About Michelle Shaw
I provide support across three connected areas:
- Advocacy & Systems Navigation
- Operational & Executive Functioning Support
- Creative Participation & Confidence Building
My work is centred around helping people function more sustainably — whether that means navigating systems, organising life and work, rebuilding structure after burnout, or reconnecting with confidence and participation.
As a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD woman, much of my work has been shaped by lived experience alongside years of supporting individuals, families, self-employed people, and organisations navigating overwhelm, complexity, and barriers to participation.
Over time, I began noticing the same patterns repeatedly:
- capable people struggling to sustain everyday demands
- businesses held together by exhausted humans
- people misunderstood because their difficulties were invisible
- systems expecting people to function without enough structure or support
- talented individuals losing confidence, momentum, or access to work because the operational side of life became too difficult to maintain
My work developed in response to those gaps.
Today, my services combine practical structure, operational support, advocacy-informed understanding, and creative confidence-building to help people move forward in ways that are realistic and sustainable.
Advocacy & Systems Navigation
Through Advocacy Bridge CIC, I support people who may be struggling to navigate services, communicate their needs, understand their rights, or take part fully in decisions affecting their lives.
This includes support around:
- communication barriers
- complex systems
- meetings and services
- understanding options
- neurodivergent-informed advocacy support
- reducing confusion and increasing clarity
Advocate • Translate • Navigate
Operational & Executive Functioning Support
Through Sorted + Supported, I provide practical operational support for people, businesses, work, and everyday life.
This support is designed for people who are capable, experienced, and often carrying significant responsibility — but struggling with organisation, follow-through, overwhelm, or maintaining sustainable structure across daily life and work.
Support may include:
- planning and prioritisation
- workflow and operational organisation
- executive functioning support
- accountability and body doubling
- work and self-employment support
- practical systems and structure
- reducing operational pressure and mental load
Organise • Plan • Integrate
Creative Participation & Confidence Building
Through Mischemix Academy, Want2DJ, Want2Speak, and Want2Dance, I provide personalised creative tuition and participation opportunities through music, movement, voice, and creative expression.
The focus is on helping people build:
- technical skills
- confidence
- communication
- participation
- self-expression
- creative identity
through practical, encouraging learning experiences.
Explore • Express • Present
My Approach
My work is practical, neurodivergent-informed, and grounded in real-world functioning.
I am particularly interested in the gap between:
- capability and capacity
- potential and sustainability
- intelligence and operational functioning
- participation and overwhelm
Across all areas of my work, the focus is not perfection.
The focus is helping people create more workable, sustainable ways of functioning, participating, communicating, and moving forward.
🧭 Where to Begin
If you’re unsure where you fit, that’s completely okay.
Start with a conversation — we’ll work out what’s needed from there.