Assessments, especially diagnostic assessments, have typically been pathologising - under a health framework, assessments are ways of putting labels on you that determine whether or not you might get support, and could alter how others see you.

However, after supporting someone close to me in their PIP review (a welfare benefit in the UK), I reflected on how the experience would be if it included a strengths-led component, and I think that would STILL be really scary!

As neurodivergent people we have spiky profiles, but there is little understanding out there in wider society. In an assessment situation that determines the outcome of support and provision, I don’t want to express having ANY strengths that could in any way get in the way of receiving the support I need and am entitled to.

An approach that is both needs and strengths-led could still be scary for CYP and their families. A young person might be trying to do the mental gymnastics of whether you can admit you’re good at Maths. Or that - actually - you don’t struggle with social interactions in your social group of other neurodivergent peers, but this is very much not the case in mixed-neurotype interactions.

For a CYP and their family to be able to engage with a strengths-led approach, there’s an awful lot of TRUST required - in the approach itself, in the school and staff around you. CYP and their families need to trust that an approach building on their strengths won’t take away from help they need in other areas.

I think this is something important to keep in mind as we develop approaches based on strengths-led support - for many CYP and their families, that trust is broken, and that trust is often broken inter-generationally. That trust will be hard to rebuild, but work to rebuild that trust is essential if approaches to building neuroinclusive school systems are to be effective.