That all changed after the birth of our 2nd child, Daniel. Even in the early days things were very difficult, and in 2009 a Health Visitor began the referral process for Daniel to be assessed for Autism.

Two years passed in a blur of appointments, sensory overwhelm, and meltdowns and ended with an Autism diagnosis for Daniel and Aspergers for Simon. As time went on, Daniel’s needs became so great that Simon left work and his studies to join Sarah in juggling Daniel’s care needs and the needs of the family as a whole.

Later, as we began to understand more about Neurodiversity, to manage its challenges and celebrate its positives, we began looking to the future. Particularly, what kind of employment could support our family, meet neurodiversity needs and be flexible enough to accommodate the logistics of the almost inevitable, unpredictable school attendance of an SEN child at school.

It quickly became clear that self-employment would be the only sustainable option for our family and after exploring a number of hairbrained ideas, chocolate fell into our lap, completely out of the blue.