The Foundry is a neurodiversity-affirming vocational and sensory-regulation program for autistic and ADHD adults — founded and led by people with that lived experience. Real trades. Real wages. An environment engineered for real nervous systems.
The goal: a 20,000 sq ft community-integrated facility — funded by a working pilot, not a promise.
When special-education support ends at graduation, families fall off a cliff into long waitlists and low-expectation day programs. Meaningful, paid vocational options are scarce.
The federal HCBS Settings Rule and Ohio's Employment First policy are moving funding away from segregated, facility-based programs — toward community-integrated, competitive-wage models.
That shift creates demand for exactly what almost no one is building: a high-expectation, integrated, dignity-first program that meets the rule instead of retrofitting to it.
Genuine trades, taught in a space engineered for sensory regulation, with a research arm measuring what works. Participants earn competitive wages for real production — supported by staff who share their lived experience.
CNC machining, DTF apparel printing, 3D printing, and artisan goods — the operating pilot (RuffCut Labs), producing sellable product today. Real skills, real market, real revenue from day one.
Hydroponics & horticulture — a growing job market and a real earned-revenue line.
Food production and commercial facilities/hygiene — in-demand skills, contract revenue, dignity in real work.
OT-designed regulation and decompression spaces built into the workflow — proactive, not punitive.
Lighting, acoustics, and biometric-informed supports that adjust the space to the person — always participant-controlled.
An IRB-governed research arm turns lived practice into published, reimbursable, replicable outcomes — the thing conventional programs don't have.
The methodology (F1P) runs today — validated on a real household and a real operating studio, behind a founder who can already bill for services. The facility is what the proven model earns.
The single hardest-to-replicate asset — active Medicaid billing capability on day one.
The pilot fabrication studio is operating and producing product now — the lowest-risk possible start.
Biometric-informed regulation (the WALKMAN platform) building the outcome data funders and clinicians trust.
Add participants and billing structure to the already-running RuffCut studio. Prove the per-participant economics with real Medicaid revenue and earned product income.
With pilot outcomes in hand, pursue a major facility grant (~$800K+) — no debt, no equity, backed by local support.
Build out the full 20,000 sq ft community-integrated facility; the IRB-approved study goes live.
Founder LISW licensure brings the regulation methodology under evidence-based clinical practice and expands billable services.
Diagnosed with ADHD as a child and repeatedly across four decades, with a formal adult autism assessment underway, Brock builds The Foundry from inside the experience. He is an approved Ohio DODD Medicaid provider, the father of neurodivergent children, and a builder by trade — with the rare combination of lived understanding and the technical capacity to build the very tools the model runs on. The Foundry is the program he and his family needed and could not find.
We're seeking grant partners, letters of support, and mission-aligned allies for the pilot and the 2029 facility. If you fund disability services, workforce development, or neurodiversity — or you simply want to help — start here.