who am I...

Jo is a ex offender and has spent 20 plus years teaching trauma resilience workshops in the community and working in hostels, drug rehabs and on at risk teams. But she knew it wasn't good enough and more was needed in extreme childhood trauma. 

After my son started offending she went to university to find the answers, but the work was all over the place. She then had to build her own work, that actually had a impact on the trauma cognitive pathways

In 2019 she was credited for her work in the Lion Theory, a pioneering childhood trauma recovery model. In her theory Jo proves that childhood trauma produces a collective set of behaviours that create dual autism and ADHD behavioural pathways.

Her science paper on cognitive and brain science was credited in 2019 and she became the leading behaviourist in her field.

Developmental changes in Stress Response in the Brain: Childhood Trauma J. C. Atkins (2025)

Jo became the first offending behaviourist of her kind and paved the way for others like her to follow.

Joanne is the author of a book: The Behaviourist: A True Story of Survival and Resilience. 

Joanne is the founder of The Lion Theory Project which provides support and online peer-led workshops for adults suffering from past childhood trauma.

For more information regarding our workshops, visit our website at: https://lnkd.in/egyBBT9H

The story of her life and how she become a offending behaviourist in childhood trauma recovery and created the what is now known as the lion theory is now a book:

Available now in the kindle store from amazon; https://lnkd.in/eXrTYNvk