The disability sector often talks about person-centered care, but how person-centered can support really be when it's designed and delivered by people who have never experienced the challenges they're trying to address? We believe lived experience is essential for truly effective support.
Our neurodivergent team members bring insights that can't be taught in training courses. They understand sensory overload from the inside, know what executive function challenges actually feel like, and recognise the subtle signs of masking or overwhelm that neurotypical support workers might miss.
Beyond Representation
Neurodivergent-led support isn't about hiring neurodivergent people to tick a diversity box. It's about recognising that lived experience creates fundamentally better support outcomes when combined with professional training and organisational support.
Take our Specialist Support Coordinator Julie, who has ADHD and autism. When working with participants who struggle with traditional appointment structures, she intuitively understands that appointments and meeting new people can be emotionally overwhelming and heighten anxiety. She knows that someone might need to walk during meetings, that an online meeting first might be easier, or that a 45-minute appointment might need to become three 15-minute check-ins.
For neurodivergent individuals, this isn't lowering standards or making excuses. Julie is highly qualified and excellent at her job, but her neurodivergence enhances her professional skills rather than limiting them. She can spot patterns and connections that others miss, and her direct communication style often works better with participants than traditional professional approaches.
Neurodivergent team members also bring different perspectives to problem-solving. Where neurotypical approaches might focus on teaching someone to adapt to existing systems, neurodivergent team members are more likely to question whether the system itself needs changing.
Benefits of Neurodivergent-Led Support
- Intuitive understanding of sensory and processing differences
- Recognition of masking and its impacts
- Creative solutions to traditional support challenges
- Authentic communication without professional barriers
- Reduced stigma and increased participant comfort
Our participants often comment that they feel more understood and less judged when working with neurodivergent support workers. There's an immediate sense of "this person gets it" that creates psychological safety and trust more quickly than traditional professional relationships.
This doesn't mean our neurodivergent support workers don't face challenges. Working in disability support when you're neurodivergent yourself requires excellent self-awareness, strong boundaries, and organisational support. We've had to adapt our workplace practices to support our team's needs.
Flexible working arrangements, sensory-friendly environments, and clear communication systems aren't just nice-to-haves here, they're essential for a neurodivergent-led team. When we support our team properly, they can provide exceptional support to participants.
There's also value in participants seeing neurodivergent people in professional roles. For young people especially, seeing that autism or ADHD doesn't limit career possibilities can be genuinely life-changing. Representation matters because it expands what people believe is possible for themselves.
We're not suggesting that only neurodivergent people can provide good disability support. But we are arguing that neurodivergent perspectives are essential, not optional, for truly person-centered care. The combination of lived experience and professional training creates support that's both empathetic and effective.
The future of disability support needs to include neurodivergent voices not just as participants, but as leaders, decision-makers, and service designers. When we do this well, everyone benefits from more creative, flexible, and genuinely understanding approaches to support.