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In this episode, Steve is joined by Rhiannon Goff, founder of SENDA (Special Educational Needs and Disability Advisors) and a financial adviser with 26 years of experience, the last 10 of which she has spent working exclusively with families who have a child or relative with special needs.

The traditional financial planning playbook assumes a future of independence: get money into the client's hands, maximise their inheritance, plan towards their retirement. For around one in five children in England, that playbook can quietly do harm. Inheritance can wipe out means-tested care. Junior ISAs that mature at 18 can disqualify someone from support. And money in the wrong hands can turn an already vulnerable person into a target.

This episode looks at what financial planning actually has to look like when the person at the centre of the plan might be non-verbal, dependent on means-tested care, or at risk of exploitation — and why this work shouldn't sit on the periphery of the profession.

In this conversation, you'll hear about:

• Rhiannon's personal route into the field via her 16-year-old son Tristan, who has complex autism and is non-verbal, and how that lived experience shaped her practice.
• The ARC framework — Access, Risk and Care — and why every special needs financial plan has to be tested against all three.
• Why the natural estate planning instinct (get the money to the child) can be the single most damaging move a family makes.
• The role of trusts in special needs planning, particularly discretionary and disabled or vulnerable person's trusts, and how they protect against the "three harms".
• "Mate crime" — financial exploitation by people who befriend a vulnerable person — and why protection has to be balanced against autonomy.
• Why Junior ISAs are usually the wrong vehicle for a child with complex needs, including a real-world story involving a car auction, four bangers and a cul-de-sac.
• Steve's lived experience as a brother to someone with similar needs, and how his family has navigated bank limits and the tension between protection and independence.
• The importance of building "a team to carry on" — solicitors, trustees, accountants, planners and family — before the parents' hand is forced.
• How to find the right professionals: looking for TEP (Trust and Estate Practitioner) members, vulnerable client experience, and links to professional trustee corporations.
• The launch of SENDA in 2024, the LIBF-accredited foundation course now available for financial planners, and the community Rhiannon is building to support both advisers and families.
• Rhiannon's closing call: be ambitious. Don't plan around what someone can't do — plan towards what they can.

Key takeaway:

Rhiannon's argument is that special needs planning isn't a niche corner of the profession — it's a field where standard financial planning instincts can actively cause harm if applied without thought. The damage is rarely about bad intentions; it's about gaps in knowledge, professionals working in silos, and well-meaning grandparents funnelling money into vehicles that quietly disqualify a young person from the care they need. The fix is genuine collaboration, the right qualifications, and a mindset shift towards ambitious, hopeful planning. Build the team while you still can, look forward not back, and signpost to the right specialist even if you're not one yourself.