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natashahirst · 2 years

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What a week!

My roles with the National Union of Journalists and Disability Arts Cymru bring amazing opportunities my way.

On Friday I chaired a panel discussion on the experiences of journalists covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for the Eleanor Granville Institute. I then took part in their second panel discussing trauma and resilience, which all links to the work I've been leading on around mental health, as vice president of the NUJ.

It was a wonderful opportunity to send solidarity to journalists in Ukraine and so I was delighted to pick up that thread this morning on the BBC Radio Wales Sunday Supplements programme where I discussed a story about the journalists from The Kyiv Independent and a book they have published - War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance.

On Friday evening, I was a guest speaker at the Female Line networking event for women in the creative industries. I talked about my career and approach to leadership. We explored the challenges of being a disabled women trying to get through a range of different barriers, from attitudes to access. I picked up this thread too today, with a story on a new book on the history of women in the arts - the story of art, without men. It is important that women's work is seen and given attention. It's also vital that we support each other which is why the network is a wonderful opportunity for women creatives in Cardiff - I'll look forward to joining their events in future.

To be doing the Sunday Supplements with BBC Radio Wales was such a great experience, especially so because everyone was proactive about making it inclusive and accessible and we started the conversation by talking about deafness, since me, the presenter, Rhodri Lewis, and the other guest Joel James MS are all deaf.

Especially with assistive tech and a great understanding of access and inclusion, the world is improving. The more visibility we can give to deaf people in leadership and advanced in their professional career, the more we open up opportunities for others.

Sunday Supplements start at 50 minutes in. A rough Otter transcript is below (not 100% accurate but makes the piece more accessible).

Rhodri Lewis 0:17 Let's take a look at Sunday papers now with Joel James who's the conservative member of the Senate for South Wales Central and Shadow Minister for Social partnership, and Dr. Natasha Hirst, who is a freelance photojournalist and is also vice president of the National Union of Journalists and the chair of disability arts committee. Good morning to you both. Now, full disclosure. Both of you and I have hearing difficulties. And we're all here today. Tell me about Natasha, tell me about your experience of being deaf in the world work?

Natasha Hirst 0:54 Well, I was born deaf. So I've been through my entire education with deafness, and the difficulties that that brings, and so coming into the world of work, I found a lot of challenges in terms of being taken seriously, being seen as an equal, being seen as being as capable as anybody else. And for that reason, I became self employed. So I went into freelance photojournalism and I've been able to just create my own opportunities by doing that.

Rhodri Lewis 1:25 and Joel what have your experiences been?

Joel James 1:28 I suppose weird things I realised during COVID how much i lip read. I never really took that. And when I took it for granted, I experienced difficulties or whatever it was wearing a mask then straining to hear them

Rhodri Lewis 1:48 are you bringing forward a sign language bill in the Senedd?

Unknown Speaker 1:51 I know my colleague is Mark Isherwood is looking to try and do that. But yeah, one of the concerns we have as well really is it's just the difficulty of access to health care and the difficulties people with hearing loss have about even just the basics of booking an appointment, understanding their diagnosis then when they spoken with their healthcare professionals. I think something like 60% leave their appointment not understanding what has been said to them what they need to do with their medication. And then the difficulty is actually booking a BSL interpreter for those appointments.

Rhodri Lewis 2:27 Thank you, Natasha. Let's turn to the papers. What have you seen

Natasha Hirst 2:31 a few stories one that I'm quite interested in is about a book that's been published that looks at the role of women artists. So it's celebrating arts and some women. So Katy Hassel, who's a UCL History of Art graduate realised that when she was studying, there was so little information about women artists, and she wanted to do something about that. So she's got a great Instagram account where she showcases the work of women artists, and she's also published a 500 page book on the history of women artists and 1500 to 2020.

Rhodri Lewis 3:10 And an illustrious history does she say? Does she say it's an illustrious history?

Natasha Hirst 3:15 Absolutely and I think it's really important to be giving credit to Women in the Arts, and it's the same in photography where I work, and it's often dominated by the work of male photographers, what's defined as good art and good photography is built on this legacy of the work of male photographers. And so it's really important to put women in the spotlight, because it encourages women in the industry, to have confidence in their own work and their own style, their own approach. And we really need to see diversity in photography, diversity in the arts, because the different perspective we bring is really important.

Rhodri Lewis 3:55 Joel, where would you like to take us next?

Joel James 3:56 I suppose the first article I wanted to highlight was is in today's Sunday Telegraph. On page two, and it's something all my friends seem to experienced online, but I will say as usual, I slept through it. It was the South Wales residents rocked by the earthquake 3.7 earthquake that affected the south Wales Valleys. totally oblivious to it, but judging by my friends, tweets and Facebook posts, everyone got spooked by it.

Rhodri Lewis 4:25 Not much damage. I don't think. Natasha.

Natasha Hirst 4:29 I'm quite interested in the story in the Youu magazine. So before the war, we were so innocent. So it's about the story of Ukrainian journalists who, who worked for the Kyiv Independent and they've published a book the war diary of the Ukraine resistance, and they're talking about that what they've been through over this last year. So Friday was the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And it's really important to, I think, give attention to think the important job journalists are doing in Ukraine, incredibly difficult conditions, especially those who are covering what is happening in their home country. You know, under the constant threat of, of being injured, of witnessing really, really traumatic scenes and reporting on that, in order to bring those stories to the attention of the whole world so that we know what is going on in Ukraine. And to me, it also highlights the importance of an independent and free press. Because without that we don't know the reality of what's happening. In situations like like the war in Ukraine. And so, you know, all credit to those journalists who are working incredibly difficult conditions there.

Rhodri Lewis 5:50 Joel, where would you like to take us?

Unknown Speaker 5:53 The second article then is in the Mail on Sunday, on page 42. And it's about new AI tests been developed to help tackle the bowel cancer backlog. Unfortunately, over COVID a lot of important hospital appointments were delayed bowel cancer being one of them. And this new test then is about 96% accurate and issues hopefully to just to cut down the waiting list. So that's very interesting article and one of the reasons why I wanted to highlight that and also in the next article about a new blood test for prostate cancer is just because of the the reticence of men to go and have these tests because of how invasive they are sometimes and anything that can do to help tackle though these this I think is extremely important because there's a high percentage is just put it off and then unfortunately then it's too late.

Rhodri Lewis 6:46 Do you think the message is getting through that you do need to go you need to get over your embarrassment I'm hopeful

Joel James 6:50 I think so I in my with my generation, I said that messages coming through. If I'm looking to sort of my father's generation, I think that's a bit more difficult then because, you know, they are quite private, you know, and things like this would, you know, do impact them Yeah.

Rhodri Lewis 7:10 Natasha

Natasha Hirst 7:11 I saw a story in the mirror today about a Avery health care, which has 60 sites across the UK, brought in 8.9 million in 2021. But it's been discovered that a number of their sites are lacking in terms of the provision for the residents, so Daffodils at Merthyr was given a one star hygiene rating for their food, they found expired food in the fridge and staff in welsh care homes are only earning nine pounds 55 An hour for the incredibly valuable hard work that they do in terms of supporting residents in the care homes. Bosses of avery health care brought in over half a million each from a range of businesses last year, and they're making those kinds of profits on an essential social care service. cutting costs, risking lives and also hugely undervaluing their hard working staff who do an incredibly important job.

Rhodri Lewis 8:16 The time is against us, but I know you're vice president of the NUJ but now you're gonna have a tilt to the top job. How confident are you of victory

Natasha Hirst 8:23 Yeah, absolutely confidence and I'm really looking forward to the next two years. There's a lot that we can achieve together

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natashahirst · 2 years

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The Neurodiverse Lawyer podcast

I was interviewed for the Neurodiverse Lawyer podcast where I discuss deafness, ADHD, neurodivergence and coproduction in disability research and the legacy of the Legally Disabled project.

I didn't want to leave everyone without a transcript so here you go.

Amelia Hi, everyone. Welcome to the neurodiverse warrior podcast. My name is Amelia and I'm an autistic and dyspraxic future magic circle trainee. This podcast is intended to provide a safe space for people to discuss neurodiversity and mental health in legal profession, provide support and advocate for change. Please be aware that we may discuss triggering topics like mental health during this episode. We're a team of over 50 people who work completely on a volunteer basis. This podcast is just one of the many things we do. We also have a website with free resources in a blog, and Instagram at neurodiverse, lair and upcoming events and a guide book. Please contact us on projects at neurodiversity dot code at UK if you want to get involved. Without further ado, let's get into today's episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the neurodiversity podcast. Thank you for joining us today on this episode, we're joined by Natasha, who Umbro thankful agreed to come on. And so for those of our audience who don't know, would you just like to give a bit of a brief introduction into yourself and what you do at the moment?

Natasha Hirst Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me on podcast. It's so good to be here. I'm Natasha Hirst. I am a photojournalist, and also a researcher, I was involved with the legally disabled project as both a researcher and a co author,

Amelia Thank you. So obviously, you are neurodivergent. And so would you just like to talk us a little bit about getting your diagnosis and what that experience was like for you?

Natasha Hirst Yeah, it was so I was diagnosed about 18 months ago. So I was 42. At the time. I think I think for me, most of the symptoms have been overlooked, or partly because I you know, as a girl, and also because I'm deaf. So I think a lot of the things that I struggled with when I was a child are the things that were different about me, people put that down to deafness. And they didn't really look more closely at it is just the case of okay. That's how it is. We'll leave you to it. As, as I've grown older, I think my own understanding of ADHD wasn't good. So you know, I didn't recognise it in myself. And it was only when a close friend of mine was diagnosed with ADHD, maybe about two and a half years ago. And I was talking to her about that. She was talking about the kinds of symptoms and the challenges that she has. And I was like, well, the this, this is talking about me as well, here. This is this is all very familiar to me. And she said, Well, I just assumed you would have already thought about it as well, no, not really. So. So that kind of year prompted me a bit. And as as the pandemic sort of hit, and we went into lockdown. I was really, really struggling in terms of just just doing anything really I couldn't I couldn't motivate myself. I couldn't organise myself. So all these things that I've struggled with, but I guess built strategies around. All of that was gone, you know, in lockdown. And I just, I just wasn't coping. And because I'm self employed, I can't afford to not to be delivering on my work. And I've not I've not had very good experiences of trying to go through my GP to get support. I think I think yeah, and I think a lot of that is also because I'm in from the outside, I look very capable. I look well organised. I look like I'm achieving all sorts of stuff. I don't look like I need any help. I don't look like I'm struggling. But I really was so so did I do some research to find an ADHD specialist who specialises in women and girls with ADHD and then paid privately to get to get full assessment. And it was quite broad assessment. So as well as ADHD, there's a diagnosis of dyspraxia, mild dyslexia, so so just that whole bunch of stuff that does tend to come together

And, and then it all sort of fit into place really, and because you know, the person who assessed me, she, she has ADHD, her son has ADHD, she's a specialist, she has worked for over 30 years in the NHS. And she was able to kind of show me, show me the things, you know, the things that I was talking about, that was finding so difficult and really struggling with and not understanding why I'm struggling with it, why I can't just pull my socks up and sort myself out. She was explaining, well, this is this is how the ADHD brain works. And this is, this is why and these are the kinds of strategies that that you need to put into place. And, and also, you know, talking about the ways in which medication can help, and, you know, things to try there. So, so, that just was a huge relief, you know, to get a sense of, okay, there's, there's a reason why I struggle and and I think it's a big problem that I still have is that the NHS don't want to support me. I tried to sort out shared care, which they don't really do in Wales, which is where I live. And then I asked for a referral for an assessment within the NHS in Wales. And someone who was not an ADHD specialist, did an assessment of some sort went away, spoke to his team and came back a couple of weeks later. And he said, Oh, you don't have ADHD, you've got three degrees, somebody with ADHD couldn't possibly have three degrees. And I was, you know, actually, I the fact that I have three degrees in different disciplines, and have had a number of career changes, to all sorts of different things in my life, those are all symptoms of ADHD. No, I was just absolutely staggered by the lack of understanding, and the unwillingness to help. And so I'm partway through making a complaint against the service for for that, which means that I've had to continue being seen privately, and paying for medication privately. And that's all stuff that, you know, really does stack up in terms of costs, and, you know, when, but it's the only way to get the support that I need. And, and also the fact that I've had that support now means that I am in a much, much, much better place. And I'm, you know, we've tried different medications. And so now we've got, we've got something that works really, really well for me. And I'm on top of stuff, I'm on top of my life, and, and, you know, I can get the strategies in place that I need. It's also given me the diagnosis which opened up, access to work for me as well. So I had an Access to Work assessment. They made all sorts of recommendations that, you know, bit by bit, you know, can put into place and it's really, really, really helping me. So, that so the whole, all of this not being picked up on when I was a child is, you know, it kind of ripples through your life, doesn't it? Because I'm, you know, I grew up thinking that I was not very clever, I grew up looking at things that other kids found easy, and I couldn't work out why I found it so difficult, sort of having to work 10 times harder. And being constantly exhausted, you know, going through these constant cycles of burning out all the time. And that that, especially as it damaged, my self confidence, my self esteem, you know that that could have been avoided if I'd known a long time ago that I have ADHD, and this is what that means. And this is what it doesn't mean as well. There are a lot of misconceptions about it. So So yeah, that's that's that's my story. Really. It's still still quite new in terms of the diagnosis, but it's made a massive difference.

Amelia Fantastic. Thank you for that was really interesting to hear. I think like you say diagnosis can be such a happy time, but they can also be quite difficult to navigate and I think it's quite difficult looking back and thinking how different everything would have been if I had been diagnosed when I was a child. Oh So you've mentioned there that that females are typically under diagnosed with ADHD. Do you think that that earlier diagnosis would have changed your experience going through, say academia and personal life?

Natasha Hirst In terms of my personal life? Yeah, I think it would have changed things because, you know, I struggled socially as a kid. And it didn't help that I was also deaf because it, you know, it makes it harder to hear what what people are saying in a conversation, which means that it's then hard to participate in those conversations. But then, I went to a number of different schools, and only one of those schools, were there any other deaf children, so there was a unit for deaf children there. And I can remember looking at these deaf kids, and they had the same issues as me in terms of their hearing. But they didn't have the same issues socially. I can remember thinking why they're deaf like me. But they're fine in their friendship group, they don't seem to have any problems with knowing how to have a conversation with people or I just couldn't work out what is it that is different about me, from hearing kids and these other deaf kids, I couldn't work it out. And but but I was very conscious of the fact that I was different. And that it wasn't really always seen as a good thing. So and also think, in terms of my own family, if my mother had understood me better, our relationship could have been a lot better than it was. I think, you know, when you grow up being called dolly daydream or being told, or you've got a forgettery, not a memory, you've got no common sense. I just told you to do this, why didn't you do it? You know, and just the constant criticism that comes with, you know, those things that are out of your control? You know, it doesn't matter how good your intentions are, it doesn't matter how hard you try, things fall down. It's not your fault, but you get blamed for it and told that you're not good enough told that you're, you know, not not trying, when actually you are so so you know, certainly relationships with with family. Could have been a lot different had had we realised, okay, these are the things that I struggled with. And this is why, and this is how you can help me get around it.

Amelia Yeah, of course. And I think if you grow up being told, you know, you're not good enough, you know, you have all these issues, which people just see as kind of a defect, you start to internalise that as an adult. And like you say, that mindset can be really hard to overcome. So obviously, the process of getting a diagnosis late is is a difficult one, I think we're all aware of that. What advice would you give someone who's currently going through that process? If you were to go through it again? What would you like to tell yourself?

Natasha Hirst I think, I mean, there's a lot of quite good books that sort of explain what ADHD is, kind of, you know, give you a checklist that you can go through kind of spending some time thinking back to, you know, how you coped at school, or how you coped socially, you know, what, looking back at kind of patterns in your behaviour throughout your life. Because I think, I think one of the difficulties that some women have for the late diagnosis is, is, or trying to get late diagnosis has been told, Oh, no, this these are symptoms of menopause. These, these, uh, you know, typical of, you know, brain fog or, or whatever. Whereas, if you can, if you can demonstrate, actually, no, no, that there's a history here. It will, it will help reassure yourself as well because there's so much doubt involved with, you know, even starting that process of asking for an assessment. You think, am I am I just being silly? Am I just fighting to find an excuse? So, I guess, I guess maybe, you know, you know, if you have a supportive GP, then there's an opportunity to rule out some other things like, you know, maybe maybe it's menopause, but, you know, if you have ADHD, menopause often exacerbates those symptoms. Um, but but also, you know, make sure there's no other sort of health issues or that that could be, you know, potential usually be blamed for causing the issues and look at the history look at your own history and, and kind of, you know, talk to people who knew well as a child. Also, you know, one of my best resources, was was my best friend from high school, I think, because she she remembered, she remembered me, you know, in a way that I couldn't remember myself. So So yeah, I think I think that helped.

Amelia Yeah, I think it just takes it takes quite a lot of confidence, I think to run through and not listen to the doubt from doctors, and then listen to your own personal doubt, like it's quite a, a really have to hold firm in your belief and knowing that there is something that's different about you, which can be quite a difficult process. So moving on, then to your kind of professional experience and experience of charities and stuff like that. Obviously, you mentioned in the beginning there that you did some research and work in the legally disabled, would you just like to tell us a little bit about that organisation and also how the research came about

Natasha Hirst legally disabled was research project that was led by Professor Debbie foster from Cardiff business school at Cardiff University. And I've known Debbie for a long time through some of my trade union equalities, activities. She is a professor of employment relations. So that the project was her idea, what she initially wanted to do is to compare a few different professions and look at the experiences of disabled people in different professional occupations. But that turned out that that was going to be way too big of a project. So we decided to focus on one profession. So we, we decided to focus on the legal profession. And because it's, it's an example of a professional occupation, where people don't expect to see disabled people or neurodivergent people. It's a very, it's got, you know, it's a traditional hierarchical sort of profession where you're expected to look the part play the part. And we thought it would be really interesting to see, okay, what, what are the experiences of disabled people in the law profession, because they're there, whether people know that they're there or not, it's another issue, but they're there. And also, because a lot of public policy focuses around getting disabled people into any work as long as you're working, it doesn't matter what you're doing, but obviously, it matters to us as individuals and and also this Policy and Initiatives they never really look at career progression. There's there's initiatives to get you in into a job into a profession but but then there's there's nothing to then help you progress and build your career and get to senior leadership roles. So so that that is why we just, you know, that was why we wanted to do that kind of research because there's just almost hardly any, any research about disabled people in professional careers. There's, there's a small piece that was done on disabled people in accountancy. There's loads done on on women in different professional occupations. There's, you know, a fair amount on race. But there's just this massive gap in terms of evidence for the experiences of disabled people so that that's where that's where the project came from. So I was a coresearcher with with Debbie Foster, and we worked in coproduction with the legal profession. So that was a really important kind of core to the research that ethos of you know, we're here as academics and disabled people we have lived experience have been disabled people. But we we needed the lived experience of disabled people and neurodivergent people in law to help us design the research. Design, What are the questions that we want to answer? Because so often with research on disability, you have academics who come in from outside and they say we think these are the important questions that we should be asking, and actually not the questions that disabled people want to work on or find answers to. So so the coproduction aspect of the research was really important because it helped us to identify what are the key issues that are affecting disabled and neurodivergent people in law? and then we sort of started off with focus groups moved on to individual interviews with the 55 individual ones. And then we took the key themes from those interviews, and did a survey that was sent out more widely that we had around 300 responses to. So the the initial research it covered kind of all areas of law, really. So, you know, barristers and judges as well as solicitors, paralegals. You know, people on training contracts, we didn't look at students at university, because that would be a whole other area in itself, we just looked at people kind of from training contracts and onwards.

Amelia fantastic. Thank you. And for any of our listeners that want to have a read of that, I will link it in the bio of the podcast, I can definitely recommend it. It was one of my main pieces of inspiration for setting up the project in the first place. You mentioned something there that I found quite interesting. And that's that it was one of the first pieces of research looking at the relationship of disabled people in the legal profession. Why do you think it's taken so long? For us to get to this point?

Natasha Hirst I think I think it just comes from those. I think it comes from the way that society underestimates disabled and neurodivergent people. It's, it's kind of as though we are not expected to succeed in life. We're not expected to aspire to having professional careers. We're not expected to, to be there. And I think you know, that that was that was the real issue is that's why the research hasn't been done before, is just it's this sense of oh, well, disabled people won't be there. So there's nothing to research. Yeah,

Amelia I think that's interesting. Even when I got a training contract, it really frustrated me the amount of people that said to me, like, Oh, it's so nice that you have a training contract as a as an autistic person. And again, it comes down to the idea that, you know, neurodivergent, disabled people aren't expected to be in those types of sectors. People are often very surprised when I say that, actually, I don't plan to just stop at the training contract, I plan to continue progressing. And I think a lot of the time those views are shaped around the idea that neurodiversity is a weakness, that it only brings challenges, and it's going to be incredibly burdensome to the employer, and why would they want that? So for our audience, who perhaps don't necessarily know what neurodiversity and the benefits it brings? Could you just maybe elaborate on that a little bit?

Natasha Hirst And yeah, of course, I mean, that's the whole thing about neuro diversity is it's different, different ways of thinking. And it doesn't matter what job you're in and what sector you're in. We need people who think differently. And that, that that's that it's that kind of diversity, that is a strength for organisations. And it's just a case of recognising how best to use those talents. I think one of the problems with certainly with a profession, like law is that it is quite inflexible in terms of, you know, how people think of, you know, what, what does a lawyer look like? How do they behave? And neurodivergent people don't fit in that box. And, and that lack of flexibility of thinking is what often excludes us? Or, or makes the things that challenge us unnecessarily challenging.

Amelia I think, you know, for for an autism perspective, we are constantly kind of like championed for productivity and resilience and, and work ethic and all this type of thing, which obviously fits well. But as soon as you do something that actually signals that you are autistic, like, for example, in communication differences, that's not accepted. It's kind of taking the strengths without the other challenges. Do you think that that is also an issue that pops up quite a lot in professional sectors?

Natasha Hirst I think that absolutely is the case. So for autistic people who have maybe a particular strength in, you know, whether it's numbers or spotting patterns or for whatever it might be. There's this sense of, oh, we want people who've got these strengths. But like you say, we don't want the other stuff that might come with that. And sometimes you do see in terms of organisations that want to show the world what a fabulously, you know, diverse employer they are and how great they are for disabled people, they, they will bring out somebody who's got a particular talent. But actually, that doesn't mean that they have supported that person in all the ways that they need. They've just focused on that one particular bit that they like about them, and then have not necessarily helped help support them around that. And that that limits people's career progression, because because then then people get stuck just doing the thing that other people think they are best at, without being given the opportunity to develop in some of those other areas that would then help them to progress. So So those attitudes really, really do limit it.

Amelia Yeah, it's it's kind of a balance, isn't it between the flexibility of allowing people to do stuff which they're good atand nsuitable for, but also allowing them to do stuff, which is going to allow them to grow and develop professionally. And I think sometimes that balance is not right at the moment, like you say, and obviously, the research highlighted quite a lot of interesting statistics and narratives. One of them was that a lot of what the legal sector is saying in terms of inclusivity, as kind of a key USP isn't necessarily correct. Do you think that the research demonstrated that much of what law firms are saying is tokenistic? Or do you think that it is going the right way?

Natasha Hirst Since we started the research, a lot has changed in the sector. When when we initially did the research, we pulled out all sorts of all sorts of examples of firms trying to show the world how fabulous they are, but actually, there's no substance behind it. And also, in some of the discussions that we had with firms, there was this, when we when we asked them about kind of what what initiatives did they have in place, they started talking about their, like charitable work. Or we, we do outreach in schools, and we tried to talk to disabled people. No, that's not what I'm talking about. We're talking about how to support disabled people who are in your organisation. And some of them are saying, well, we don't know any disabled people that are. but they haven't felt safe to have that conversation. But they're definitely there. And, and also, you know, there's, there's misconceptions that disabled people are going to be difficult or expensive or be off sick all the time. You know, it's not true, that the, you know, often the kind of adjustments that people need are either very, very cheap or cost nothing. But sometimes it's less tangible things that employers struggle with. So employees get okay, we'll give you the software, and it will help you for your dyslexia. Problem solved. But if it's a case of asking people to work in a slightly different way, to give you information in a particular way, so that everything is very clear, or to just kind of be more thoughtful in the way that they communicate, or the way that they support you to participate. Those softer, softer adjustments. I think that that's where that's where employers struggle, and that's where colleagues often struggle. And that is a much harder thing to change because it's about culture. And the, the argument we always make is that if you are building a culture that is inclusive and accessible for disabled and neurodivergent people, you are building a better workplace culture for every single person who works for you. And there's, there's often lack of recognition of that and, and, and not realising we need we need to move away from those kind of more traditional expectations of, you know, what a lawyer does and how they behave, and recognise that to our benefit to be developing different talents and different strengths and people. So, yeah, I think, yeah, that's so true. There was a lot of tokenism. There, there were there were a lot of people that we interviewed, who said that they felt that they were used in a way that was very tokenistic. And they were wanted for certain things, but then shoved off into, like non client facing roles rather than being supported. But but we also found a lot of examples of, of employers who genuinely want to do the right thing, but they don't know what that is. They don't know how to go about it. And so, so after, after the two kind of main pieces of research, we then carried on working in coproduction with the Law Society to translate the recommendations of research into actions that firms could, that firms could take that organisations can take to really start to create that culture change.

Amelia Yeah, that's really interesting insights. I think a lot of people are aware that tokenism goes on, but it's not really until you speak to the firm's themselves, and get the insight into what they're actually doing. Do you realise that and I think what you said at the beginning about the kind of the partnerships with charities, which is obviously great, externally, but it doesn't do anything necessarily, for your internal staff. And as hard as that may be to face for certain firms, you really just have to confront it head on in order to tackle that problem. One thing that I did wanted to ask you about what you say about the kind of token adjustment that, especially in my experience, going through the recruitment processes at all firms, it's often extra time. And that's the only thing that really aware of how to put in and even sometimes that's not put in correctly. But a lot of the time, things like putting direct questioning in or splitting up questions is really hard to make four firms do, and it's so simple, the recruitment process then sticks to that kind of traditional mould and is looking for those kinds of very traditional neurotypical attributes. Do you think that that does start from the recruitment level? Or does it start later on?

Natasha Hirst Oh, no, absolutely, it starts at the recruitment level. And one of the issues with recruitment processes is that they are designed by people who are not disabled who are not neurodivergent. And there's, you know, it's well known that when people are recruiting, they're looking for people who are like them, because that's what they feel comfortable with. And that is, that is one of those issues that really does need to be tackled, because anybody who's different, is then not going to fit is then going to have a hard time and gets excluded. So, so recruitment was an area that we hadn't thought about when we were designing the research, but it came out as quite a significant issue, and especially with the recruitment agencies, in it, almost like this assumption that they make that employers are not going to want to employ disabled people. So so people are just getting filtered out. And not even being given opportunities to, to go to an interview or to go through an application process. And, again, it's it's that it comes down to that lack of disabled people in those senior roles, not having that lived experience feeding into the process to make it more more inclusive, more accessible. And also, where, you know, where firms or agencies have, literally hundreds of applications coming in. They often use AI to do some of the initial sifting. And they're going to be things like gaps in CVs, or maybe having less work experience. That that often is because of because of people's impairments or but that doesn't mean that they're not good for that role. It doesn't mean that they don't have the potential to do an amazing job. But they get sifted out before they even have an opportunity to show what they can do. So I think one of the key things that firms can do, that they use, you know, external recruitment agencies, is to make it very, very clear to those agencies that the, the they need to be actively looking for disabled candidates. And they need to, you know, take measures to make sure that their processes not accidentally excluding disabled applicants, but you need to involve disabled people in those processes in order to understand well, how are people being excluded How can we make sure that they're not?

Amelia Yeah, I think that was really interesting. And I think what stands out to me realistically is that there's just a lack of listening and a lack of communication. And I think a lot of firms do fall into that trap of asking for expert advice. And they forget sometimes just to go back to basics and ask actual neurodivergent people what they need. Obviously, they, you've talked about how some firms had some things, at least in terms of proactively implementing at least adjustments. Obviously, you've mentioned kind of the wider cultural shift that needs to happen. You know, if you could see change over the next five years, what are the kind of key things that you think firms should be doing?

Natasha Hirst One of the key things is to look at how to support disabled people to progress. Because in the long term, change will not be sustainable, unless you have disabled neurodivergent people in those senior decision making roles. You need to have that lived experience up at the top when those decisions are being taken. So there are quite a few initiatives, you know, maybe quotas on training contracts, for example, to, you know, dedicate resources to getting people into the profession. But you then need to make sure that people have the opportunities to progress. And it's about on an ongoing basis, raising awareness, improving people's understanding and knowledge of disability, and neurodiversity. Building in sort of, you know, step by step, ways of working within teams, ways of managing, that are creating a more inclusive environment and creating an environment where people feel safe to talk to their manager, or talk to HR about what support they might need. Because when people don't feel safe, and they don't disclose, they kind of struggled, they struggled to try to get by. And then there are these things that you know, other people will pick up on, like, you know, performance issues, or small mistakes that creep in. Or, you know, maybe not not coping with organising time and stuff, and managing workload. And then it becomes difficult, and it damages working relationships. And it changes this perception of people around you to think, Oh, well, okay, this, this person's not very good at their job. Whereas actually, it might just be that they need a little bit of support. And then no, they will, they will fly, they'll be reaching their full potential, their work will be amazing. But because they don't feel safe to talk about what they need, and ask for, ask for what they need. That's it struggling in not not performing as well as they could. And that that's just so so important that that people can say, Okay, I need a bit of support. People might not know, they might not know what support they need. So you need you need employers and HR, to know where to go to get more information and to know what kind of, you know, common reasonable adjustments that might be so so one of the one of the pieces of work that we did with the Law Society was to create a reasonable adjustments guide that has real life examples from across the legal profession of different kinds of adjustments that have been put in place to support people. And I think also in the legal sector, because it's competitive, once firms start seeing that other firms are doing some good work. And it's, you know, they want to they want to follow that. So, you know, if you if you have some organisations that are leading the way others will start to follow that you can't just say, Okay, this year, we're looking at disability, and next year, we're looking at race. You have to consistently be addressing disability equality in order to create any kind of sustainable change.

Amelia Yeah, I think there's that tendency to put in one initiative that lasts for a couple of weeks or it's kind of the topic of the month or the year, and then it is just moved on. From, and I mean, quite a lot of other people that I've spoken to have moved into in house roles, because I think there's an idea that if they move away from the kind of traditional structure of law, other businesses will be better. Do you think there are other professional sectors, which are, are much better for neurodivergent and disabled people? Or do you think that the professional sector as a whole is quite similar in how it treats disabled? Staff?

Natasha Hirst I mean, it's, as a journalist and knowing sort of journalism sector of various sectors within journalism quite well. You do see similar patterns emerging in terms of, well, if you can't do this job in exactly this way, then there's no place for you here. Rather than looking at, okay, you've got some great strengths that will benefit our organisation. Let's figure out how we how we work with that. Employers don't often don't want to put that time in to just thinking a bit differently. I think I think, again, it comes down to societal attitudes towards disabled people, we are, you know, treated really quite badly. When you look at public policy. When you look at service delivery, when you look at employment support it say, Okay, well, we'll, we'll do something to help disabled people not recognising that we are just as capable as anybody else. It's, it's just that there are just some different challenges. Everybody has challenges and and we deserve to have our careers. We deserve to reach the top roles in our careers. But those negative attitudes about disabled people are the things that prevent our progression. Not us. It's not it's not our impairment. It's not about neurodiversity. That is the issue. It is attitudes about us. That that limits us, and that that's the thing that we are continually trying to trying to break through.

Amelia Yeah, that's what I'm always trying to tell people who message me because I get a lot of messages from people saying, you know, I'm not good enough. I'm not this. And it's like, no, it's just the attitudes that are holding you back. It's nothing to do with you and your capability. So I think that's, that's really important to stay on that kind of vein, when you put out the research, what was the reception? Like? Was there any resistance or kind of misconceptions? Put your way? And has anything come out of it?

Natasha Hirst Yeah, I mean, I mean, loads of good stuff has come out with research. And even even even in the beginning, although there was resistance, and there were those sort of negative stereotypes about disabled people. Um, there was a recognition that we don't do enough on disability. We don't know enough. And, you know, they welcomed you know, they welcomed the research. So, so I think, I think that, yeah, I think things are definitely changing. And one of the things that is really important is that a lot of the follow up work from the research has been done in coproduction, with the Law Society. So it is building the skills and the knowledge and the confidence of disabled people who are in the legal sector, to be then taking these lessons forward in their own organisations, whether it's setting up staff networks, or whether it's informing policy and practice. Educating colleagues, we've seen the confidence of disabled people who've been involved in our project, just, you know, really, really go through the roof. And then those individuals are out there creating more change. So as academics, as researchers, we kind of pretty much step back because disabled people in the profession are the ones that are now driving that work. And that's exactly how it should be. And I think support is support has really built up because what we did was expose the terrible experiences of many disabled people in the legal sector. And no matter what your misconceptions might be about disability, anyone who looks at that should be able to say no, that treatment is not okay. And yes, we need to address that. So that evidence base was really important. And then we've been able to build on that. So so it's not a case of here's the research here are recommendations off you go. But, but that was the starting point. And we work with the sector, to help the sector to improve. And so so there's, there's a lot that has come out of the research. And I think we'll continue to do so because there are just so many more people out there who've got the energy and the drive and the knowledge now to be creating change.

Amelia Yeah, I think it's fantastic. And like you say, when I speak to firms, it's the one piece of research that I refer them on to it's the one piece that people bring up to me, it really has built a solid foundation, I think, in terms of, of building change, I did wanted to ask was that in November 2020, a follow up report was made about the effects of the pandemic, with 70%, preferring to work from home, obviously, with the pandemic. That's been made possible a lot of the time, but we're seeing quite a lot of organisations move back to workplace working at the moment, which is a shame. Do you think that illegal sector will change for the better as a result of the pandemic? Or do you think that kind of slowly slipping into bad habits again, so to speak?

Natasha Hirst I think it's a mixed bag at the moment. So there have been some organisations that have recognised the value of working from home and flexible working. That before the pandemic, these were seen as, as perks for senior senior managers or partners. And I think there's much more of an acceptance now that anybody can be productive working from home, if that's why, you know, if that is suitable for them as an individual. But we have been seeing examples of people just being kind of shoved back to the office, regardless of whether that is the right way of working for them. And again, it could it could, it comes down to coproduction, it comes down to the fact that people really need people with lived experience involved in making those decisions. And coming up with the solutions, it's hybrid working has its challenges. It's one thing if everybody is at home, or everybody is in the office, but when you've got that mix, there's a lot more to think about. How do you maintain teams that work well together? How do you make sure that people aren't being left out? Everybody has the support in place that they need. And it's very much an individual thing, you know, so that that piece of research shows that there's, there's quite, there's quite a core of people who do not want to work from home. It's not good for their mental health, or some people just live, especially if you're early in your career, and you're not earning very much at the start. You might be living in accommodation that is just not suitable for working from home. And everybody's situation is different. And what people need to perform to their best is going to be different. And there needs to be a willingness for employers, to allow managers to have those conversations with their teams and say, Okay, what is going to be the best way of working for you. And let's see how we can help make that work together. Rather than just coming down with this sort of line from the top like everybody's back in the office. Or maybe you can have one day a week where you work from home. It's we need to give staff more agency in terms and more trust, we need to trust people to manage their work and to offer the support that is needed to do so.

Amelia Yeah, I think that's really important. And like you say, the pandemic has been good in the sense of creating a certain level of agency and autonomous working with working from home but also, there's been this kind of, I guess, unexpected result of micromanaging and checking when someone's mouse is moving every 10 seconds. So there's there's the balance to be found there. I still think it's interesting because I was chatting to someone on the podcast the other week, who was saying that the one thing she is experienced in Is that because it is it's invisible, or it's perceived to be invisible? The trust just often isn't there. And I think that is true from the sense of working from home. Because it's, you know, there's this double standard isn't that you know, disabled people, you need to keep an eye on and you need to micromanage. And if they're at home, you don't have that ability. And so I think there's some things to work through that. But I think the main takeaway from what you're saying, really is to lead with neurodivergent experience and to lead with those people at the forefront. And it's always something that I'm saying and going on about, especially because it's autism acceptance week, that you shouldn't talk on people's behalf. And these people know what they need often. And there's quite an easy way of just opening up a line of communication to sort out quite a lot of the issues, but it's often not done. So just as a final question, then what advice would you give to someone who has perhaps experienced the discrimination that is being examined in the research?

Natasha Hirst Firstly, I mean, I would advise anyone to speak to the lawyers with disabilities, Division of Law Society, although that doesn't cover all of the legal profession. And there there are quite a few networks out there now that weren't there before. So there's the disabled Lawyers Association. There, there's things I you know, that this podcast, there's neurodiversity in law, there's legal enable. So various different networks that have been set up over the last few years, where you can just connect with other people and, you know, get get a sense of knowing that you're not alone, knowing what strategies have worked for other people, how they kind of approach their employers, for example. I am also a trade unionist. So I would advise anybody to join a trade union. But law is a very un-unionised sector that that was very apparent when we were doing research. And I think we only, I think, probably only interviewed two people maybe who were who who told us that they were union members. I think I think that that's a big gap. And I guess also, there are other organisations out there for specific impairments, where you might be able to get more advice about employment. So access to work won't help to get a diagnosis. But if you can get an assessment, it might help to make the recommendations to employer that you need to communicate to them, you know, somebody external communicating to your manager, these are the things that are going to help this person succeed in their job. And, you know, having that evidence behind you is often how,

Amelia yeah, fantastic. Is there any way that people can kind of keep up with the work that you're doing, and with the work of the legally Disabled Working people find that?

Natasha Hirst Well, the project has kind of come to a sort of end, really. But we still have our Twitter account, we still have all the resources on the website. And and I kind of encourage people to, you know, to, there are quite a few, there are quite a few networks that have been set up within organisations within firms, as well as external ones. So I encourage them to, you know, network with each other, communicate with each other. Tag us on Twitter, if you've got an event going on, or you're celebrating, you know, neurodiversity week, for example. And yeah, just try to connect up more across the sector so that you can amplify each other's voices really?

Amelia Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. So thank you so much for coming on today. And I really find it very insightful. I hope everyone else did.

Natasha Hirst And it's been great to join on the podcast. I've really enjoyed the conversation, and I hope that it has given some things to think about if you're listening. Thank you.

Amelia Thank you so much for listening today. If you want to find out more about what we do, you can visit our website neurodiversity dot credit UK. All the resources and sources that have been mentioned today's podcast will be linked down below. Thank you

#deafness #ADHD #Neurodivergence #coproduction #disability research #Spotify

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