Hello and welcome to The Neurodivergent Social Worker.
Over the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring what role we play individually and as a social work community in facilitating psychologically safe working environments for neurodivergent social workers.
This naturally led me to write this current blog. From my experience as a neurodivergent social worker, the induction period to a new job would set the baseline of how psychologically safe I felt (be it the NHS, Local Authority or the voluntary sector).
This is because induction periods enable me to observe how the team I am working with supports one another – a real-life test of Dr. Timothy Clark’s 4 stages of psychological safety: Inclusion Safety, Learner Safety, Contributor Safety and Challenger Safety. It also enables me to observe the team's attitude towards neurodiversity.
Are they curious about neurodivergence? Are they interested in its impact? How does it present? Have they made judgements?
We, as a society and a profession, are talking more about neurodiversity and raising awareness of the living experiences of neurodivergent social workers. Therefore, it is important that we are making real-world adaptions to support the sharing of living experiences and to change the system to meet all neurological needs and profiles.
This blog is aimed at all neurodivergent profiles (ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, OCD and acquired etc), however, I may pull it back to my experience of being Dyslexic and Dyspraxic in the workplace in order to share living/lived experience and context.
It is my hope that this blog will support you in reflecting on how you can adapt your induction period – encouraging you to take the steps needed to change the neurotypical systems and make the workplace accessible and less harmful to neurodivergent social workers.
What does it mean to be neurodivergent?
Neurodiversity referrers to the different ways the brain processes and functions. there is no single “normal” or “healthy” type of brain or mind or single “right” style of neurocognitive functioning just the same as there is no right or “normal” or “right” gender, race, age.
You might be described as neurotypical if your brain develops and functions in ways that are considered usual or expected. You would be described as neurodivergent if your brain does not develop of function in ways that are considered usual or expected.
It is estimated that one in seven of the UK population are believed to have some sort of neurodivergence such as Autism, Dyslexia or ADHD.
How does this impact the workplace?
Workplaces were but by neurotypical people for neurotypical people. The workplace can be similar to education in that a lot of the processing and auditing of our work is standardised – there is little room for different ways of working or creativity.
We have trade-offs with our neurological differences; however, we are not supported to work to our strengths – instead the standardised way of working usually relies on what we find challenging.
Because our brains work differently from the neurotypical normalised and standardised workplace structures, work can be an exhausting space for neurodivergent social workers.
If neurodivergent people are not supported in the workplace, this can lead to “masking of behaviour” and incredible stress for the employee and importantly the organisation will never get the best from them.
In episode 2, we will explore what an indication period is and begin to explore two out of six ways employers can adapt their induction periods. Check in again next week!!
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