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The Untypical Parent™ Podcast
Welcome to The Untypical Parent™ Podcast where doing things differently is more than okay. I'm here to challenge the norms and open up conversations that go beyond the stereotypical child, parent and family. This is your go to space for additional needs families to find your their backup team—the people who get it. We were never meant to go it alone! We’ll be exploring a wide range of topics, because every family is unique and there’s no one box fits all when it comes to families.
Are you ready?
Come join me?
The Untypical Parent™ Podcast
When The Typical 9-5 Employment Doesn't Fit Your Family
What happens when your perfectly planned approach to parenting collides with the unpredictable reality and it doesn't end up fitting the job description! Helen Buzdugan knows this territory intimately. As a late-diagnosed ADHDer, careers advisor, and founder of True To You Careers, Helen shares her raw, emotional journey from parenting, discovering not only hers but her children's neurotype, from juggling work and parenting, to burnout and then recovery.
Helen's story begins with a self-confessed perfectionist approach to parenthood, to her noticing the diverging paths between her experience of parenting and those of other parents, whose challenges seemed to ease while hers intensified. Helen's experience ultimately led her to create her business helping parents in neurodivergent families find employment that accommodates their complex lives.
Helen brings a unique perspective to the workforce challenges facing parents and carers in neurodivergent households, highlighting the valuable transferable skills parents develop through advocacy, from research abilities to negotiation tactics honed in countless school meetings. Her practical advice includes understanding workplace rights like emergency leave for dependents, separating immediate crisis management from long-term career planning, and building essential support systems.
Ready to transform your approach to balancing career and family? Connect with Helen's free resources and community support to discover work that truly works for your neurodivergent family life.
You can find Helen on:
Facebook, LinkedIn and her links page
I'm Liz, The Untypical OT. I work with parents and carers in additional needs and neurodivergent families to support them with burnout, mental health and well-being. When we support parents, everyone benefits.
To connect with me you'll find all my links on Linktree:
If you would like to contact me about the podcast please email me at:
contact@untypicalparentpodcast.com
I'm Liz, The Untypical OT. I work with parents and carers in additional needs and neurodivergent families to support them with burnout, mental health and well-being. When parents are supported, everyone benefits.
🔗 To connect with me, you find all my details on Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/the_untypical_ot
☕ If you’d like to support the podcast, you can buy me a coffee here:
https://buymeacoffee.com/the.untypical.ot
And if you'd like to contact me about the podcast and join the mailing list please email me at: contact@untypicalparentpodcast.com
Welcome to the Untypical Parent podcast, where doing things differently is more than okay. I'm Liz Evans and I'm the Untypical OT and I'm your host and I'm here to open up conversations that go beyond the stereotypical child, parent and family. This is your go-to space to find your backup team, the people who get it. We were never meant to go it alone. We'll be exploring a wide range of topics because every family is unique and there's no one box that fits all when it comes to family. In this first series, are you the Perfect Parent? And, spoiler alert, there's no such thing. We'll be exploring how we can support our kids, our families and, most most importantly, ourselves. No judgment, just real talk about meeting everyone's needs without leaving anyone, especially parents, behind. Are you ready? Come join me?
Speaker 1:This podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Something Profound. They create funny t-shirts, mugs and, more specifically, designed for neurodivergent people and those with chronic illnesses, because we all deserve a good laugh. A lovely friend of mine gifted me a mug that says not enough spoons to give a fork, and every time I use it it makes me smile. It's such a great reminder to embrace the chaos with a little bit of humour. Want to grab your own? Or know a friend who could do with a laugh. Head over to somethingprofoundcouk and use the code L-I-Z-U-O-T. It's case sensitive, so you'll need to use capital letters for your 15% off your order. And don't forget to follow Sam, the founder of Something Profound. You'll find her on Instagram and Facebook at something underscore profound, underscore clothing. If you've got something to say, say it with Something Profound.
Speaker 1:I'm delighted to welcome Helen Buzz Dugan to the podcast today. Helen is a specialist careers advisor and founder of True2U Careers. She helps parents and carers in neurodivergent and disabled households find flexible, family-friendly work when life is complicated. She's a late diagnosed ADHDer in a proudly neurodivergent family and she knows just how hard it is to hold down paid work while parenting and navigating the roller coaster of the SEND system. Her work is rooted in social justice and a fierce belief that no one should be locked out of decent work because of their caring responsibilities.
Speaker 1:This episode today is a bit of an emotional one, and I just wanted to do a quick note before we started the podcast with Helen to recognise that Helen is talking about some areas that are quite emotional and at points during our discussion today she gets emotional. I wanted to reassure people that Helen is OK. I did check with her. There's a bit in the middle where things might jump around a little bit and that's just me editing things to ensure that we kind of respected Helen's wishes. But actually she has given the agreement to go ahead and air this episode, even though it was an emotional one for her, and I'm really grateful that she was comfortable enough to be able to share that with you all, because I think it's actually a really important thing to recognize that as parents and even as professionals, that this affects us all. I just wanted to reassure people that Helen was happy to go ahead and was okay.
Speaker 1:Helen, thank you ever so much for coming on to the Untypical OT podcast. It's lovely to have you here. Our series, this series is about are you the perfect parent? We had a little kind of intro to you and what you do and what your job is about. But the first question that I kick off with everybody through the doors before they get comfortable is are you the perfect?
Speaker 2:parent, helen, do you know it's. It's funny, really, because I have realized over the years that I am a really probably an incurable perfectionist. Yep, which is kind of. It's okay up to a point, I think. And you know, I think you get. You get to this point in your life. You have a certain amount of control, don't you?
Speaker 2:You know, as you're going through with school and career, there are always things that are outside of your control, and I think that I also probably the perfectionism was a reaction to my ADHD, which I didn't know I had at the time. I'm going to compensate for that and somehow, I didn't know I had at the time to compensate for that and somehow I was managing to keep most of the balls in the air. Um, so when and I actually also had I was a bit of an older mum when I, when I got pregnant, um, and I was so happy to have got pregnant, I just wanted to do everything, right, you know. So I read all the books. I signed up for two antenatal courses wow, two, yeah, yeah, there's a standard NHS one that you had access to, and then, oh yeah, nct as well. So I think probably a lot of people do do that don't I even did. You know, there's like a natal hypnotherapy course, so I did that as well.
Speaker 2:So I kind of thought, you know, I want to be as prepared as I possibly can, um, and it's like, I suppose you know I'm I'm a careers advisor, obviously, and I thought of it in terms of, you know, having a job description and a person's specification for parenting. It's like, well, really, a real practical approach to this, yeah, yeah, I have a very logical brain, yeah, very logical brain. So it's like, all right, well, let's find out what the job description is, if you like, you know, read all the books, get all the um, attend all the courses and get as much information as I possibly can. So I'm really well prepared. And let's read the person specification to see, you know, what a competent parent looks like, right, you know sort of what's the perfect parent. So I, I thought I had a good handle on that, but obviously, first of all, I'm only really looking at the beginning, anyway, you know, sort of the, the pregnancy and the birth and the first few months or whatever, um, and then it all unraveled, it really all unraveled.
Speaker 1:How quickly did it unravel, helen? Did it unravel quite quickly for you or over a period of time?
Speaker 2:well, I suppose a bit of both, but but right from the start. So I had a really difficult birth experience. Okay, all the things wanted the birthing pool, everything was was all planned out. It didn't go to plan. I know that's the case for a lot of people yeah, I was there with you on that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right well, I ended up with, um, quite a severe tear which left me in hospital for a number of days, um and I also. I actually also had a rift with my family which had a kind of a long lasting effect afterward. But but during the time that I was in hospital, all my plans for breastfeeding, which I was absolutely determined I was going to do, went out the window because I couldn't sit. So, because I had such a severe tear, I was only able to lie down.
Speaker 2:I was still trying to breastfeed, but I couldn't figure out how to do it lying down, because I'd never learned how to do that, and then I had these people coming in, you know, all around the clock, coming into my hospital room and telling me to do this now, do this now. So I was on a sort of a three-hour schedule where I would be trying to breastfeed and it wasn't working. I would be trying to express, and I've been trying to shown how to do that. I'd never done that before, um and and then I was having to bottle feed. I was expected to do it all myself, with little tuition, um, and all these.
Speaker 2:All that preparation I'd done just went out the window so straight away. I was not the perfect parent as far as I was concerned. You know, it all went apart, um, and I also felt like my agency as a parent was taken away, and I think this is a theme that sort of, you know, is a common parental experience of that kind of agency and figuring out who you are as a parent, who you want to be, and that control is is taken away from you.
Speaker 2:You know, I actually have a little bit of um trauma associated with that, that period. Um, because it just didn't, you know, it didn't go to plan yeah wasn't what I wanted. I felt like I wasn't doing a good job um and that's really emotional still for you.
Speaker 1:I can really see that. Yeah, that's really hard, I think. Like you say, I think when we have those kind of early starts, like you said, you go away and you get told there's all the books and how do I start with that and what do I need to know? And you research. I remember watching, oh, do you remember the program one born every minute? Oh yeah, I was obsessed, obsessed with that. And my partner at the time, my boy's dad, was like why are you watching that? But I would watch it and there'd be all these problems going on. I'd be like, oh my God, I can't watch this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, every week would tune in because I needed to know all the information of what could possibly happen. Yeah, that control isn't it. Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, like a bit like you, ended up in my birth plan. Yeah, that went straight out the window and we ended up with an emergency C-section and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1:And a bit like you, a really, really traumatic start to parenting. Yeah, and that has a huge impact on us. And you have this idea of being a perfect parent. And what do you mean? I've done all this research and now it's not going according to plan. And then welcome to the world of being a perfect parent. And what do you mean? I've done all this research and now it's not going according to plan. And then welcome to the world of being a parent. Because nothing ever goes to plan, does it? That's it. That's really hard. So you had a really tricky start being a parent, with kind of like control being taken away from you and and changes and unexpected things, and I suppose that possibly as well might tie in for you around diagnoses as well for you that you didn't know at that time yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's it yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, that's the start of it. And then, um, things were very difficult in those first few years as well. But I really didn't have very much idea about, you know, adhd, autism. I didn't know, I just knew that. What seemed to happen for me, I think, is that, you know I was, I'm very close to a couple of other mums on the NCT antenatal class that I went on, and you're having the same sorts of conversations, you know we're texting each other at 3am in the first few months and like, oh, this is happening, that's happening and it's all, it's all the same and there's just this sense that you're all in it together and, um, you know it's hard and you're talking about how hard it is, but then at some point it changes, where they're starting to talk about other things.
Speaker 2:Life's moved on a bit, things have got a little bit easier for them. Yeah, um, and you're wondering why it's still hard for you. You know thinking, is it my fault that it's still so hard? Why am I making it so difficult? Why is my child still not sleeping? Why are they having challenges eating? You know, why are they having these kind of sensory challenges? Where I'm buying, I don't know, age four, like five different pairs of shoes right and um, none of them are right and they've all got to go back.
Speaker 1:So you know you're starting to pick up these differences, going along that actually, like you said they were, they were kind of going off on a different angle, almost to you, and you were kind of either staying where you were or going off on a different tangent.
Speaker 2:I didn't really know, um, what my role was as a parent or, you know, if I was doing a good job. I felt like I didn't have any measure anymore of that. Um, when things really came to a head for us as a family was during the first lockdown. So I noticed differences with my youngest and he was having challenges in school. But when we got into that first lockdown, I think you know that that was a big turning point for a lot of families, wasn't it? It?
Speaker 1:certainly was.
Speaker 2:Some of us are still recovering well, exactly, exactly um. So I was trying to juggle my job as a university careers advisor, and so I've been at University of Manchester for a really long time working there as a careers advisor. I've done pretty well everything, everything you know. It's gone, gone well.
Speaker 2:But then during the first lockdown, um, I was trying to homeschool both children. At the time they're in year one and year three. So, um, my boys are now in year six and year eight, um, and my youngest started to have. He was having a lot of difficulties. It was just suddenly, you know, a lot more obvious to me, um, that he was just really struggling to engage with the home learning. Um, and I was struggling as well. I was really struggling to manage work because work had been shifted to the evening. So I was, I was trying to home school during the day and then in the evenings I was trying to um, I was getting on zoom calls, talking to university students, doing, you know, one-to-one careers guidance, up until like nine o'clock at night, um, and then it was a huge amount of pressure, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:in that time, I think, when some of us were furloughed, um, some of us lost jobs, yeah, um, and you know, some of us were trying to build work around the kids and now had taken on this teaching role. Yes, we had never anticipated and never wanted to take on um and now trying to occupy kids with us.
Speaker 2:It was like the longest summer holidays ever, but now I've got to do work with them as well yeah, yeah, and that's the funny thing, because I think you know, um, obviously at the time my son didn't have any diagnosis at all. Now it's kind of obvious to me that that that sort of very, very structured home learning which it became, where I was then having to mediate as a parent, what was coming down from the school of you know, this work had to be done and this live session had to be attended and my child had to sit on the sofa and, you know, watch the teacher and respond but not interrupt, you know, and all of these things, and I was sort of being expected to pass that pressure on. It's really really hard, um, and then, yeah, trying to be that professional as well at work, so I ended up burning out and I didn't know it at the time, I didn't know that's what it was. I thought it was anxiety. I was also little, um, did I know I was also in perimenopause, um, you?
Speaker 1:quite love that too, haven't you that always?
Speaker 2:throws you in a curveball.
Speaker 1:Just when you think you've got it sussed and planned, then the hormones kick in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely such a beautiful thing, especially when it clashes with ADHD, which I also didn't know that I had and was only diagnosed with that two years ago. So, yeah, there was a lot going on and a lot of, you know, my job was quite pressured, um, and I was, I have to admit, I was a bit envious of those people that had been furloughed whereas I was thinking, what am I doing? You know, on on, zoom until 9 pm and then, and then writing, you know, my, my reports afterwards until like late in the night, and then getting up and having to get everybody breakfast and do the, you know, get into the home learning routine. The wheels fell off basically at that time.
Speaker 2:But for me personally, as a, as a parent, as a, you know, as an employee, um, and also for, you know, my son, really it was really struggling yeah so I then went into a period of um kind of exploring that flexible working landscape really, because when he did, or when when both of them went back into school, he was still really struggling, um, so that struggle continued and I needed to find something that was kind of flexible around that. So I, I did lots of, you know, work-wise. I did lots of different things. So I I went on some freelancer platforms and I did, you know, I, I did um, I wrote CVs and I did um practice interviews and careers guidance for people all around the world and it was that was really nice, it was really flexible. Um, it wasn't well paid enough, but it was really flexible. It gave me that flexibility that I needed when my you know, when my son couldn't be in school and I just decided there's a period where I needed to really prioritize family.
Speaker 1:I suppose as well, you still got that juggle underneath with the kids and, and at this point, so tell us a bit about your, your kind of family setup. We don't have to go into too much detail, helen, but kind of what diagnoses have, kind of if you've got rumbling around in your household, that kind of adds to the picture for people that are listening so, um, my youngest.
Speaker 2:um, well, first of all, I actually asked for a referral for ADHD because for me that was, you know, those were the signs I was seeing and that came off the back of the lockdown.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's when it started, but it took a really long time to go through.
Speaker 2:That's when it started, but it took a really long time to go through, yeah, um, I mean, one thing was when I first raised it with school, um, and the school didn't have a, a SENCO at the time, so I was in a meeting with the head, um, and what came back to me was it's just anxiety.
Speaker 2:So there wasn't an acceptance that ADHD should be something they should be looking at. And then the next thing that came back to me was maybe you want to try and go on a parenting course. I didn't know that was a thing I didn't know until I went on lots of Facebook groups and I saw people coming up saying oh yeah, this thing, go on a parenting course. So you know, since then I've realized that a lot gets put back on you as a parent. Even quite recently, yeah, we've had a meeting where I went into, a meeting in school where there were a lot of different adjustments that I wanted to be made in school to accommodate my son. You know things that, um, I was asking the school to do to support him, um, and what came back is what's going on at home in the morning, so that he's not wanting to come into school, so you know they push back, so it's got to be something that's happening at home.
Speaker 2:It can't possibly be something that's happening at school, and then the answer is oh, I've got a great idea. What about a visual timetable? I also know that that's another thing that comes up quite a lot is a visual timetable. I'm not saying that can't be useful, but I just feel like that deflection, you know, of coming back on what's going on at home and what's the parent doing. And because I think and for me personally, as somebody with you know my own diagnosis of ADHD and I know that I'm highly sensitive, as a lot of us are we judge ourselves already quite a lot, don don't we? Absolutely, and sometimes, when we get that judgment coming at us from other people who are professionals, it makes us feel like actually, our own judgment of ourselves has some validity, you know. So maybe, yes, we are doing something wrong. Maybe we do need to go on a parenting course, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really hard, I think, because I think you know I've worked with lots of schools and actually my parents are both ex-teachers they were both head teachers and teachers. So kind of education has been around in my family for a while and I do wonder whether there is something in there around the school can't look for help until they have done xyz. So they still have a lot of pressure on them to show that they have done so much stuff for the children before they can go on to the next step. So they kind of get almost.
Speaker 1:I sometimes feel that the schools get stuck in between, um, health local authorities and the parents, with the kids kind of stuck in the middle and the parent and the school kind of going well, we've kind of got to produce all this evidence. So I've now got to suggest you go on a parent's resource. I've now got to suggest that you've got a visual timetable and now you know all those bits they have to do, um, so that's really hard too is that they're kind of having to produce all this evidence and then it's almost like you're going to have to go through this tick box exercise, which is what happens when you end up in big court, you know big structures like we've got is you have to tick a box to get to the next step. I always think it's a bit like a computer game you have to park this level and then you get to the next level, and sometimes you're just kind of playing the game until you get to the next level and there's an, an acknowledgement.
Speaker 1:I think, sometimes even with the professionals, that they know we have to just go through this process to get to the next step. But, as you say, the impact that has on us as parents and we are always even you know, I don't have a diagnosis of ADHD, but again, I totally resonate with what you're saying is that feeling of it must be me, I'm doing something wrong, um, and we give ourselves a hard enough time as it is as parents. We yeah that guilt thing that sits there and the shame and the yeah, we do a good job of that on our own, thanks you don't need to add to it.
Speaker 2:No no, it's really hard and I've had my own experience of working in schools. So when I was, you know, exploring that flexible work landscape and I'd left universities where I'd been working as a careers advisor for 20 years, a long time One of the things I did is I started working for a careers agency Wow, in um schools and I've now worked in I think it's eight different secondary schools, mainstream specialist pupil referral unit as well and one of the things there that I think was you know was really interesting is I started to kind of learn a lot more about um, the experiences of young people with additional needs, you know, neurodivergent young people especially. I was working with students mainly in years 10 and 11, as well, so they're thinking about their next steps after school and also working with the wider families as well. So I mean one thing a lot of people don't know is every young person is entitled to a one-to-one careers guidance appointment with a careers professional um, and so I I would go into schools and I'd have on my list, you know, the names of every single student, say in year 11, and I would literally have to go through and and pull students out of classes to see them because it was their, you know it was their right to have that. So I would pull them out of classes. Teachers didn't like very much and I'd try to say this is important, this is a young person's right um, and I would have conversations with with young people and I'd find out a lot about what was going. You know what, what was going on for them and how they were not necessarily always being supported. A lot of them were having um, obviously had unmet needs there.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing for me was when I would get to students who were not regularly attending and you know there were, there were. There was different levels of sympathy within the school for that and there was a lot of talk of school refusers, which can really upset me, because I I had my own um, you know son who was struggling in school and I really at the time I didn't know, I suppose, how sort of toxic that term was, but it didn't sit well with me. So for those students, they're often neglected, they're often just forgotten about in terms of career support, which they really, really need. But I would make sure that I would call home for those students. So I would often then have conversations with other parents of students who were struggling in school and um, I'll never forget this, this one call that I had with a parent where, um, so I'd managed to speak to the parent, um, the week before and said, you know, let's say Joshua, I don't know, um, you know, I know Joshua has not been in school for about six months.
Speaker 2:Um, but I am an external careers advisor. I'm here to support, I have to say that, you know, for that parent, initially she probably had been quite suspicious of me. It's another call from school. You know, what does this person want? This is, this is a school calling again. They're probably going to be, you know, trying to get me to do this, trying to get me to do that, judging me. You know, trying to get me to do this, trying to get me to do that, judging me. So I wanted to say I'm here to support you and your son and help him think about his next steps after school. And it's a chance for him to, you know, to actually have some choices about his next steps.
Speaker 2:And anyway, I managed to have a telephone conversation with Joshua and it was really, really positive. I was able to say you know what you can do after school in terms of your college options. You've got some choices. Um, it's the first time really when you've got some choices for yourself. And, um, he had a great plan after that.
Speaker 2:But I came back the next week, um, I noticed that the college that we were discussing had an open day the following day. So I sent an email to the parents saying it'd be fantastic if Joshua could go along to this open day, but I'd appreciate that he might need support in attending it. So I don't know if you're able to take him. And then I thought maybe she doesn't check her emails very regularly, I'll just give her a quick call, and it's probably a bit ADHD, but I just give her a quick call. So, anyway, I called her and I started saying oh, you know, really had such a great chat with Joshua and you know I don't know if he's told you and he's looking forward to doing this course next year and there's an open day tomorrow and it would be fantastic if you could take him. And she said let me just stop you there, helen. I said tomorrow, I've got to Sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm getting emotional again because this is hard.
Speaker 2:She said I've got to be in court because, you know, basically for her son's school attendance she had to have a court appearance. So she was in burnout and she hadn't been able to work. She'd had to leave her job. She was.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get you to take a minute, helen. There'll be a lot of parents out there that this hits home with. Yeah, and even just me listening to you talk. I've got goosebumps with you talking. I've also got a child that didn't you know was really struggling with school and is now educated at home. So I want you to be able to tell your story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I also know I can and I can see how this is upsetting you, so I just want to check that you are okay to continue. I don't want you to continue with something that is going to leave you feeling horrible. There'll be people listening that will go. You know what. We can't just come on here and go and be robots and not have emotions to this stuff, because it's related to our kids and the job that we do, and I just want to reassure that if we leave this bit in, that people are are.
Speaker 2:I've got Helen, yeah. So after that I really it just hit home. I didn't. I think I'd heard about, you know, obviously, school fines. I knew about that, I knew all about that and I had heard that there was a possibility. I thought it was a theoretical possibility that a parent could be taken to court for non-school attendance. But to actually hear a parent say that to me I was quite shocked. I have to admit. I was quite shocked and it hit me, and I had quite a few conversations in this particular school with parents that I felt almost as a professional in the school. Ok, I was external, I wasn't working for the school, but I felt like, you know, I was probably on the edge of what I should have been doing, um, there having those conversations, because for me I was completely on that parent's side. I was just, you know, my justice sensitivity was like up here, you know, it was really very activated. I was, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to do something about that.
Speaker 1:I didn't think that was right and at this time, helen, was there still the issues going on at home? So was this at this point? Your son is also struggling. My child is struggling, yeah, going on exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:and also the fact that I was working with. So the students I was working with professionally were in year 10, year 11, so 15, 16 year olds. My own child was in sort of year three, year four at the time when I was working, year five as well, when I was working in high schools. So for me it was almost like looking at the future, you know what I mean. I mean it felt like this is where things could go for me, and almost like looking at the future you know what I mean like this is where things could go for me, and that must have been quite scary actually, as a parent, to be sitting there thinking whoa I could end up.
Speaker 1:This is where we could end up that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. And then I've worked in other schools as well. So I've worked in, you know, pupil referral unit where you know it was a very small, very supportive, and there were a lot of students there that I felt like had been sort of let down by the system. Really they were undiagnosed neurodivergent, so many of them had fallen out of the system and I spoke to a lot of parents there.
Speaker 2:I worked in another school where I was working with students who had, just with students that had an EHCP 30 students in the whole school with an EHCP and I would have family meetings. My role was to help them to find the right post-16 option. So, you know, education, training, yeah, I got very much into the advocacy there, which again was sort of slightly on the edge of what my role really should have been. But I got very involved in calling the local authority, calling colleges, advocating on behalf of my students, sitting in meetings with parents where I insisted on an interpreter because english wasn't their first language but they'd never had an interpreter before you know where they should have had you know. So, again, the sort of justice, sensitivity of me making sure it wasn't enough for me to just say, well, these are, these are your options. You know, you go and sort it out, um, because I felt like there wasn't enough support.
Speaker 1:Really, there just wasn't enough support because I suppose that kind of leads me on to then, where is this, where your new kind of business has come from? Because I suppose I'm really interested to think about how you've got to, where you get your you are now, because the job that you do now is supporting parents in neurodivergent families to find as if I've remembered your slogan to find work that works yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So where did that?
Speaker 1:come from what? Because I can kind of see the links almost in here now, building as you're talking that what was happening for you as a parent and you went through that burnout and trying to juggle work and home life and the additional needs that our kids might have. Yeah, and you're starting to work with the kids, but now the parents are coming into this and I can hear you talking about the parents in the background and now, knowing what I know you do, I can see where Helen might have come from for this this is it?
Speaker 2:well, I suppose I just realized, like you know, talking to that, that parent who was attending court and who had had to give up her job, it just and, like you said, in my own experience um of having to take voluntary redundancy, I was very, you know, in 2020 I was very lucky that that came up for me, that I was able to take that and I was able to then spend some time exploring, you know, flexible work. I just felt, like, you know, children experiencing a lot of difficulties, but if the parent, you know everything falls on that parent. If that parent is not OK, then nothing is okay in that family. So for me, you know, it just made sense for me to be able to offer that, because I've got a career's background, you know, I have those skills and that experience and I've had my own experience of um raising, you know, family with additional needs um neurodivergences in the mix my own neurodivergence.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of these things that the other parents are dealing with. I just thought there is a real opportunity and a need here to help the parents, and nobody seemed to be doing that. There didn't seem to be anybody out there, though it's got a lot of support for young people actually, because, you know, young people do have that um right to one-to-one career support, but there isn't very much out there for the parents, and the other thing that I found is that there isn't. You know, it's very, very hard for parents to find work that is flexible enough to meet their needs, and the traditional career coaches out there, they really just don't quite understand the you know the the situation of a family, um a parent with children that you get.
Speaker 1:you know, and it all sorts of different directions and I know you're on your facebook page and on your linkedin. You talk a lot about, um, what's happening in the government at the moment and all that kind of stuff that has huge impact on parents and actually there may well be parents out there that have got kids with additional needs and they want to work, yes, and then there's no kind of. I feel quite strongly in this is that there are some parents that feel that they want to be at home with their children and that is OK, but there are also, equally, parents out there that still want to be able to work. It gives them something back. And you know, I was listening to Sarah Davis talk on a podcast and I don't, as far as I know, I don't think she's got kids with additional needs, but she was talking about actually she was OK with making the decision that she worked as much as she did, because work gave her something.
Speaker 1:It gave her something that she wanted and she needed and it was really interesting to hear that because I think sometimes, stereotypically, as mothers, we are in the caring role, stereotypically, um, and that can be a pressure that we can feel very guilty about wanting to be able to work. And then we've got the government saying you know well, you actually need to be out there working and putting a lot of pressure on. And that's thinking, well, we would if we could, yeah exactly I know you feel very strongly about that.
Speaker 2:I do feel very all of that. What were those barriers?
Speaker 1:I mean just by what they're doing. What were the barriers you came up with, henry? Really interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh right, because I'm sure they're going to resonate with people yeah, I'm going to try and run through these quickly and then we could, you know, we could dig into one of them, one or two of them maybe. But you know there's first of all, it's like and this, this is something I really experienced as well it's the unpredictability of family life, yeah, and managing that alongside trying to work. So you know, last, last week, um, I spoke to a parent and she said, um, that her son, who's undiagnosed ADHD, had been suspended a hundred times during his time at school, and so, you know, suspended, sent home and you know, and unfortunately, she's got a relatively flexible job, but her job is being stretched to the limit. And you know the kind of level of flexibility that the parents I work with need, that there aren't enough jobs out there, not saying there aren't, and I really work very, very hard to uncover those, but only 13% of jobs, for example, are fully remote. Yeah, the kind of asynchronous hours that people need where.
Speaker 2:Deal with unpredictability. So you know, you don't know how your day is going to go, you don't know if your child's going to be in school, or you know your, your tutor is gonna be off sick and you have to pick up that. Um, there aren't many employers that will work around. That necessarily, um. Obviously then people experience financial difficulties. I work with a lot of um. Single parents might be surviving on precarious or meager benefits, which is why I feel so strongly about things like the the cut to tip.
Speaker 2:Um, people have had a long career break. So I work with a lot of parents that have had career breaks of 10 years or more because they haven't been able to work. Um, they needed to stop working to fit around their family and now they're trying to get in. They're experiencing a whole load of other barriers, so confidence drops. They feel like their skills might be out of date. They think an employer is not going to look at them as soon as they, you know, see career break on their CV. So that confidence side of it, confident side of it. Some of them have been diagnosed themselves with um, adhd or autism since they were last in work, and so they're seeing that experience of work in a new light. Yeah, um. So they're seeing that and thinking now, if I go back to the workplace, are they going to accommodate my adhd?
Speaker 2:I can see that yeah, so there's their own neurodivergence, as well as thinking about whether work's going to be flexible enough, they don't know where they stand, necessarily with the law as well, um. So, yeah, I think probably. That's probably not all of them, but there's. There's so many challenges, really, and the identity thing is a big one. It absolutely is, because I think you do, you can forget who you are, um, and and you can't go back to a former self either.
Speaker 1:If you've had a career break, you're not that person anymore and even just being a parent, I think, changes you, doesn't it that absolutely you can't go back to how you were before. You know you make decisions in a very different way, you might act in a different way, you might be in a different way, work might look different. Everything changes, isn't it, and sometimes for the positive.
Speaker 2:It's not always for the for the worst, but yeah big changes, definitely, and there's evidence, isn't there, that, um, actually there's neural pathways do shift, don't they yep neuroplasticity, um, and actually it brings me on something kind of quite interesting, I think, is that often parents overlook the skills that they develop through parenting and through, you know, fighting the, the system as well, um, and trying, just trying to get their, you know, child support absolutely it's like a job in itself and like you said the skill set that that takes from thought from parents is huge.
Speaker 1:That could be transferable into a job.
Speaker 2:It really is transferable.
Speaker 2:So things like, um, yeah, let's talk about them, because actually you know, um, a lot of people are not necessarily aware of them or not necessarily aware that that's something that is transferable.
Speaker 2:So you know things like all the research you do, um, you know how many times have you gone down that rabbit hole looking at government policies. You know what's kind of case law on this, that and the other, just trying to figure out what your rights are, what your child's rights are, and that kind of critical thinking analysis. You know independent decision making, all the advocacy and the negotiation and the communication skills where you are sitting in a meeting and thinking about what the right thing to say is, and you know how to get somebody on side, um, the negotiation, um, the resilience and the persistence as well. When you are, you know, chasing up referrals over and over and over again and you've got all these doors being slammed in your face and you've just got to keep coming back and picking yourself up and carrying on and just navigating all those setbacks. There's so many things and I think you know it and very confident in yourself we are.
Speaker 1:We find it particularly difficult to say I am good at, and I wonder whether some of that's being very british in our style, that we kind of we don't brag about things. You know that's, that's not a problem. We don't talk about how good we are about things, um, and that's really difficult because you know, even if you haven't got extra additional needs, that when you have to do your job, application stuff like that, and you're having to write about how great you are and what you do, it's really hard. Where someone else often can help you do that and I suppose that's part of your role is to help those parents think about those skills that they do have and being able to kind of pull those skills out for them yeah, that's it, and the confidence that that goes along with that um, really as well.
Speaker 2:Because I think sometimes people do think that, um, and employers can sometimes think as well.
Speaker 2:You know that employers have to be be shown why this is valuable. But a lot of people think, you know, I've had this career break and haven't been doing anything useful in that time and that's so wrong, isn't it? It's so wrong, you know. So. So actually, just having the confidence to say, hey, look at all these amazing things that I've been doing as I've been parenting, as I've been advocating for my child, even if they've not done anything else, you know like volunteering and but a lot of people do do lots of volunteering as well. You know running groups, running communities, or you know being actively involved, possibly with, you know with the school or doing different things, but just the parenting and just going through, you know, getting their child support needs met, it's, there's so much there, there's so much there and that might not be something that parents would typically think they could draw on like you said that they would think that that time away from work in a purely parenting role is kind of like this.
Speaker 1:It's not. It's not relevant to my work or to a to a job. Actually, you're saying there's quite a lot in there, there's skills in there that are transferable, but we might not necessarily know that that's it, and I think you know it's like you don't stop developing skills just because you're not being in formal work.
Speaker 2:And you know, when you talk about the skills that you develop, they come from all areas of life, all the time. Even if you weren't a parent, even before you were a parent, um, you're still developing skills. You know, if you're a student and you're staying in rental accommodation and you get you need a new washing machine. You've got to negotiate that with your landlord.
Speaker 2:That's a skill yeah, it's not necessarily drawn from work, and I think we can think about work in a very narrow way and I always look at life very holistically in the way I work with parents and say you know, all of these things that you're doing in every area of life is very valuable. Let's pull all that together and make sure that we make a persuasive case to employers that this is you know, this is really important, really valuable. This is you know, this is really important, really valuable.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking, helena, if you were to go back to your younger self, when you were a younger parent and you know, maybe around that time when things were quite tricky with you know, things being difficult maybe for the kids and balancing their needs and balancing you not knowing that you had a diagnosis in there as well, and you were juggling work and actually ended up in burnout, what advice would you go back and give to yourself at that point when things got really tricky between juggling you know work, parenting, lifing?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think it. Probably. There's a few things. One is definitely let go of some of that perfectionism, because you have to accept that you're going to drop some balls, and actually that might be quite painful to drop the balls, especially if you think that those things that you're dropping are actually quite important. You know. So it might be related to work or it might be, you know, you don't meet a deadline that you should be meeting in terms of you know, really hard stuff, like the send paperwork. You didn't get it done on time because you just had too much going on.
Speaker 2:So forgive yourself is the first one, and I will say that you have to really be a bit thick skinned and I can't say that I've got that perfectly right. I can't say because I'm not thick skinned. Let's face it, I'm ADHD. I cry easily. I'm not thick skinned. To be honest, I don't really want to be. But at the same time time, I think, just letting go of the judgment from other people and being more confident which has taken me a lot of time to be more confident in myself as a parent and going back to that person specification idea, I suppose, build your own person specification. The job description, in any case, is going to change right as you go through, because I now have a teenager and, regardless of the neurodivergence, I have a teenager yeah, I've got one, I've got two of them yeah, there you go hormones and relationships, and all of that stuff going on.
Speaker 2:Um, so just yeah. Um be be confident in your own your, your own path, your own way.
Speaker 1:How did you do that, helen? Have you had the kind of strategies that you used to do that? Because people might think, yeah, I know that's what I need to do, but how did you do that? For me, it's having a really good support system around me that I can sense check against people, so I can go, oh, I've got to do go. Oh, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. And then they go right, hang on a minute, no, you don't, and they consent. They just check me and I need that at times when I, you know, I'm a solo parent and I'm doing it on my own and my son's been out of school. We've been through EHCPs and tribunals and work and juggling it all, yeah, but I had to find kind of external supports to be able to help me with that, and some of that was finding really great communities to be part of with other parents that I could go and then go. You can drop that bit, because sometimes we almost need the permission to drop it, don't we?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah communities yeah, communities have been very important for me as well. Definitely, and you know I um wouldn't have been at without the Facebook communities that I'm in. I'm in a few that are really important. I'm in daily really, you know, connecting with people, obviously people in real life very important as well. I am lucky that I do have a supportive family, so that is very helpful to me. But the other thing that's been really useful for me is my mindfulness. So I joined a course called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. It's not particularly targeted at, at you know, neurodivergent adults or parents with neurodivergent children or anything like that, but it helps you to be more present in the moment and it just helps me to reduce my anxiety and to learn more to be, rather than to always do and fix and question and why and that spiraling. Yeah, it's really helped me a lot with um avoiding getting into that spiraling that you can do, I think.
Speaker 1:So that's been really, really helpful and if you could give, there'll be parents out there that will be resonating a lot with what you said. You know the people the kind of followers of the podcast, I think are predominantly from families with additional needs. Um, they might have additional needs as a parent themselves or it might be through just through the kids. But if you could give them one kind of top tip for a parent that's struggling at the moment, maybe struggling to balance their, their careers or their work, or you know the finances around bringing in money and being a parent, what would that, what would your top tip be, helen?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, I'm quite a logical person, I think, so I I sort of separate it into um. You know what you can do this week, you know. So if you're in crisis right now, everything's falling apart, you know, maybe your child's suddenly just not able to attend school or something. There's some, you know, mental health crisis I don't know lots of different things and and you are trying to work, um, look at what you can do now to fix that. So, for example, with work obviously that's my area you know you can get emergency leave for dependents. Some people don't even know that you can have access.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that that, yeah so, and there's not a specific limit for how many days that you can take, but it is designed for unforeseen circumstances, so it's perfect for that situation where you're in crisis and you just need to release that pressure valve um you know.
Speaker 2:So obviously you have to be reasonable about what you can take and generally it's unpaid, although I would say, check your employment contracts, because sometimes employers do pay for a number of you know kind of special leave days, but it's, it's a, it's a right, so you can look it up. Emergency leave for dependents, um, but so think about this week maybe, think about, you know, in the next month, what, what, what can you change in the next month? So if you're out of crisis but you do need I don't know, you know, maybe you just need a regular income, or what you've got right now isn't working or you don't have anything, you know what can you do in terms of short-term work and separating that from longer-term plans. So if you perhaps need a complete change of career, um, you need to make some big changes, just recognizing that that might take a little bit longer. And so I like to talk about parallel paths and running things in parallel.
Speaker 2:So you, you know you can do something now to get yourself out of crisis, but keeping that separate from, maybe making a long-term plan, because I, because I have ADHD, everything, my executive function, everything tends to get in the muddle in my head. So I'm like, oh, I need to make a career change, but my child isn't attending school right now, and what do I need to? Oh, I need to make a career change, but my child isn't attending school right now, and what do I need to do today? I need to, you know, email the SENCO, but I also need to make a career change. Well, those things are not in the same box, are they? So it's just trying to get some structure around that and that kind of, I think, helps you bring a sharper focus onto what you really need to be doing.
Speaker 2:Right, doing right now versus you know, but still making some longer term changes, still working towards that, yeah, and, and the other thing is, of course, get some support, always get some support. Don't need to do it on your own, and I know for you, liz, that's. That's a really big thing for you as well, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. It is, yeah. Yeah, the support thing for me is massive and I've got my. I'm gonna show it down. I'm gonna show it on camera because I've it's released today, but this will come out later, but I am going to show it on camera with back to front, but I have got my t-shirt on today, which has been released, so I am there's. People will find out about that for the podcast a bit later. Um, it's being released today. Um, what that probably leads me on to really nicely is people might have listened to this Helen and think actually I could really do. I'd want to reach out and get hold of Helen and I put at the moment, how can you support people? Because you say I'm big on support and how we support parents. So how, how can? What do you do that supports parents?
Speaker 2:absolutely so I I like to. I you know I'm um. Social justice is really important to me helping people. I'm very driven by helping people, so I always want to make sure that a certain amount of my time is spent helping people for free. So, um, I have a couple of free guides. One is finding flexible work, which has a list of flexible job sites. It's got things about your needs and non-negotiables what's most important for you to think about when you're looking at flexible work. I have a post careercareer break cv guide which helps people to think about what kind of cv they need and how they can convey that career break and the skills that they've developed during that time to employers. And so I've got a weekly newsletter where I share lots of tips for parents and carers and neurodivergent and disabled families on where can people find that?
Speaker 1:Helen, is that on your website? You've got a website, or is it just?
Speaker 2:on your Facebook page. So I have a links page which obviously you can share in the show notes. I have a one-to-one careers guidance support as well, and I also have a free Zoom call, which is my Work that Works Q&A, which I run every month, which people can come along to meet other parents. So, you know, actually be part of that community and um and I'm also thinking about something, something else which, depending on when the podcast comes out, um may or may not be running, so people can follow me on linkedin, on facebook.
Speaker 1:Those are probably the main two platforms that I'm on as well, and that's a good way to kind of connect with you, and then we'll get your your links, uh page, your url for that, and we'll pop that on the show notes as well, so people can take on that they can find all the different ways that they can work with you.
Speaker 1:That just leads me to say, helen, thank you ever so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. I always love a chat with you. It's been lovely having you on um and just thank you very much and keep an eye out on what Helen's doing. Check out her, her websites and her pages and her socials where you can keep up to date with what she's doing. And thank you very much thank you, liz.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on. It's been really great to chat. You're really welcome, take care Helen bye.
Speaker 1:well, that's it for this episode of the untypical parent talks.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. You're really welcome. Take care, helen Bye. Well, that's it for this episode of the Untypical Parent Talks. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Whether you were walking the dog, folding laundry or just hiding in the toilet for five minutes peace and there's no judgment here I'm glad you chose to spend your time with me today.
Speaker 1:If you're a parent or a carer of a child with additional needs and you're feeling overwhelmed, burnt out or just like you need a bit of backup, I've got you and I'm here to help you find a way through the tricky stuff, like the moments when you feel like you might just run out of steam, so that you can be the parent that you want to be and take care of yourself too. If you want to connect, you can find me on all the social media sites Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn where I share more tips, resources and real talk. And hey, if this episode made you laugh out loud or feel a little less alone, why not buy me a coffee? Just click the link in the show notes. It's a small way to show your support and keep this podcast going Take care of yourself. Today You're doing an amazing job.