Access to Work is a fabulous, government-funded grant that is available to help you at work when you have a physical or mental health condition or disability, including Neurodivergent difficulties. This is available whether you are employed or self-employed, and can help to fund a huge variety of items and support that can help you do your job to the best of your abilities. As this is a grant, it does not need to be paid back, and is something you can apply for yearly.

There are many websites that support Autism, ADHD, and so on, and some of these can help you with your application for the grant. Whether this is giving you some advice and guidance about the kind of things you can apply for, or it might be that they can do the assessment with you and make the application for you. I would
highly recommend that you seek some support with this. Without this help, I would not have had a clue what funding I could get, and I learned about things I had never even heard of, some of which were real game-changers.

When you have a diagnosis, you have certain legal rights within the workplace, including not being discriminated against. You also have the right to ask for “reasonable adjustments”, which could include special equipment or coaching. I won’t write about all of these here but it could be well worth a bit of time to do some
research for yourself.

If you look on the government Access to Work website, you will find some suggestions of what you could apply for, and how to make an application. As with many other areas, it could take several months to go from starting the application to having it agreed. Don’t let this put you off as the benefits could help you tremendously.

There is often little or no support to be found, and I happened to find out about this accidentally which is why I want to share it with you. You don’t always have to struggle, so if there is something out there that could make life a little easier, grab it with both hands.

https://www.gov.uk/access-to-work

As always, if you have any questions, please contact me.