Our commitment to Neurodiversity.

Fulfilling our mission to ensure no one has to face a mental health difficulty alone is something we live and breathe every day at Doncaster Mind and this includes breaking down barriers that prevent people accessing support.

During Neurodiversity Celebration Week in 2024 we made a commitment to put ourselves under a microscope and find ways to make the mental health support we can offer more accessible to our local ND community.

On the anniversary of this commitment for this years Neurodiversity Week, we’re sharing what we’ve learned:

Communications:

• Simplify, use of bullets, non-serifed fonts, simple designs, use of videos, no jargon

Access to premises:

• Directions by video, voice descriptions, text captions

Office environment:

• Calm spaces, no unnecessary distractions, minimise sensory overload

Support:

• Adjust to needs, create team awareness, ND specific resources, allow more time, policy review

Events:

• ND awareness integrated into events, quiet areas provided

To celebrate ND week here at Doncaster Mind we held an internal ND interactive session for all our team to enable them to gain and develop a deeper understanding of Neurodiversity. During the session we were shown an informative video and were provided with various tasks each simulating a real-life experience of a neurodivergent person. These tasks enabled the team to gain a real insight into the perspective of a neurodivergent person and helped them to understand the strengths and difficulties of each type of neurodivergence, overall providing everyone with the key knowledge and information to practice and incorporate into their work and daily lives.

   

We’re taking all of the above into account as we continue on our development journey, including how we adjust our working practices for members of the Doncaster Mind team. A big thank you to our focus group of staff members and volunteers who have led this work and provided a roadmap for us to work on.

Please reach out to us if you are having difficulty in accessing our support!

Call 01302 812190

Email office@doncastermind.org.uk

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