Neurodiversity Celebration Week – Neurodiversity at Together and in our services

At Together we looked to mark the by looking at neurodiversity at Together and in our services to consider people’s lived experience and how our staff work alongside neurodivergent people. We were also keen to look at how neurodiversity interacts with mental health and wellbeing and wanted to consider how that impacts people.

We did this initially by hosting an internal event and wanted to share here some of the insights that were shared there. The first of those is an update from Esta Griffiths, who is Team Lead in our Devonhire Place Accommodation Service which is part of our Norfolk Integrated Housing and Community Support Service. Esta explained the way she has learned from working alongside neurodivergent people in their service and from their lived experience:

The second video we wanted to share features Charlie Hart, who is HR Analyst at Together and who shared their lived experience of being autistic and of having been referred for ADHD diagnosis. in this clip Charlie explains how neurodiversity and mental health interlink for them and offers insight into that:

Also during the event Charlie addressed some common misconceptions about neurodiversity and answered questions from the audience:

Another part of Together’s services in which our staff have learned from the lived experience of neurodivergent people they support is within our criminal justice teams. Olivia Hussey is a Community Link Worker Team Leader and spoke about work she is doing to highlight the importance of providing mental health support in criminal justice settings that takes into account neurodiversity & a person-centred approach. The work Olivia is doing is to compliment some brilliant work happening already by other health and justice agencies within the sector. As part of that there are national liaison and diversion screening tools and local training already in place and the work Olivia describes is about reviewing what is already present and making things even better.

Thank you to all of the staff who presented at the event and for sharing their knowledge and experience.