Why a new website? Why a new logo?
Back in May 2023, we started this journey by asking you to tell us about your lives, and what you wished would change. Nearly 1000 of you responded. Those responses became the PDA in Our Words report. You told us what was hard. What you were struggling with. What support you weren’t getting. What made things harder than they needed to be.
One of the biggest barriers you named was this: not enough people understand PDA.
This message echoed beyond the survey, in training requests, on social media, in our learning networks. It felt (and this is pretty rare in our community) like everyone was saying the same thing.
Professionals told us they struggled to explain PDA clearly to colleagues. Parents said the information they found online was overwhelming, or just didn’t reflect their reality. PDAers said the language often didn’t feel like theirs. And everyone agreed-we needed a change.
What we did (and who we did it with)
So, we listened.
We asked more questions. In Facebook groups, in forums, during training, in DMs and emails. We spoke to PDAers, families, professionals, and people who’ve never quite felt at home in the PDA community-but still saw something in it that spoke to them.
We worked with researchers from the University of Hertfordshire and University of Birmingham. Together, we explored how PDAers self-identify, how they want to be talked about, and how they don’t want to be talked about. The goal? To speak in a voice that holds both clinical credibility and lived experience. A voice that’s clear without being cold. Respectful without being sterile. Honest, human, and kind.
Then in October 2024, we brought everything together at our trustee away day. That’s when we agreed to act. What you’re seeing now-the new site, the new look, the new tone-is the first step in that plan.
What’s changed?
We’ve launched a new brand: it’s friendlier, more modern, and (we hope) more reflective of who we are. Our logo is made of two hand drawn circles to reflect the grassroots nature of the PDA Society and our connection to the community. Readability has also been considered from tone of voice, through to fonts, colours and layouts.
We want this site to feel like it belongs to you, whether you’ve known us for years or you’re just discovering PDA for the first time. We want professionals to feel like they’ve found a credible source. We want families to feel safe and understood. We want PDAers to feel seen and supported, not judged.
We’ve published our values near the top of the menu-because they’re not just words. They’re what we want you to feel in every email, article, training, or support session. They’re how we hold ourselves accountable. Think of them as our contract with you.
And we’ve gone through every page-every question asked, every article written-to rebuild our information from the ground up. Over 100 new or refreshed pages are now live. Some are short and practical, like how to help a child get dressed when everything feels like too much. Others go deep, exploring the systems, structures, and policies that shape people’s lives.
Every page has been designed with its reader in mind. Some are warm and bite-sized. Others are detailed and direct. But we hope – if you find yourself on one of our pages it will give you what you are looking for.
And what about the images?
One of the biggest challenges we faced was choosing images for the site. You might notice we’ve used illustrations rather than photos-and we know some people will wish there were more visuals. Honestly, we do too.
But we’ve taken our time here, because we realised that asking PDAers – especially children – to be photographed can itself be a demand. And getting consent that holds up years down the line, when a child might want to withdraw it as an adult, didn’t feel right. Nothing online truly disappears. We also read research showing that many autistic people find illustrations easier to relate to – they’re more open, less individual, and leave more room for people to see themselves in the story.
So we’re using illustrations carefully and intentionally, we’ll build them up over time.
My personal delight (and ongoing promise to you all) is that this site does not (and will not while I’m here) have a single image of a PDAer with their head in their hands! The images are intended to be respectful, joyous and human – I hope they feel like that to you.
But they might not, we might have got some stuff wrong, or missed out the stuff you might need to know
And if it’s a problem for you – it might be for someone else. And we take that seriously.
If something’s not working-if you can’t find what you need, if something feels off-please let us know. Please tell us if there is something you love – that we should do more of. If no one tells us – we won’t know! There’s a feedback form linked below. We’ll check the feedback regularly. And we’ll tell you what we’re hearing, and what we’re changing, in a blog like this one at regular points over the next year.
Sometimes, we’ll make big changes because you’ve spoken clearly as a community. Other times, we’ll bring old favourites back into the spotlight-because even if something was written years ago, it might still speak to someone new today.
Nothing has been lost. The old site is archived. If there’s something you loved, just ask-we’ll make sure it lives on.
Who made this possible?
This wasn’t the work of one person, or even one team.
From the first survey to the brand design, hundreds of people have contributed their time, insight and lived experience. Around 50 of them-mostly parents, PDAers, and people directly affected by demand anxiety-worked closely with us on the final stages.
The brand designer is a parent of a PDAer. The tone of voice specialist is too. The people who wrote and proofread the new content? Mostly parents and PDAers. The people who tested the layout, questioned the decisions, pushed us to do better? PDAers. Families. You.
Some people were paid, many volunteered, everyone put 100% into trying to make it easier to talk about PDA and be trusted.
We hope that shows.
And finally
We’re a small charity. We can’t promise everything, and we won’t always get it right. But we can promise this: we’ll keep listening. We’ll keep learning. And we’ll keep trying to make life easier for PDAers and demand avoidant people-together.
So if there is anything you think we need to know here is the website feedback form.
And Happy PDA Day 2025!
