Alex McGuinness – Connect Coaching

Alex McGuinness runs Connect Coaching, an online coaching practice for autistic, ADHD and otherwise neurodivergent adults and young people, alongside neuroinclusion training and consultancy for employers. The coaching suits people who are worn down from years of meeting expectations that were never designed around how they think, process and recover — including those just starting to explore a neurodivergent identity and professionals whose jobs have become hard to sustain. The aim is not to make anyone more typical but to understand their needs well enough to build routines and working conditions that fit.

Alex is autistic and has worked alongside neurodivergent people since 2008, in roles spanning self-advocacy coordination, employment and life-skills support, adult autism teaching, NHS employment work and student mentoring, before becoming a senior neuroinclusion coach at auticon and founding Connect Coaching in 2023. Alex is an EMCC-accredited coach at Senior Practitioner level, works under ongoing supervision, and draws on counselling-informed techniques, motivational interviewing, CBT-inspired approaches and positive psychology within a strengths-based framing grounded in the social model of disability. Sessions are paced around each client's energy.

Common themes include burnout and energy management, task initiation and organisation, masking, confidence, career decisions and asking for reasonable adjustments. Workplace support coaching focuses specifically on neurodivergent employees and can be arranged by individuals or their employers. For organisations, Alex offers training on adjustments, communication and neuroinclusive culture, and consultancy on policy and accessibility. All coaching is delivered online, so clients can be anywhere in the UK or abroad. A free introductory call comes first, and a waiting list operates when regular slots are full.