Dr Alexandra Lewis is a consultant psychiatrist, trained in both forensic and child and adolescent psychiatry and specialising in the assessment and management of offenders with neurodevelopmental disorders. For the last 20 years, she has primarily worked in the criminal justice secure estate, where she has been involved with many service developments. She is a clinical adviser to the Children & Young Person’s Health & Justice workstream at NHS England & NHS Improvement and is a member of the Advisory Group for the Quality Network for Prison Mental Health (QNPMHS) at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Between 2013-16, she co-led a pioneering project with the National Autistic Society to improve the identification and management of autistic prisoners, which subsequently acted as a catalyst for change across the entire criminal justice system, supporting other prisons, probation and police services to recognise and adapt to the special needs of autistic offenders. She received the 2016 Sternberg Award for Clinical Innovation in recognition of this work. She has published several papers and book chapters on the identification and management of neurodevelopmental disorders in offender populations across the lifespan and contributed to the research that culminated in the development of the Framework for Assessment of Risk and Protective Factors in Autism Spectrum (FARAS) and the Framework for Assessment of Risk and Protective Factors in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (FARAH).