If you want to know more about what this years offer was or apply straight away (applications are usually open between May and August) go to this year’s page Mikel Rijsdijk memorial Grant – yearly offering
Why did I start a grant?
Access to education about neurodiversity and to help with our struggles is still too unevenly distributed!
As the founder of Brilliantly Diverse and co-founder of the Neurodiversity Education Academy, I, Saskia, was looking for a way to work with some clients in low-income situations. I truly believe everyone deserves a chance to benefit from what neuro-education and coaching have to offer. Especially neurodivergent people who may be struggling financially and are unable to afford the normal rates for training, coaching, or counseling, or the higher co-pay needed to access services in their area. And there are still people who cannot access normal services for fear of stigma and taboo. There is still way too much inequality in accessing diagnoses, neuro-education and help. I can’t diagnose anyone, but I can certainly offer education and coaching!
I was also looking for a way to pay tribute to the memory of my dear friend, Mikel Rijsdijk.
A Brilliantly Diverse person if ever I knew one, and – when he was feeling up to it – a master at holding space for difficult, deep conversations and emotions. He was broadly interested: in the sciences, the arts, and the humanities. He would love talking to various people about a wide range of subjects: fair working conditions, how fungi grow, what made a great movie, or how to live a life of authenticity. At the same time he loved his solitude, and having the space and time to create and make sense of things on his own.
He died of a brain tumor in 2018. This was just as I was making up my mind to jump in at the deep end. To explicitly expand my coaching practice to a neurodivergent client base. I wanted to go back to school, in order to offer the quality, and background knowledge I felt this work needed. He played a big part in me gathering up the courage to take that leap. I was terribly afraid of being more out about my own struggles and diagnosis. Yet at the same time, I felt I could not do this work properly without showing that vulnerability. The loss of Mikel showed me I had little time to waste.
Read a little more about how that turned out on this blog post reflecting on starting, and running, the grant https://www.brilliantlydiverse.com/grieving-and-taking-action/ as part of my grieving process
Freeing two birds with one key….
I continued to want to pay tribute somehow to the role Mikel played in all this. So in 2020 I decided I wanted to create a coaching grant. I launched it in 2021. This grant allows me to serve both these wishes of mine: paying tribute to my friend AND contributing to more access and education for those in need. It offers the recipients free access to (neuro) education I considered vital to my success, with a select package of courses on the Neurodiversity Education Academy. It also offers a taste of what coaching can do for you. As an added bonus grant receivers can benefit from a significant discount on my one-on-one coaching packages. The grant will evolve in its format over time as I explore new ways of how best to serve the people I want to reach.
About me…
I decided to become a coach for this specific clientele after discovering that I tended to attract neurodivergent clients. At the time I was working on building a career around my passions. And I found a lot of clients also stuck in their jobs and eager to pursue new possibilities, but somehow not making much progress on their own. Coaching seemed to help them immensely!
A few years after that I got an ADHD diagnosis myself. I got a lot of benefits from coaching, and from therapy. Both helped me to unpack the secondary damage.
If you want to know more about what this years offer was or apply straight away (applications are usually open between May and August ) go to this year’s page Mikel Rijsdijk memorial Grant – yearly offering
What is the secondary damage of not knowing you are neurodivergent?
Secondary damage is damage done by not knowing “what was wrong with me” that I could not function like everybody else. If we don’t know WHY things don’t work out, we tend to self-blame. And our confidence, our lives, and our relationships tend to suffer as a result. When we don’t know what is going on and WHY we don’t fit into the norm, our brain frantically searches for explanations. We can feel guilty, worthless, stupid, lazy or crazy for not being able to conform to society’s expectations. Even when we try our very best.
That does not mean you need a diagnosis to make your life better, even if the diagnosis is the turning point for some people. It does mean that these two things CAN really help you tackle problems and build the life you desire…
1) being willing to look at the reality of what is going on in your life –without applying outsiders’ standards, for now
2) getting VERY honest and curious about what works and about what does not
Detaching from the norm
Applying these strategies is generally beneficial for people. But neurodivergent people may need a little more friendly help than most detaching from the “norms” that don’t apply to them, but that they have been trying to live by nonetheless.
Realizing this I decided that I would pursue a certified coaching specialism, focused on neurodiversity. Specifically, because want to become proficient at helping to unpack this secondary damage and help people take control of their lives again.
If you want to know even more you can read more about me and my methods elsewhere on the site.
What does the GRANT actually offer?
This grant package is a little different every year but it usually consists of
- free access to certain paid courses and group coaching (with the help of the Neurodiversity Education Academy) during a period of time that roughly corresponds to one academic year.
- some free one-on-one coaching sessions to help integrate what you are learning and specifically work on the stuff that feels too tender for group sessions
*If we get a significant amount of applications we may award some partial grants that cover just the course materials.
To find out what the grant looks like for this year you can go to THIS LINK which will offer information on this year’s program as it it being executed, till May or June, when it should be updated to the grant offer open for applications and describe the program that will commence in September or October of that year.
If you want to know more about what this year’s offer was or apply straight away (applications are usually open between May and August ) go to this year’s page Mikel Rijsdijk memorial Grant – yearly offering
A BIG “Thank You! ” to my collaborators:
This grant has been made possible by the generous collaboration of the Neurodiversity Foundation – who consulted on its form and function and will hopefully help me reach many worthy applicants.
And the Neurodiversity Education Academy – which allowed me to offer some of my income-generating courses and materials to grant recipients for free.
If you want to know more about what this years offer was or apply straight away (applications are usually open between May and August) go to this year’s page Mikel Rijsdijk memorial Grant – yearly offering