ME connects real-life support, community, professional practice, books and tools, Practitioner learning, evidence and better systems around one idea: work out what is actually getting in the way without taking over the person’s life.
FREE 2B ME connects real-life support, community, professional practice, books, learning and better systems around one idea: work out what is getting in the way without taking over the person’s life.
More of the life that matters to you, within reach.
Find your way in.
You do not need to understand the whole ecosystem before you choose. Pick whichever is closest to why you are here.
I want something for me
Books, tools and ideas for understanding what is happening in your own life and what might help.
Start here →I support someone
Ideas for families, supporters and professionals looking for more helpful ways forward.
Explore support thinking →I’m a practitioner
The FREE 2B ME Practice, the Practitioner Pathway, professional learning, tools and applied practice.
For practitioners →I lead a service or organisation
Workforce capability, supervision, implementation, evidence, governance and better service design.
For organisations →I’m looking for Tanya
Speaking, media, writing, collaboration and systems work.
Work with Tanya →In Australia and looking for support right now? The Nest and Neurodivergent Empowered deliver FREE 2B ME in everyday life.
What if the person isn’t the only thing that could change?
People are often asked to try harder, cope better, calm down, communicate differently, be more independent, tolerate more or fit in better.
Sometimes learning, treatment or personal change genuinely helps. And sometimes the thing getting in the way is somewhere else.
FREE 2B ME asks what is happening, what matters to the person, what is making this harder, what could change, and who is actually responsible for changing it.
Change what needs changing. Don’t make the person the default target.
There is more than one place to look.
Something I want to learn or practise
Skills, communication, confidence, everyday capability, self-advocacy or something else that matters.
My body or health
Pain, sleep, fatigue, medication, movement, sensory needs, physical health or the state I want to access.
Communication
How information is given, how I express myself, processing time, AAC, written communication or another route.
Relationships and support
How people listen, respond, help, share responsibility and repair things when they go wrong.
The place around me
Noise, lighting, layout, timing, predictability, transport, crowding, demands or physical access.
Professional support
Counselling, Specialist Behaviour Support, medical care or another professional service where it is actually needed.
Services and systems
Rules, staffing, processes, expectations, policies or organisational decisions one person cannot change alone.
Sometimes the work sits with the person. Sometimes it sits around them. Often it sits in more than one place.
The person is not the only one expected to change.
Support should be able to change too. So should the practitioner, the environment, the service, the workforce, the documentation, the technology and the organisation.
Learn what you want to learn.
Not what makes you easier to be around.
People may want to learn, build skills, accept support, use treatment or make changes that matter to them.
That is different from requiring someone to appear more typical, compliant, independent or convenient.
Understand before you intervene.
Work out what is happening before deciding what to do about it.
The FREE 2B ME Practice helps work out what needs to change, develop, be supported, understood or redesigned, and who is responsible for acting.
There is no requirement to graduate from belonging.
People do not have to outgrow support or become someone else to belong. What support looks like can change across a person’s life. Someone may need more support at one time, less at another, or a different kind as life changes.
A counselling episode may end. A Behaviour Support intervention may change. A particular funded support may start or stop. Ongoing community, communication access, sensory-responsive environments and useful support are not signs that someone has failed to progress.
Success is not measured by how completely support disappears.
Continuity is available, not compulsory. People can leave, return, pause, change how they participate or choose somewhere else. Support can change without belonging having to end.
Different ways in.
Not one service, one framework or one programme. These are the parts, and they are built to work together. You do not need to understand how they connect before you use any one of them.
Books
Ideas you can live with. Four books for living it. Four professional companions for putting it into practice.
Read the Library →The FREE 2B ME Practice
A way of working out what would actually help, without taking over someone’s life.
See how it works →Practitioner learning
Turning the ideas into practice people can be accountable for.
Explore the Pathway →Tools
Ways to notice what is happening, and what might help.
Open the tools →Speaking & professional learning
Changing the conversations happening in rooms where practice and systems get decided.
Speaking and workshops →Support in Australia is delivered by The Nest and Neurodivergent Empowered. Organisational and systems work sits at For Organisations and Work With Me. Sparkly Aliens Inc. is a related community organisation.
Eight connected books
The FREE 2B ME Practice Library develops these ideas across eight connected books. Four books explore the ideas from the perspective of people and families. Four companion books translate the same foundations into counselling, Positive Behaviour Support, supervision, team and organisational practice.
When life takes more than people can see
FREE 2B ME
Less fixing. More living.
What changes when you stop treating yourself as the only place change can happen? Hidden effort, skills, support, health, relationships, conditions, practical leverage and authorship - without making conformity the goal.
Access Before Intervention
A Neuroaffirming Framework for Counselling, Positive Behaviour Support and Disability Practice
Can professionals make valid decisions if the person has never truly had access? Whose knowledge counts?
When behaviour is not the whole story
You Make Sense
Your experiences, body and behaviour make sense. Understanding yourself restores your ability to make choices instead of living inside everyone else’s interpretations.
Behaviour Makes Sense
Rights-Based Positive Behaviour Support Beyond Compliance
Behaviour is not something to eliminate. It is information from a person whose life belongs to them. Who gets to decide what behaviour means?
When calm is not the whole answer
Nervous System Nourishment
Calm is not the goal. Having enough safety, access and choice to participate in your own life is.
Beyond Regulation
Nervous System Nourishment in Counselling and Positive Behaviour Support
Are we helping someone participate? Or are we helping them look regulated enough for everyone else?
Having a real say in your own life
Built With You
Why You Belong in the Design of Your Support and Your Life
Support should never replace your voice. It should increase your influence over your own life.
Practice That Holds
Supervision, Teams and Systems for Neuroaffirming Practice
Can organisations create environments where practitioners and participants retain their humanity?
About me
I am the creator and architect of FREE 2B ME - an Autistic author and practitioner, Human Systems Architect, counsellor and NDIS Behaviour Support Practitioner, framework developer, researcher and speaker.
I founded Neurodivergent Empowered and Sparkly Aliens Inc., and I am the author of the FREE 2B ME Practice Library. My work grew from lived experience, professional practice and years of seeing neurodivergent people expected to adapt to systems that had never been designed with them in mind. Rather than build another isolated programme, I began connecting the pieces - real-life support, counselling, Specialist Behaviour Support, evidence, books, practitioner learning, workforce systems and governance.
Counsellor (ACA R82053), NDIS Behaviour Support Practitioner (P1362818), and Master of Counselling candidate. I created the Sovereignty Conditions Audit.
TanyaHicks.com is the home of my books, speaking, frameworks, research translation and professional learning. Participant supports are delivered separately through Neurodivergent Empowered and The Nest within the relevant practitioner’s qualifications, professional scope and active provider registration.
Less fixing. More living.
People do not need another system built around correcting them.
They need support, skills, relationships, professional expertise and environments that make more of what matters possible - without taking authorship of their lives away. FREE 2B ME is being built to connect those pieces. More of the life that matters to you, within reach.