Neuroinclusion Advocate Service
Trauma-informed for Northern Ireland
Rooted in lived-experience, giving employees choice and agency to navigate work, education, and safeguarding.
Neurodivergent adults in Northern Ireland are often left to navigate complex systems, alone. From diagnosis to the workplace, from crisis to transition, there’s no dedicated, trauma-informed support they can return to across life’s stages.
🚨 Why Organisations Must Act Now!
Northern Ireland’s mental health crisis demands more than policy, it demands leadership. With generational trauma, underfunded services, and rising workplace stress, employers have a unique opportunity to make a real difference.
🚨 Childhood Trauma Is Deeply Embedded Across Generations
Over 60% of adults in Northern Ireland report at least one ACE, and nearly 1 in 5 report four or more — a threshold linked to serious mental and physical health risks (Department of Health NI, 2022).
🚨 Mental Illness Is the Leading Cause of Disability in NI
Northern Ireland has the highest rate of years lived with disability due to mental illness in the UK. Depression and anxiety are the top contributors, especially among working-age adults (NI Health Survey, 2023).
🚨 Northern Ireland Has the Highest PTSD Rates in the UK
Over 6% of the population experiences PTSD or complex PTSD — significantly higher than other UK regions. This is directly linked to the legacy of the Troubles and ongoing generational trauma (Commission for Victims and Survivors, 2023).
Our Response
A dedicated, trauma-informed advocate service for neurodivergent adults, shaped by lived-experience and grounded in the science of how people move through systems that don’t always hear them.
The Neuroinclusion Advocate Service
The “Neuroinclusion Advocate Service” is grounded in lived-experience, relational practice, and ethical delivery – All delivery is supported by the Neurodiversity Spark Research Hub, ensuring that the service remains evidence-informed, ethically grounded, and shaped by continuous learning and lived experience insight.
What Is Advocacy, Really?
Neurodivergent adults in Northern Ireland face persistent, often invisible challenges:
Many face barriers that go far beyond diagnosis. From employment and education to health and parenting, support is fragmented, inconsistent, or simply not there.
Spark’s new advocacy service is here to change that built from the ground up by people who’ve lived it.
- Advocacy means having someone by your side who helps you express your views and wishes. Someone who supports you to stand up for your rights.
- An advocate does this with you, not for you, not instead of you.
- Our advocate service is how Spark puts that principle into action. It’s structured, ethical, trauma-informed support that adapts to what you need, when systems don’t.
- Advocacy is the principle. An advocate service is the practice.
Meet Daria, Our Neuroinclusion Practice Lead & Registered Social Worker
“Neuroinclusion isn’t just a service model, it’s a commitment to seeing, hearing, and valuing neurodivergent lives in every space we occupy.”
🎨 Amateur artist | 🌿 Gardener | 🐾 Dog walker | 🚐 Caravanner | 💬 Neurodivergent family life.
Learn more about our Neuroinclusion Support Services →
Contact Us NowNeuroinclusion Social Worker ServicesWho It's For
🏳️🌈 Neurodivergent Adults
Facing barriers in work, health, benefits, education, or life admin.
🏢 Employers
Looking to ethically support neurodivergent staff.
🏠 Community Organisations
Needing specialist support or service partnerships.
🧑⚕️ Carers, Funders & Commissioners
Working with vulnerable or high-risk individuals.
What We Do
✅ Individual Advocacy
Support with health appointments, benefits, education, employment barriers, and more. We show up when the system doesn’t.
✅ Strategic Advocacy
Helping navigate complex systems. Writing letters. Attending meetings. Collaborating with professionals.
✅ Empowerment & Confidence Building
We don’t speak over you — we stand beside you
✅ Professional Partnerships
Working with employers, educators, and services to implement sustainable, inclusive support.
💡 Why Spark?
🏆 Delivered by professionals
Led by a practitioner with 20+ years of frontline and leadership experience
🌱 Grounded in lived experience and trauma-informed values
We walk alongside neurodivergent adults with empathy, insight, and respect, not just support, but understanding. We are 'them' and 'them' are us!
🤝 Responsive, flexible, and ethically led
We adapt to complexity, offering real-world solutions that honour dignity, autonomy, and inclusion.
📚 Backed by Spark’s Research Hub and co-production model
Spark’s Research Hub ensures our services are evidence-led, ethically delivered, and shaped by those who use them..
“Letting employees choose their own advocate service is not just empowering, it’s trauma-informed. It acknowledges lived experience, builds psychological safety, and restores control to those who’ve often had it taken away.”
✅ Taking Action Means:
- Empowering neurodivergent staff to access support on their terms
- Building inclusive cultures rooted in respect and lived experience
- Leading with empathy, not just compliance