Collar & Cuffs Co was founded in 2016 by Julia Collar, an autistic sensory practitioner, writer and researcher. Originally a sensory theatre company, the practice has evolved into a specialist sensory learning practice working across heritage, the arts and education. We specialise in designing sensory-led learning that builds regulation, communication and meaning-making from the ground up.

Our work spans the lifespan — from Early Years to older adults — and centres people with learning disabilities, including those with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD), alongside mainstream audiences. We design for the highest inclusion needs first, beginning with embodied exploration and regulation before layering communication, engagement and learning.

In schools, we develop curriculum-informed programmes across Early Years, primary, secondary and specialist settings, exploring history, art, religion and culture through embodied, neuroaffirming and trauma-informed approaches. We recognise that communication, literacy and creative thinking are inseparable from regulation and physical development, and design learning that builds attention, confidence and participation from the ground up.

At the heart of our practice is our Sensory Heritage methodology. Sensory Heritage draws on oral history and lived experience to prevent sensory interpretation from collapsing complex cultures, faiths and histories into shorthand or stereotype. It is a bottom-up approach to access: we do not assume a shared starting point. We build from where people are.

Co-production is central to how we work. We collaborate with participants, educators and heritage professionals to create experiences that are ambitious, sustainable and rooted in real materials rather than technology-led spectacle.

Julia is the creator of More Than a Nice Walk, an open-access Sensory Heritage audit and journey workbook (2026), designed to support heritage organisations in embedding everyday access, moving beyond one-off or specialist provision for people with PMLD. The workbook will be launched as part of her keynote at the National Access in Museums Conference in April 2026.

We believe access is not an add-on. It is how meaning is made.