Welcome to Episode 3 of the #ExploringNeurodiversity podcast, a co-produced podcast mini-series brought to you by @FENews and @Cognassist.

In this episode your hosts Gavin O’Meara from FE News and Louise Karwowski, Head of Science at Cognassist are joined by Karl Bentley from RSM to discuss Neurodiversity Funding Fears. Karl has over 20 years in the FE sector and is a funding, data and audit specialist.

We explore what additional funding is available to support Neurodiverse learners and how the funding is available to support all learners from levels 2-7.

Louise explains that from over 100,000 learner assessments completed so far at Cognassist, that on average one in three Apprenticeship learners at level 3, are being identified as requiring additional support for Neurodiversity. So this is a massive challenge and need and highlights the importance of providers utilising the additional funding to support their Neurodiverse learners.

Karl and Louise then explore why Training Providers and Colleges could be hesitant to take this additional funding due to funding clawback. Karl shares some best practice tips to evidence additional support for Neurodiverse learners, particularly around Assessment of Need, Planning and Evidence of Activity for the learner.

Karl explains how colleges and providers should evidence additional learning for Neurodiverse learners and the importance of all of the team working together to evidence additional support and the importance of quality compliance. Karl also explains the importance of data, how long to keep the data for each learner, data security and the importance of planning for the long term security of your data.

We then explore what an actual Audit looks like and what an auditor will be asking for and how to start preparing the evidence and impact of the additional funding support for learners.