About Us
Our Founder – Catherine Lee
With over thirty years’ experience in Occupational Health and Safety and Management, Catherine Lee is the founder and director of the Neurodiverse Safe Work Initiative and Lethbridge Piper & Associates. She advises organisations on improving health and safety outcomes through consulting and tailored strategies.
Her work draws on senior and operational leadership roles across corporate, government, and not-for-profit sectors in Australia and the UK, with a focus on integrating OHS practices with neurodivergent worker needs. Catherine is a volunteer board member of Protect All Children Today (PACT), supporting vulnerable victims and witnesses in legal processes, and of No Boundaries Disability Support Inc., a disability support centre specialising in experiential care.
Catherine holds post graduate qualifications in Occupational Health and Safety and Management and is currently completing a Master of Arts (Research) at Griffith University in which she is studying the impacts of ADHD on pilots in the civil aviation sector in Australia. She is a Certified OHS Professional with the Australian Institute of Health and Safety. She is a Registered Nurse, Certified Principal OHS Auditor, Licensed Private Investigator, and Professional Coach.
Catherine is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, the Institute of Management Consultants, and the International Coaching Federation and a student member of the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association.
We are proud to be a verified social enterprise, accredited by the Queensland Social Enterprise Council (QSEC), Good Market, and the global People and Planet First registry. These independent verifications recognise our commitment to putting social impact ahead of profit.
The Neurodiverse Safe Work Initiative was honoured to be recognised as a finalist in the Epic Assess Accessibility & Inclusiveness Excellence Category in the Moreton Bay Business and Innovation Awards 2024.
The NDSW Story
The Neurodiverse Safe Work Initiative grew from a unique service that was developed by Lethbridge Piper & Associates, an Occupational Health and Safety Management Consultancy that has served Australian employers since 2014.
In 2020, Catherine was asked to investigate a workplace incident in which Kyle, a young and otherwise healthy manufacturing worker had fallen and sustained a fractured coccyx.
What unfolded during that investigation led Catherine to identify a gap in the way that safety is traditionally managed by employers that exposes a significant minority of the workforce to greater physical and psychological risks than neurotypical workers, simply because they think and function differently.
This realisation ultimately changed Catherine’s whole approach to the way she serves her clients in relation to occupational health and safety.
It also changed her life. Her studies in neurodiversity in adults, led to her own diagnosis of ADHD.
Catherine says “That moment was earth-shattering. It changed everything for me both personally and professionally. Suddenly my whole life made sense and I understood why I had struggled so much with things that other people managed easily.
Professionally it made me look at the way employers manage the health and safety of workers through a completely different lens”.
Our Address
PO Box 61
Margate Beach, Queensland 4019
Phone
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