ADHD Guide: Access to Work Online Application

Access to Work is a government initiative that provides financial support for people with long-term health conditions or disabilities, including ADHD. Sometimes Government forms can feel intimidating and can stop people from taking the steps required to get the help they are entitled to.

This guide is designed to be a step by step tutorial for filling in the online application form for Access to Work. If you want to get started, you can apply here and follow the steps.

Step 1: Get started

It will make it easier when doing the application to have everything to hand that you need. This page makes it simple to understand what you will require through the various steps of the application. Once you feel you have everything you can get started by clicking "Start now".

Step 2: Eligibility

This is to check you fit the criteria for receiving the grant in the first place. You need to be able to click all four of these boxes to ensure you are eligible for the grant so think carefully that each of these do in fact apply to you.

Step 3: Eligibility

This is the continuation of eligibility and it relates to those that work in the civil service. If you work in the civil service you are not eligible to receive your support via the Access to Work Scheme. This is because you can access the support directly via your employer without a need to use this particular scheme. In short, those that work for the civil service are not eligible. If that isn't you, go ahead and click no and continue.

Step 4: About you

The next step is all really simple stuff about you including your name, Date of Birth and address.

Step 5: Contact Info

Next they want to know if you would rather be contacted as part of your application or if there is somebody else you would like to be contacted on your behalf. This is useful if you disability requires support from another person. Then you will require an email address / phone number. In addition you will need to let them know the best time to be contacted to ensure they catch you at the right time.  

Step 6: Your Condition

At this stage all you need to state is the condition or conditions that you live with. These do not need to be officially diagnosed. As an example you could have both ADHD and Dyslexia. Or a physical and a mental disability. Important to note that this isn't the step to talk about how it impacts your job. That comes next...

Step 7: You Condition (how it affects you)

This is an important step so take your time when completing it. The entire reason for applying for the Access to Work scheme is because you require additional support to do your job effectively. They need to know exactly how your condition impacts your day to day working life. A few examples of how ADHD could impact your working life:

• Forgetfulness: can't remember when things are supposed to be completed or forget things entirely
• Task management: overwhelmed with prioritising which tasks need to be done when
• Stress management: overwhelm leading to stress day to day which impacts productivity
• Focus: struggling to keep focussed on one thing at a time without becoming distracted
• Sensory overload: too many people talking in the office leads to distraction and an inability to focus
• Financial stress: struggle to manage your money effectively and this leads to stress in the workplace.

The list above isn't all encompassing and is just giving some examples of how you may like to discuss the impact of your disability.

Step 8: Employment

You need to be employed (or about to be employed) to be able to use the Access to Work scheme and this next step is all about your employment status.

Pay close attention to the job description section. You duties will need to broadly match with the list of ways your disability impact your work that you wrote in an earlier section. For example, if you claimed distraction from others was an issue but it's clear from your job description you work alone, this would be contradictory.

You might need to Google your employers office address for this section if you don't have it to hand.

Next you will need to detail the person they need to engage with at your workplace. This could be someone in HR or a manager at work.

Step 9: What are you asking for?

The final step is where you detail the support you would ideally like to have access to and funding for. This can range from equipment all the way to a support worker or support travelling to work. Take the time to really think about what would make your life easier and you more productive. Is there a list of equipment you can't afford that would make a difference? Is there software or apps that would help? This is the section to detail everything.

And that's it! Note that you can be waiting quite a while from application to having an interview with somebody. Following the interview though things move fairly quickly but you will need to be patient with this process.