Having a diverse workforce and supporting our staff to be their best at work and flourish is a key priority. Investing in diversity of thought and lived experience benefits both patients and staff, supports retention and helps us to address the workforce challenges that our NHS faces.
Through our work on inclusive recruitment and feedback from different forums across the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, we heard from our neurodivergent colleagues about challenges they face in their daily work life. There was also a lack of awareness about reasonable adjustments that can be easily implemented to support colleagues.
Browse through this page to find out more.
Reciprocal Mentoring is the sharing of knowledge, expertise, skills, values and experiences by senior experienced employees with their junior and less experienced counterparts. It also enables people in senior positions to learn from and understand issues from the perspective of colleagues in less senior roles.
We worked with neurodivergent colleagues to co-produce a training package tailored for neurodivergent staff and worked with colleagues from the ICB Systems Leadership Team to support this work.
This information recognises that the reciprocal mentoring experience for and with neurodivergent colleagues may be different than for neurotypical colleagues.
These resources can be used by anyone to start a reciprocal mentoring programme in their team.
Nadine Rooney, Care Navigator at West Yorkshire Commissioning Hub and who is neurodiverse, shares her experience of reciprocal mentoring below.
I had not heard of reciprocal mentoring previously but after looking into it further, it would be beneficial for me and my mentor to develop more robust understanding and insights into neurodiversity in the workforce, so of course I jumped at the opportunity. There are many things I've struggled with in the past so to have a mentor work with me as any challenges arose could only be a positive.
Working with Alison, I felt like we had been specifically matched personality-wise for similar ways of working and communication styles, it was fantastic. For me as a mentee, I was able to share pieces of work, be observed giving presentations and discuss some of the challenges with keeping on top of things such as emails.
Alison was able to provide some really useful feedback in terms of equipment to use such as double screens, using the archive function on Outlook, and how my communication style / presentation pieces could make greater impact. I found my feedback extremely useful and use all approaches to great effect. I felt really listened to, and able to explore some of my challenges in detail such as how having low energy levels or attempts to multi-task, being overwhelmed impacted my work further.
These all seem like really simple things on the surface but these are often the things that elude me whereas I can really get involved with and excel at more complex pieces of work. Alison really helped me build my confidence in highlighting this point with me.
Top tips for mentees I would suggest laying it all on the table, removing the mask and exploring the challenges you come across day-to-day. As I say, the simple things that escape me would lead me to feel embarrassed and be really hard on myself, this is where the reciprocal element really comes into its own, understanding your thought processes, breaking things down into their components sort of a deep-dive into the good and the bad. It was a fantastic approach to understand how I could really embrace data analysis to the point of presenting in a national forum with no formal training but struggle in saying what I need in a 10 minute presentation.
This approach is so much more than the usual coaching style and the development aspects, both on an equal footing learning from one another, I would encourage everyone to take part whenever it is offered. I would like to say a big thank you to the Neurodiversity team for including me in such a fantastic project that has helped me enormously, and to Alison for being down to Earth, willing to learn from my experiences and taking that learning into practice. Thank you.
The law (Equality Act 2010) says that employers must make reasonable adjustments for:
Reasonable adjustments are changes an employer makes to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to someone's disability. For example:
Reasonable adjustments are specific to an individual person. They can cover any area of work.
West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s neurodiversity programme understands that meaningful, effective involvement of people with lived experience is integral to the improvement and development of our services.
As part of this work we have invested in coproduction; ensuring that decisions, resources, changes and recommendations are produced in partnership with the communities we serve. Our aims and outcomes reflect the knowledge, experience and skills of experts by experience, as well as experts by profession. United we are stronger.
We have brought together people from across many sectors including primary and secondary healthcare, education, social care, commissioning, local authority, VCSE sector and advocacy, people with lived experience of neurodivergence including children, young people, adults, parents and carers - many of whom span both expertise by profession and by lived experience.
Please see these co-produced helpful guides and resources:
This toolkit is full of resources to help you navigate neurodiversity in the workplace. Whether you’re an employer looking to support a team member, a member of staff looking for support or a potential applicant looking for support through the recruitment process, you’ll find helpful information in this toolkit. The toolkit is not an exhaustive resource on neurodiversity, but a helpful guide to the support and rights available for employers, staff and potential applicants in the NHS (WYHCP), aiming to make workplaces safer and easier to navigate for neurodivergent colleagues.
Disclaimer: The world of neurodiversity is changing rapidly, and it can be difficult to keep up with it. This toolkit is not updated regularly, so please keep in mind that terminology may change over time and services may be de-commissioned.
Benefits of a Neurodiverse Workforce
The benefits to an inclusive and diverse workforce are plentiful. Different skills, background and experience improves service delivery and make us better mental health professionals. An inclusive and diverse workplace improves retention and strengthens working relationships, and our communities are best served by a workforce that is inclusive and diverse as they can see themselves reflected in those who are there to support them through difficult times.
Terminology
The word “neurodiversity” is an umbrella term for a range of neurological conditions which affect how someone processes information and/or communicates with the world around them. Other common terms include “neurodivergence” and “neuro-difference”. Another important term is “neurotypical”, a term which represents all those who are not neurodivergent.
It is estimated that around 15-20% of the world population have some form of neurodivergence. Many neurodivergences co-occur, for example some autistic people may also have ADHD.
Neurodiversity covers a wide range of conditions, which includes but is not limited to:
Formal vs. Self-diagnosis
A staff member does not have to have a formal diagnosis of neurodivergence to ask for reasonable adjustments or increased support in the workplace.
Leeds Mind inclusive toolkit
For more than two years, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership has been working with The Boost Project at Leeds Mind, a project developed to recruit and train volunteers from diverse and maginalised backgrounds. These volunteers co-facilitated peer support groups. All of Boost volunteers have lived experience of mental health struggles.
While on the project, volunteers worked with staff from Leeds Mind to produce a toolkit for creating an inclusive environment. Information for this toolkit was contributed by the volunteers through one-to-one interviews, a survey and group discussions and developed to help organisations integrate more inclusive practices in their work.
These videos show how important adjustments are to neurodivergent people in the workplace and how managers can support staff to be the best that they can be.
