Career coaching for neurodivergent teens

A coach is not a clinician, and I don't diagnose, assess or treat anything. A teenager doesn't need a diagnosis to get good career coaching, and a coach doesn't need to see one. What matters is what the teenager does well, what drains them, and what they want.

Language matters too. Some young people say 'I'm autistic', some say 'I have ADHD', some prefer not to name it at all. I use the words the teenager uses. The aim is the same as for any young person: find work where their strengths are an advantage and the rest is manageable, not work that merely tolerates them.

A questionnaire can't tell you how a workplace sounds at 10 a.m. A visit can. When I set up a conversation or a visit for a teen, preparation does a lot of the work: questions written down ahead of time, a description of what the place will be like, and a clear start and end time. Good questions to ask the person who does the job: What does a normal day look like, hour by hour? How noisy is it? How often do plans change at short notice? What would you tell someone who likes things done one way?

Afterward, ask one question only: would you go back? Then ask what made the answer yes or no. That answer is the conditions list, filled in with evidence.

The Ontario Human Rights Code's definition of disability expressly includes learning disabilities, developmental disabilities and mental disorders, and the list is illustrative, not complete. The Ontario Human Rights Commission's policy says the protection covers employment, including part-time work, volunteer work and student internships, and that employers have a duty to accommodate up to the point of undue hardship, judged on cost, outside sources of funding, and health and safety.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act employment standard adds specific steps. Every employer must tell employees and the public that accommodation is available for applicants with disabilities during recruitment, and must tell applicants selected for an interview or assessment that accommodation is available on request. Employers with 50 or more employees in Ontario must have a written process for documented individual accommodation plans.

The Future Ready Sprint, $1,295 plus HST, is six one-to-one sessions over video, with a written brief before the first one, so the structure is predictable from the start. Tell me what helps your teenager work well and I'll build the sessions around it. If your teen needs clinical assessment or therapy, that comes first, from the right professional.