Autism, Employment and Neurodivergent discrimination

well happy september everyone i'm nat and i work at an organization called exceptional individuals if you aren't familiar with us we support people who are neurodivergent so dyslexia dyspraxia autism adhd etc etc and we help them get higher employment we also work with organizations to make them inclusive essentially the good a to z but today we are going to be focusing on autism and that's going to include everything from those who resonate with uh asperger's to those asc however you like to resonate or recognize it now as i said this is our lovely team what makes us particularly unique is that we are neurodivergent we are we do have autism we do have dyslexia and we teach people with our life experience as well as our professional and academic experiences so from recruitment order and here is some of our lovely team we've got a much bigger team now so i really do need to update this but we're a nice little bunch we're based in london but we work across the uk and we even do a bit here and there outside of the uk and we actually deliver these webinars every single week forever so if you are new today and you like today do check us out uh the one we did last week was the competitive dyslexic entrepreneur looking at why are there so many dyslexic entrepreneurs 40 of self-made millionaires are supposed to be dyslexic that's a ridiculous amount and we kind of go through that we dive in deep and i appreciate most people attending today probably will have autism but as we probably know that being neurodivergent is something which is very co-occurring so if you have one thing the likelihood of having another is really really high so we wouldn't be surprised and what we got here nice christian said uh i won my case and i knew of dyspraxia in 2018 and i got my autism 2021. oh nice stuff i was inspired by this case in belfast i will definitely check that out so first of all what is autism most people will know but it's one of those things where everyone has their own definition and diagnosis or way of resonating officially it's autism spectrum disorder asd but more and more people are saying autism spectrum condition because the word disorder has a lot of negative connotations but from a medical point of view it is used i mean i'd be curious to know how you will resonate with it do you use that term or do you use asperger's or is there another way that you prefer to be recognized do you go with first-person language um third-person i'm going to kind of go between all of them today so personally i prefer to say oh i'm autistic rather than a person with autism or a person living with autism but that is my personal preference um but if you have a different one completely fine okay we've got adrian uses asc not asd i think as an organization we are going more towards asc i think it depends on the context if we're talking about a clinical perspective maybe asd if we're talking from a societal social point of view as asc uh christian gifted nice um let's see what we got april says i just use the term autism me too uh unite requires me to say person with autism i always use autistic worker interesting you know each organization will have their own agreed terms it's quite difficult because say someone dyslexia might say oh a person with dyslexia but most people from my experience with autism prefer to say autism first you know it's one of those things i think is going to continuously change and isn't particularly fluid but the most important thing is just listening to people and kind of responding accordingly urani says i used to manage a large team with staff with all different abilities so i like to learn about how to use terms that best support my staff well the short answer is listen to the team ask them what works for them and kind of adapt accordingly the longer answer is if officially autism spectrum disorder is the official one so you can i won't say you can't go wrong with it but that is the base one and then adjust it according to the people around you we've got in 2017 this disabled job application won this case oh nice do keep those cases coming because they're always interesting to dive in deep as an organization we often help people going through tribunals disagreement passing probation so we have really seen some pretty horrendous cases but also ones that haven't been that stressful so it's a mixed bag now a quick thing how many people are fought to have ase in the world are we looking at one percent of the population two percent three percent five and this is a controversial one because where do you get your stats from i got it from who uh the worldwide health organization i believe they underplay it so the correct well correct answer is one percent now that is the going average in the us it's about 2.5 percent they say in the uk it varies some say we used to be about 100 100 others might say one in like 50 is one of these numbers which is continuously in flux but what i will say is certain areas certain populations certain professions will have a higher percentage and also stats are continuously changing if you look at the graph of the amount of people who were diagnosed it has skyrocketed is it a pandemic no it's just we're getting better at diagnosing and better at understanding people so to those who said three percent it very well may be the next one is are certain groups more likely to be autistic male or female and this is important to know because when we think of discrimination we always come up with this idea in our head of what that individual might look like when we say the word autistic but that doesn't mean that is the only demographic which is able to be autistic and can be discriminated against so most viewers said males and yeah it is you are more likely to have autism and be male now is that because males are naturally more likely or is it due to how people are perceived and seen is it about masking is it about how when the standard of autism was being created it was great for a male perspective it is that one and it's the way how it manifests and shows itself is very different so someone with a mild to moderate understanding of autism at very best will understand the qualities that males demonstrate rather than the one that females do so today has there been many cases with female and autism who went on to tribunal not that many but that doesn't mean that those people aren't being discriminated against it doesn't mean that they don't require support but it's harder because you need some case examples in order to gain momentum they can refer back to christian says we are more proud to disclose i think we are getting that way and different demographics different religions different beliefs faith all those things there is like different highs and ups the sad truth is if you're white and male you're more likely to be autistic not because of genetics but because of society and you will see that reflected in some of the research today oh here is a battered prawn so can you stop being autistic yes no sometimes this might seem a bit of an obvious question but it's more complicated than you would think because when you look at autism we normally think of it as a childhood condition but most of us will know that it is lifelong is something you have for your whole life then why do we not see autism as much in adults many many reasons one we learn to mask we learn to fake it till we make it but then we have to continue it another one is people who are currently adults today are less likely to have a diagnosis so we have this kind of skewed reality on those who are autistic and those who are not you can learn to manage your characteristics you can learn to adapt certain quirks or intrinsicities like you can change certain elements but that's not getting rid of it that's adapting that's learning that's growing that's masking so no you cannot stop being autistic but you can support someone with autism to better navigate the world we live in so we've got i say autistic children become autistic adults but yes we learn so symptoms might be less as we grow up to absolutely so this little prawn is a not stopping so we'll go next so here's a couple true or false false and with some of these there's a right answer some there's a wrong answer some it's debatable but the first one is autism a disability yes or no is it disabling and i know what you'll probably say that it can't be you know yes or no binary non-binary one or zero but just for argument's sake because when it comes to law things like to be black and white because is autism covered under the equality act and i appreciate some of you may not be from the uk but most people have like similar laws particularly in western countries and autism is automatically protected against disability discrimination so sarah says the environment we live in makes it disabling you are very right sarah and i think autism is a tough one because it is a big spectrum for some people it is incredibly debilitating and it can impact every element of their life for other people it might be in certain situations or when they're stressed when they're under a lot of pressure so it can vary but as a whole it is it is a disability because if it is a disability you are covered under the equality act and it means you are entitled to support if you don't consider a disability it's harder to get the support that you would really benefit from but it's not a disability because there's many strengths to it if society was perfect if we lived in this utopia would it necessarily be arguably not it is a bit more complex because you know we all resonate at different things maybe when we were younger it was disabling now it's empowering or maybe we go through stages of our life where we love it where we hate it we wish we'd get rid of it where we wouldn't have our lives anyway but so it does change priscilla says this is why pip assessments discriminate against neurodivergent people as it doesn't account for context masking or fluctuation you're absolutely right christian says you can only use your gifts when you're diagnosed use your diagnosis to have a better life never be blocked in life extra ability absolutely and we've got adrian says the problem is that the medical model requires the triad of impairments for diagnosis the dcmv et cetera yeah we are going to be looking at the diagnostic it's just um thingy of uh mental disorders i'm reading that at the moment what a book it's a bit dry but really useful and yes the triad of impairment we've discussed previously but this is a model which describes like if you have those three things you are having autism but there's been a lot of debate and a lot of fluctuation you know is that really what it is it's always changing but it's a good start and yeah so dsm five is compared to four three two one and seeing how it's changed over the years is also really interesting our understanding of autism has grown rapidly so it is a very fast-moving industry industry i guess it might be in some ways but you know what i mean so let's see which ones were right which ones were wrong yes autism is a disability and that doesn't mean that it has to be disabling for everything you do in life but when it comes to a legal perspective it's a disability and that is a good thing but that doesn't mean that we can't work for a more inclusive world is it covered under the equality act yes it is now autism is automatically protected against disability discrimination so it isn't how it isn't outlined in the equality act it's one of those kind of like asterisk things it has always been accepted but it's not explicitly accepted so for if you're looking for like a really easy answer yes it does count it is accepted it is covered but if you're looking for the small print no and this is why tribunals and cases are really important because those are the things we use as a benchmark as something we use to compare well this is how this went in another situation so i think this should be the answer we're looking at this time rather than a hard and fast rule the new quality act if no one knows about it it's a great piece of legislation that got kind of updated in 2010 and it's basically saying there are some protected characteristics and groups which we must look after and make sure that people do not discriminate you now discrimination could look like not giving you a job treating you different giving different opportunities but they include things like age discrimination uh disability discrimination gender reassignment race religion sex orientation pregnancy civil marriages all of those now for autism as well as the other neurodivergences they would come under disability but as most of us know if you have one of these you might also have another one and that might increase the likelihood of discrimination so let's say your black female and have autism if you're being discriminated against how do you know what it is because and if it's a mix of them does that make it easier or harder well some of the cases have shown that it can make it harder to kind of pinpoint the more black and white things are the easier it is to prove but we all know that life isn't that simple so employee discrimination have you ever felt discriminated so this is made to feel bad for being who you are or put as a disadvantage for something you cannot help harder definitionally law have not updated enough to include intersectionality issues you're completely right so on here we've got have you been discriminated at during recruitment oh very balanced at the moment have you been discriminated against when it comes to seeking a promotion have you wanted to rise up in the ranks but maybe someone or i don't think you can do this maybe it's in training or bullied oh funny dude to dyslexia my bad i am dyslexic by the way so sometimes i've got like freudian slip so convert that to autism and what we've got here so christian says someone with autism is a king or queen without a castle we need reasonable adjustments to build our castle as we need help from others to put the stones bricks in place or to build our castles so we have a safe life in our castle i like that analogy it's a nice image priscilla says i definitely have been discriminated in almost all jobs really sorry to hear that naomi says at all stages i have been discriminated against geeks honestly when i hear these stories they do hurt and it's so difficult isn't it because is it conscious discrimination or unconscious discrimination i like to think if you know more often than not people don't do it intentionally it might be due to lack of education um just ignorance a whole heap of reasons but sometimes it is intentional and i think maybe they're both bad but one i think hits a little harder so here's a quick definition for you on reasonable adjustments when you look at tribunals and cases um the word reasonable adjustment comes into play a lot uh so have you implemented reasonable adjustments in order to support someone with a protected characteristic under the equality act 2010 such as autism well reasonable great we're starting off with an ambiguous term what does it mean to be reasonable well okay if you are over stimulated by loud noises is it reasonable to give someone an office of their own well if there's plenty of offices going spare yeah if there's no room for an office no if you need to bulldoze a building and make a brand new one no typically it comes down to is it going to have a negative or disruptive effect to the organization or other staff included that's typically what it comes down to so let's say you the organization could not afford the adjustments you need that might be considered unreasonable but if it's just say having a more frequent one-to-one if it's something which really isn't going to damage the company absolutely and i think this image is always a good way to show what equality is the quality of stuff isn't about giving everyone the same opportunities it's about appreciating that we're all different and given us the adjustments that allow us to have the same opportunities kinda worded clunkily but hopefully you get what i mean so reasonable adjustments in this case is changes to working conditions it could be equipment it could be duties it could be hours and most people would have seen would have received reasonable adjustments when it comes to like say you've got a bad back you'd have like a special chair your wrist hurts you'll have like a special keyboard but when it comes to autism we don't get anything and we still need support because our brains are working extra fast and they can burn out so being able to have those adjustments in place early on makes a massive massive difference so often these things are not put in place when they are recommended and that is what leads to um settlements and people having to pay and kind of go into court because it wasn't acted in a fast enough time all right let's see what we've got in the comments okay sarah says i think there are stages of intention and therefore stages of actions that could be taken yep adrian says yes but reasonable is a weasel word yeah michaela says if i am told i cannot rent a flat privately due to being unemployed due to being disabled mental health is that going against the equality act yes if someone says you cannot do it due to a protected characteristic absolutely you need to get it in writing or something otherwise it's just you against them um i'm not an expert but well i'm not a lawyer by the way so this is not legal advice this is us just having a discussion you know fyi nice christian has sent a document on reasonable adjustments i oh i'll download that that looks interesting uh we've got yes a lot of workarounds with reasonable that employers take advantage of it's about quality not it's about all equality not equal sorry terrible pronunciation so many organizations are not equipped to handle reasonable adjustments that are not very obvious hello good to see you nat how would i get it in writing good question and good to see you too i would you know via email i you know i don't want to be that person who encourages you to monitor and record everything but you have to get it in writing in an email ideally i will all get multiple other people to be witness to it otherwise you know these things going through these horrible processes aren't nice and i wouldn't recommend them unless you feel is worthwhile for you and you think there's a good chance yarny says the nhs is supposed to be a caring business it was so difficult as a manager to be forced to focus on targets and not your staff i couldn't agree with this and found it so frustrating well i'm sorry to hear that if there's one thing i've learned since working with organizations last several years is that there's not really such thing as an inclusive organization there's inclusive managers and inclusive people within the company that's a bit of a shame but it gives me hope that it takes a lot of looking around until you find the place you feel most comfortable in so here's our first case that i want to discuss so compensation for disability discrimination this is the case which i'm not sure if any of you have heard of it was first report in 2019 and there was this young woman called penny and she worked for the mod the ministry of defense she was diagnosed with asperger's uh when she was younger and she applied for this new role within the mod so she already worked in the mod and she applied for a new role she had to pass a particular test a situational judgment test i don't know if any of you have ever done these tests they're not great they say in this scenario what would you do c d and they're looking for a very particular way of thinking so they're not really looking for neurodiverse variation within their team she failed this test because her brain doesn't work that way and despite showing a very strong experience and knowledge of the job she didn't get it but everything up to that point would say otherwise that she was a great candidate for this the mod was not prepared to waiver the test so they said hi you know i this test isn't working for me i need some adjustments and they said nope we're not going to so penny raised a graveyards the test made it more difficult for people with asd and this was backed up by many many other professionals and despite that they still weren't willing to make these adjustments despite her fitting the job role perfectly adjustments should have been offered there were many different ways that they could have made it more inclusive it wasn't that this was not possible it was more that they weren't willing to make these adjustments this case was kept was settled like for money just a few days before it went to court and i think that is very very telling when someone like they get scared because the mod knew they were going to lose they knew they were in the wrong and i have seen this time and time again with different government departments particularly like civil service the way they kind of measure competence is a way which isn't doesn't put neurodivergent individuals in the best light yoni says i bet they didn't give it by giving her the job no they did not and i think to be i think she didn't actually want the job after that it's a difficult one it's tough because what they do they look at the percentage like okay if there were reasonable adjustments in place what was the percentage-wise of how likely they would be to receive the job and that is normally how they kind of determine how much money to give but money is nothing you know this poor person's self-esteem must have been severely knocked and what a stressful thing to go through it's also the same difficulty with asking two open questions and job interviews absolutely or not having the questions to begin with april says i think i took an sjt when i applied for a role in a phone shop once but it i didn't get the job oh yeah i mean i really struggled with it i've had those similar tests before and i failed them every time i even write i'm really good at woodwork don't want to brag i'm good with tools and i applied for a job about being cute i would have been perfect at that job but i didn't get the job because i failed their judgment test it's really unfair because they're not looking at individuals they're looking at numbers money doesn't cover the time energy distress and the heartbreak you feel when you are discriminated against thanks naomi and i agree with you people think that we do this just for a quick cash grab oh i wish no this is an ordeal to go through so a quick thing what do you think an employer's duty to reasonable adjustments should be like how far should they go should they go to the ends of the earth you know should they at least acknowledge it you know where's the line because the word reasonable is so bloody vague how would an employer know where their thing starts and where it finishes is it up to the individual is it up to the manager is it up to the regional managers or is up to the ceo who really holds the responsibility here or is it the shareholders because i find most people pass on responsibility like not my problem is it hr's issue we've got make the tests more accessible for people with autism and other types of neurodiversity absolutely have it on paper already what can you do i hate when they put the emphasis on us you should have these things in place already being sexist is used to be the main on the clapham on your bus uh decides what it is reasonable uh discuss with employees what would work yes definitely i think have an open discussion for me i always like the idea of having like a menu of things that have worked for other people in the past but still has that element of flexibility where you can still add your own spin on it oh i don't know that example the on your bus i'm sorry i'm pronouncing that wrong name he says follow the law and not discriminate as a minimum everyone is responsible we all have lives and work together i agree as a manager you can agree adjustments but they but then have them declined by senior management or hr even if you justified a decision that is true with these bigger organizations it is tough like whoever said that i do not think today is about bashing managers or hr absolutely not we are a team and we're working together and it's so easy to put the blame on a single individual because you are the person who's having to say no at the end of the day when actually it's a much much bigger uh issue so it's really not black and white at all we've got review any adjustments ask for feedback and don't assume that the first thing you try will work yes i like that a lot often people say all right we've done the reasonable adjustment we don't need to do any more job done it's an ongoing process to find what works for you so yeah absolutely uh spot on that i think this would be a good time now before i go any further like uh christian sorry wasn't you who said you had an example yeah i won my case said an unemployment tribunal for a job application in 2018 where i asked for an oral application because it was an online and the company refused how was that it was four years i haven't had the money any money yet but in november i get some money hopefully but there might be a point i'd be more nobody knows but the one that took the inspiration i took was from the bt versus mir in 2018 he was uh autistic guy he was 23 he tried to get a job in belfast and basically bt blocked him in the application process he won his tribunal he went they went to appeal and they lost the appeal so he got 18 grand for a one job application with a 22 chance of success in that graduate role and he was a specialist in 19. we are actually going to be talking about that later on so yeah good summer he's he's he's the best for any autistic person to think differently towards what is reasonable what is not and what is the point of having reasonable adjustments and asking for help if people block you bring it to the judge every time bring it to the judge let the judge decide the problem you're not here in life to make friends you're here in life to be a go on a journey and if anyone blocks your journey bring it to the judge and then your children and everyone else who's artistic after you will have a better life you're completely right there christian and thank you for sharing that i totally agree because when i was talking about the equality act earlier on it there is it's too great so your best bet is by looking at previous case examples and saying this is how the judge favored it so i think you're right and in terms of the key go-to that case is really influential um and for those of you who aren't aware of it we are going to be talking about that shortly so just moving on to the next bit what if my autism isn't severe enough to be a disability and i know most of you will be like what do you mean this isn't my words this is things that i've heard before from employers or it might be that whole imposter syndrome like because we know autism is such a big spectrum we always think well does mine count you know there's other people have it worse you know should i make a deal about this absolutely it doesn't matter how it affects you the fact is things require more effort than others for you and if you don't have the right support in place burnout is going to happen sooner or later it's not a surprise that people with autism are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety so do not like down play it sometimes i feel a bit of a con artist for saying i have autism because i know other people struggle so more and i think by acknowledging i have my own needs and i need support i'm not underplaying other people's views and experiences we'd be made to kind of feel bad for saying we need help just because there's other people who arguably need help more or in a different way but i'd love to know your thoughts on that so employers should offer support if required this is the go-to if someone has asked for support give them support but also if someone hasn't asked for support and it is clear that they would benefit from support you are still obliged to offer some support when someone doesn't say they need support that's when it gets a little bit harder but it is still best practice to give the support anyway failure is a breach of trust and confidence so regardless of the legal ramifications you are really gonna damage the culture in the organization constructed dismissal may be claimed people can make these claims and they do and they win no one wants to go through it it's not good for the individual's well-being and it's not good for the company's reputation and the employer could be in breach of health and safety so we talk about the discrimination act the equality act a lot but that's not the only act you can use for reference it can also be health and safety there's also other ones in mind as well so even if for whatever reason you think you might not be successful under one legislation that doesn't mean that there isn't another one which would also fall into because as we know autism isn't a singular condition it's something which affects every single aspect of your life so it naturally goes in all directions naomi has just said constructive dismissal only works if you have been employed for two years or more by the same employer thanks for that it's really useful we've got the problem is that employers have been told about the disability to be required to make reasonable adjustments insert there are instances where you that's not always true but probably eight times out of ten yes that is sarah says burn out from under diagnosed autism and the masking this leads to years actually nearly killed me that's because of a secondary physical issue that was equally undiagnosed crohn's disease never mind the major period of depression before and since don't mean to sound like a downer don't worry your experience is really valued love my life and and happy however i wanted to make the point that having to mask which many more women do is hugely dangerous and i agree with you you know it's important because like christian said earlier that we're doing this for others you know so other people have an easier life and existence just being content and happy you know is what we would all want so thank you for sharing that all right so here is another case example which i thought was really interesting so this is when an analyst won a discrimination claim an autistic analyst won a claim for indirect disability discrimination and i'm going to walk you past through this case to hopefully bring it to life it has been simplified a judge ruled that npower had a continuous management failure so this was an example of an analyst who worked at npower a power company and how they failed him and how they sued for discrimination and won sherbourne he had an open planned office and he felt very overwhelmed so this is an autistic individual who worked in an office so this individual worked at an organization in power and they had an open planned office and in this organization it was noisy there was pe people like his back was facing people walking behind him all day and it was just stressful it was overwhelming there was different sounds there was different noises and within the first week his manager said this isn't good enough you're you're being lazy you're being disruptive you're agitated i was already making the person feel sad so the person kind of said you know this doesn't work for me i need help and the person i think a quote from the organization will sonic along the lines of we're not here to wipe your ass which refers to the person like being babysitted and it's because the reasonable adjustments were not made now the person went to an occupational therapist they had their own personal like doctor and they all said you've got an anxiety disorder and if you were to have an autism assessment it'd be very very likely that you would have autism and as a result they gave a list of recommendations and the person went back to the office and gave those recommendations now those recommendations were annoyed were ignored so the person decided i can't do this this is really affecting me and they ended up having to go off work sick and they led to thoughts of depression suicidal like nature's like it got really dark so they went um you know took it to court and though npower really argued that no you know there wasn't any proof it was like here say because the person had recommendations and those recommendations weren't acted on in the slightest that's one of the reasons why they were able to win now this could have gone really different so say someone made reasonable adjustments or acknowledged it but it was totally disregarded and the manager who was part of the issue in this accepted that all the reasonable adjustments could have been implemented but were not and that is what kind of turned this case around so if someone has put adjustments in place and they're still struggling the organization might be in their right to say this isn't the right role for you but on this occasion that's not how it turned out but before the person was fired actually they actually offered said we think you should take a lower grade job so they try to de-promote the person and when the person said no i don't want a lowing payer job with less responsibilities that's when they said there's no place for you in this organization so it was incredibly poorly planned and why was it was it due to this one bad apple or was it due to lack of training or management who should got involved and when should they get got involved it's a really interesting case and quite sad to be honest so here's another question to all of you tips you would give employers managing autistic employees so if you right now could speak to in a manager and they have an autistic employee who they are currently struggling with or just recently been told is joining the team what advice do you think could have the biggest impact and oh god yes adrian thank you for posting that adrian has posted the uh link to the study i just mentioned nice lego instructions start with kindness and a chat thanks naomi i think we've always got to remember we are human beings and we don't have to be an autistic expert you just have to be an empathetic human being we've got take part in neurodiversity training to raise awareness of autism yes this has to be a two-step approach you know you've got if you're the individual who has autism understand your brain learn more about it try and verbalize it to others if you're able to but more importantly the organization you don't have to be an expert but you at least have to show some willing to learn or know where to direct people or signpost if they are looking for help and also one training doesn't make it like tick done it's an ongoing process you've got to keep that learning up we've got ask the autistic worker what adjustments they need and appoint a mentor absolutely the first port of call should always be to speak with the person now there is a caveat that where the autistic person might not necessarily know what works best for them and i think that's when you need to work together to try things out trial and failure it might not work try something a bit different you can't just say i put this one adjustment in place and then say my job is done it's ongoing we've got okay sarah says training for managers and surrounding teams on autism awareness right from the start yes right right from the start this is beneficial to the people you support it might be beneficial to family members it might be beneficial to the people you are serving like if you have customers nyme also says training but not just for managers absolutely this should be across the board but sometimes we uh it could be difficult to get senior management or the leadership team to attend the training because they're so busy when they're the people who we need in those seats as well as people who are just starting off in the jobs or we've also got mentors i think mentors can be really helpful i'm also a big fan of setting up um networks society groups places where other the people with autism or neurodivergences can come together and share experiences as often they are all very difficult with you men uh i think a good mentor can really help but a bad mentor can kind of make it worse so you do have to have a level of quality checking so a few top tips from us at least is that all people with autism are different dialogue is important to ensure needs are being met once aware an employer should assume it is under a legal duty to make a reasonable adjustment provide training for other staff about autism as you all said an open dialogue with employees is critical but yeah really start straight away if you are an employer do not wait until difficulties arise the second you know someone has started and they have acknowledged or mentioned or you suspect there's autism try and put things in place a workplace needs assessment occupational health just having regular conversations and regular one-to-ones really do go a long way naomi says it isn't always easy to talk to your manager you're completely right there not fun to tell a stranger who has power over your job and that is up to the organization to create a culture where people do feel comfortable and inclusive so if you do not diagnose they are do not disclose they should put the emphasis on you they should be continuously working to create that beautiful culture so just to finish up with if any of you are in work and do have autism but you know i don't know where you are on your journey get help now and not help because you need help but for help because you never know when you might need it or it can actually strengthen your case so if you say well i never had an assessment if you say i've had an assessment and they didn't implement it or even get help it really should like shrimps your case or if you do not have a diagnosis you might think am i allowed to get support absolutely with a workplace needs assessment or through access to work which is a government grant which some of you may be aware of you don't actually need proof you just have to resonate with a lot of the characteristics and some of the challenges that are associated with autism so if you're in the uk if you have autism if you're currently working all you need to do is having a job get a free assessment we actually do them but you can go elsewhere if you want you can apply for the grant send it to the government they give you the okay and then your employer has a list of recommendations that they need to implement or work with you to find the best solution this is a great starting point and also it's typically completely free unless you're like a really big company who can easily afford it most small companies if you're brand new to the job is always free so they have no reason not to implement it and this kind of gets rid of the reasonable adjustments because it's definitely reasonable because it's not coming to any negative effects of the company so do definitely check these out it's called access to work or you can find it via our website if you're interested but now finishing up any last quests questions from the audience or any statements if anyone has some like interesting nuggets or information or advice because i think it's clear to see most people here do have autism and have experienced diet uh discrimination so what can we do to protect you know people who are in the workforce now we've got christian says you must act within 90 days or less you get a cass involved are or less to get yes that's interesting and very good to know oh naomi says i was recently fired refused to provide uh refused to provide reasonable adjustments i declared i demanded assessment support and begged for help it was ignored and evidence was not acknowledged and then fired or repeatedly complaining because i refused to tolerate abuse and accept discrimination honestly i'm so so sorry to hear that it really does break my heart because it's just lack of understanding like don't i'm so grateful all of you attended today but where are all the managers you know where are the people who aren't autistic i know we've got a couple in here but not nearly enough so we need to get the right people to want to get educated we've got uh pester gps with emails until they refer you yep it's not easy getting a diagnosis under the nhs but pestering does work eventually autism plus works in yorkshire and have eu funding for supporting autistic adults into and work nice we'll check that out or eu funding we use it while we got it we've got sarah says as part of policies around disabilities and workplaces you should have information freely available and easy to find about support that they can give including access to work grants yes the amount of companies i work with who say oh no we've got policies in place you know we've got support available where is it if it's not easily accessible and publicly acknowledged how can you expect people to take advantage of it it's not enough to say yeah we've got say some speech software that people can download if they go to yt they have to know about it you know that doesn't count otherwise here we go oh nice questions are great policies mean nothing if no one follows it completely i'd be surprised if many people actually ever do read the policies but i can bet you if you go against it they'll quote it so do try and read it if you're able to uh we've got different um unions like unite gbt they can be really useful if you're able to apply for them nhs helps sometimes have people to keep you in their role halo job unions can help too such education programs for reps eg autism employment don't be a victim be a winner ics are really great not all organizations have access to unions not all organizations will have support networks but if you know there's more than one of you which let's face it there will be if you're able to i encourage you to create your own network of like-minded people who can act as advocates because we are not alone sometimes we are made to feel that we are the problem we are the minority and we are just a troublemaker we are not we're neurodivergent there's one in seven people in the world is neurodivergent this is a demographic that we need to take notice of anyway let's end there on today because uh quite a hard subject but to let you know on what we will be doing for next week next week we're doing dyslexia in the workplace and i know a lot of you also have dyslexia and we're just going to be looking at how is it in the workplace for those who dyslexia the pros the cons the support available the adjustments uh how people talk to you how you can get the best out of it like we're going a complete overview so definitely sign up to that you can click on the little link or it'll be in the chat on the video and we have a whole heap of videos so if you like today and you want to catch up on more go to our channel we have the controversial history of hands aspergers we have autism the aspergers uh we have the science of autism lots and lots of sessions where we kind of dive in deep it's people with autism talking to those with autism keeping that discussion going and help educating everyone so i really appreciate how interactive you all today thank you so much for sharing your examples for sharing documents for giving different case examples and hopefully i'll get to go for all this information and maybe do a future session about this if any of you are like i'm not sure if i have autism we don't diagnose individuals but what we can do is have free online tests which give you a rough idea so you might want to do this test like do i have autism and if you come out highly likely take that information go to your gp and have a conversation you may not feel that you need support right now but you never know what you might need in the future and it's better to have things in place early on than wait until doomsday so i hope you enjoyed today here's the details if you want to get in contact with us um but thank you so much as always everyone i really enjoyed it and i hope you did too a lot of talking but good stuff thanks janie thanks christian thanks naomi thanks kerry april lauren claire adrian sharer sarah and priscilla really appreciate you all attending bye everyone and hopefully see you next week [Music] you

Channel: Exceptional Individuals

Views: 4,324

Keywords: neurodiversity, dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, Autism, discrimination, court cases, tribunals, employment, webinar

Id: ntEpFdAEuao

Length: 51min 29sec (3089 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2022