1. Psychological Safety for Neurodivergent Social Workers - A Series Introduction

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As an organisation or manager, one of your top priorities is to support your social workers/employees to feel safe, seen and understood. For your neurodivergent employees, like me, this feels more important than ever.

After a long wait, it feels as though a light is slowly being directed towards our (neurodivergent employees) experiences in the workplace. Neurodivergent campaigners are leading this path through founding associations, challenging workplace policies and leading research. Most vulnerable and brave of all, we are sharing our stories in the hope to make a change toward an equal future.

We are hearing more stories of neurodivergent people’s experiences in the workplace. This ranges from people sharing their experiences of masking/unmasking, successfully or unsuccessfully getting reasonable adjustments, and the use of language colleagues/managers in the workplace.

However, I have noticed that alongside the rise in awareness and conversations, we are being encouraged by neurotypical voices to put our masks down and be our neurosparkly selves. Yet it feels difficult and like a leap of faith.

Despite this feeling, some of us have put our masks down from time to time. From my experience and talking with other neurodivergent social workers', putting our masks down has not been met with the same enthusiasm or acceptance from the neurotypical expectations, policies, structures and workplace norms that are currently in place.

We have shown up fully and been bet with confusion, rigidness, and a lack of curiosity. When we burn out from sensory overload, experience decision fatigue, or refuse to bend to the mould any further, we have been told we lack resilience.

As such, we are encouraged to become more resilient, we are told we should be more adaptable to difficult or adverse situations, we are compared to the performance/adaptability of our colleagues and encouraged to develop strategies. In short, we are told it is a problem within us and which only we can work on - a tone of individualism.

This is instead of managers/organisations taking responsibility for creating environments and building professional relationships which nurture a sense of belonging and safety.

However, it is not all doom and gloom, because once you/we know better through developing our knowledge and understanding, you/we can do better.

In this new five-part series, Psychological Safety for Neurodivergent Social Workers I hope that through sharing what I have learnt on my social work journey about the unquestionable importance of belonging and psychological safety at work.

The series will consist of 5 episodes exploring the following questions about psychological safety:

1. What is psychological safety?

2. Why is psychological safety important in general?

3. Why is psychological safety important to neurodivergent colleagues?

4. How do you know if you have a psychologically safe work environment?

5. What steps can be made to foster a psychologically safe environment?

So, if this introduction has pricked your ears or you are feeling curious about psychological safety and neurodiversity - check in weekly. Next, we will explore the question, what is psychological safety?