Our goal is to design a scalable, affordable, care and support pathway which meets the needs of children and young people - and their families - in advance of receiving a clinical diagnosis. The system will match user descriptions of their own needs with tailored recommendations of evidence-based self-service supports, free at the point of use. In a NutshellThis project is a partnership between the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre, our charity partners Mindroom and NHS Lothian. We have been funded by the Scottish Government for Phase 1 of the project which is underway in 2026. Right now we are gathering all the info we need to build the Neurodiversity Gateway and if you're a parent or carer of a neurodivergent child or young person*, we need your help! *including if they don't have a diagnosis! How to get involved in the project Make a recommendation for a community support you found useful. e.g. a webinar, helpline, downloadable resource or app Suggestion Box If you are a parent or carer of one or more neurodivergent children, join a focus group Express your interest About the projectScottish Government policy is that support for neurodivergent young people should be available prior to diagnosis. A recent letter from Child Heads of Psychology Services to Clare Haughey MSP calls for “Provision of tailored needs-based support at the earliest stage possible, with no barriers in place to receive this.” However, an integrated health, social care & education service designed to meet these needs is currently lacking. As a result, waiting lists for neurodevelopmental assessment are very long, services are overwhelmed by demand, and young people experience significant distress. Our goal is to design a care and support pathway which meets needs in advance of receiving a clinical diagnosis. It needs to be scalable and affordable, so introducing this new type of support doesn't take resource away from services that are already over-stretched. The Neurodiversity Gateway will gather information from parents / carers and later young people themselves, to get a picture of their unmet needsuse a machine learning algorithm, to make tailored recommendations of evidence-based self-service supports, all of which are free at the point of use, with no waiting list. use AI-supported reports to help share those recommendations with schools and other service providerscollect feedback from parents / carers and their young people, so the system keeps improving and makes better and better recommendations.What's happening now?Phase 1 of this project has been funded by Scottish Government with deliverables expected in December 2026. This will focus on coproduction of the initial question set for characterising unmet needscreation of a menu of potential community supports, along with an agreed framework for evaluating novel supports for future inclusion on that menuconsultation with families to understand any concerns they have about the plan, and how to make it as trustworthy and useful as possiblemapping the governance and permissions needed to integrate this within NHS services, starting in NHS Lothian but aiming to make this a national provisionPhase 2 will build the algorithm needed to connect these two elements. Phase 3 focuses on testing and refinement, as well as integration with schools. And Phase 4 will be a pilot roll-out and plan for national expansion if success criteria are met. Primary Project ContactContact us on salvesenresearch@ed.ac.uk Funder and CollaboratorsMindroomNHS LothianScottish Government This article was published on Tuesday 27 May 2025
