# Neurodiversity belongs in social work (part 1): Black, dyslexic & female

An episode of [The Social Work Community Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1714472159), 24 Mar 2026, 42 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/14f60c17-0074-476d-8548-b3680082530f/c840856e-aaf1-41c7-9e14-b3e700cdd2aa/928e98e0-c3bb-4db4-8a1c-b41600f9484b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a30296c8-4875-4ee0-ae8d-b3e700cdd2b8

In this special miniseries tied to Community Care's 'Neurodiversity belongs in social work' campaign, Sharmeen Ziauddin interviews Dr Arlene Weekes, social work professor and academic. Dr Weekes has over 35 years experience in the sector and was diagnosed with dyslexia later on in life, while writing her PhD. She has recently completed research which will form part of a new book coming out this year called The Palgrave Handbook of Neuroinclusive Social Work - it's based on her own reflections of being dyslexic and the responses of five black female dyslexic social workers who she interviewed for this research. Listen to this insightful interview with Dr Weekes where she talks about dyslexia and social work. The Social Work Community podcast is where social workers come to discuss the key issues affecting their profession. Whether you are a student or an experienced social worker - whether you are frontline or management, this podcast is for you. You will hear direct from social workers in your community about their successes and their challenges. Follow us on Instagram or on TikTok to keep up-to-date with the latest news and join the Social Work Community for all things social work. For all news stories and features visit Community Care. Produced by Sharmeen Ziauddin See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Hi and welcome to the Social Work Community podcast. I'm
[0:03] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Sharmeen Ziauddin, one of the editors here at Community Care.
[0:06] Sharmeen Ziauddin: This episode is part of our very special podcast series
[0:09] Sharmeen Ziauddin: attached to our campaign, Neurodiversity Belongs in Social Work. If
[0:14] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you haven't seen it, then I'd really encourage you to
[0:16] Sharmeen Ziauddin: go to communitycare.co.uk and check out some of the amazing
[0:19] Sharmeen Ziauddin: contributions from neurodivergent social workers and take a look at
[0:23] Sharmeen Ziauddin: why this campaign is really important for the sector. With
[0:26] Sharmeen Ziauddin: that being said, I'm privileged to have Dr. Arlene P.
[0:29] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Weekes join me. Arlene practised as a probation officer before
[0:33] Sharmeen Ziauddin: moving into social work management during her 35 years of practise. Currently,
[0:37] Sharmeen Ziauddin: she divides her time as a management and training consultant,
[0:41] Sharmeen Ziauddin: keynote speaker, independent fostering panel chair, associate professor, and a
[0:45] Sharmeen Ziauddin: senior of the Higher Education Academy.
[0:48] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Her PhD explored the complexities of decision making and Arlene
[0:52] Sharmeen Ziauddin: went on to co-author the book, Effective Personal and Professional
[0:55] Sharmeen Ziauddin: judgement in Social Work. How Personal Biography Can Affect Personal Effectiveness.
[1:00] Sharmeen Ziauddin: You can read a review of this book on the SocialWorkCommunity.com.
[1:05] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Arlene's recently contributed a chapter for a new book called
[1:08] Sharmeen Ziauddin: The Palgrave Handbook of Neuro-inclusive Social Work, which comes out
[1:12] Sharmeen Ziauddin: in May 2026. It's based on her own reflections of
[1:15] Sharmeen Ziauddin: being dyslexic and the response of five black female dyslexic
[1:19] Sharmeen Ziauddin: social workers who she interviewed for this research.
[1:22] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Before I speak to Arlene, I just wanted to give
[1:24] Sharmeen Ziauddin: a short definition of dyslexia according to the British Dyslexia Foundation.
[1:29] Sharmeen Ziauddin: It says dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty which primarily
[1:33] Sharmeen Ziauddin: affects reading and writing skills. However, it does not only
[1:36] Sharmeen Ziauddin: affect these skills. Dyslexia is actually about information processing. Dyslexic
[1:41] Sharmeen Ziauddin: people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see
[1:45] Sharmeen Ziauddin: and hear.
[1:46] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Which can affect learning and the acquisition of literacy skills.
[1:50] Sharmeen Ziauddin: It can also impact on other areas such as organisational skills.
[1:54] Sharmeen Ziauddin: And of course, all neurodivergences look different for different people. So,
[1:59] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I just want to say, hi Arlene and welcome to
[2:01] Sharmeen Ziauddin: the podcast. How are you?
[2:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: I'm fine. Hearing you describe me in that way feels
[2:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: like woo, all those things, you know, so thank you
[2:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: very much. Yeah, great. That's OK.
[2:11] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I thought it was important to give a definition to begin.
[2:14] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I mean, most people have heard of dyslexia and know
[2:16] Sharmeen Ziauddin: a little bit about it, but I wanted to read
[2:18] Sharmeen Ziauddin: the official definition, obviously get your um feedback and how
[2:23] Sharmeen Ziauddin: it affects you. So I guess we'll just start with,
[2:25] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you know, you were diagnosed with dyslexia quite late in life.
[2:29] Sharmeen Ziauddin: How did your diagnosis come about?
[2:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: Yeah, um, thank you for giving that definition because I
[2:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: think it's really important that you give the breadth of it. Um,
[2:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: I think for me, what I would say is that
[2:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: I went through most of my life not knowing that
[2:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was dyslexic, um, and I was diagnosed in the
[2:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: latter part of the years doing my PhD.
[2:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, and it was, well, I did a PhD at
[2:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: the Tavistock, which was, um, a taught PhD before you
[3:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: went on to do your research. So it was in
[3:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: the final year of doing my assignments, and my second
[3:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: to last assignment as I,
[3:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: can remember and, and one of my,
[3:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: Lecturers said, Have you ever thought of being assessed? And
[3:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was like, for what? and then she talked about,
[3:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: because in those days you weren't talking about neurodiversity, she
[3:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: talked about dyslexia. Um, and I said, no, but I thought, OK,
[3:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: let's go and do this assessment. And I was fortunate
[3:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: enough at the time at my university because it was
[3:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: at the Tavista, but it was in partnership with the
[3:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: University of East London.
[3:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: Had an appointment in relatively no time whatsoever, met a
[3:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: psychologist and came back with, you're dyslexic, and I was like, dyslexic?
[3:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: And I was like, oh, I've gone through school, college,
[3:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: 1st degree, 2nd degree, lots of other diploma in management study,
[3:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: and nobody's ever said that to me. And her response
[4:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: is that you'd I'd obviously mastered,
[4:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: Quite sophisticated ways of managing it. And then that was it.
[4:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was dyslexic. And so what it meant for me,
[4:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: as I said, it was my last assignment and we
[4:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: had a sheet of paper that you put in front
[4:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: of your um assignments to say you're dyslexic for whoever
[4:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: was marking it to have an understanding um of what
[4:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: that might mean in terms of the written work.
[4:34] Sharmeen Ziauddin: And but when you reflected on your whole life, because
[4:38] Sharmeen Ziauddin: obviously dyslexia is something you're born with, did you then realise, oh,
[4:44] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you know, these are the challenges I faced growing up
[4:47] Sharmeen Ziauddin: at school, or did you not face any challenges? I'm
[4:50] Dr Arlene Weekes: honest with you, I don't think I recognised it in school, um,
[4:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: you know, reflecting back on school, I've very much reflected
[4:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: it at home.
[5:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: Insomuch as I was the only child, and my next
[5:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: sibling down from me is 11 years younger than me,
[5:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: and then the one's 15 and then 17, and I
[5:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: say that.
[5:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: No, it was just me and my mom. So I
[5:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: feel like when I think back to school, etc. I
[5:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: had extra classes for this, extra classes for that, you know,
[5:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: my mum was one of those things that education's really important,
[5:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: so sort of lex books and, you know, so I
[5:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: felt like I got all the support I needed academically.
[5:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: Yeah, but when I think back to how I did
[5:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: things and I still do things, is things are in order.
[5:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: If even now, if you go into my wardrobe, all
[5:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: the shirts are in one place, all the t-shirts, all
[5:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: the trousers, they're colour coded, and at the time,
[5:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: I think even if my mom was in in this
[6:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: interview she'd say is you couldn't put something out of place.
[6:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: If my mom went in the room and moved something,
[6:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: I would absolutely know that it's been moved and I'm
[6:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: still the same way now. If you move something.
[6:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: And I think my brain needs to see things in
[6:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: a particular order, like glasses go in one. Don't put
[6:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: crockery and glasses together. I literally have a mental meltdown,
[6:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: and I'm a widow now, but my husband and my
[6:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: children would have said that, yeah, one day that.
[6:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: He put things in the wrong cupboard and I was
[6:33] Dr Arlene Weekes: literally like, ah, I can't cope. So I think I
[6:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: noticed it then, um, but not so much in school.
[6:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: I think I remember myself being somebody who would always
[6:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: put my hand up and say, Miss, can you come
[6:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: and explain it to me? And so those are my recollections,
[6:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: as opposed to,
[6:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: Having any difficulties, and this is the most strangest thing,
[6:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: the word atmosphere comes to mind. I was in economic
[6:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: class and we had to spell atmosphere. Can't remember how
[7:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: I spelt it, but I clearly spelt it wrong, and
[7:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: I just couldn't get my head around how to spell it.
[7:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: And what I've noticed is that I can spell if
[7:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: I can write it down, but if you asked me
[7:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: to call out spelling.
[7:17] Dr Arlene Weekes: That becomes an absolute struggle for me if, you know,
[7:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: I need to see it to be able to see
[7:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: it wrong, and I have to remember rhymes like I
[7:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: before E except after C to see, those kind of things, and then I
[7:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: can get into it, and I suppose.
[7:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: Long winded way, I think I would say I would
[7:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: agree with the psychologist. I obviously adapted.
[7:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: To ways of functioning that work for me.
[7:45] Sharmeen Ziauddin: And how did it impact you as a social worker
[7:48] Sharmeen Ziauddin: in your professional life? You were diagnosed, I think after
[7:52] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you stopped. Was it after you stopped practising? You're still practising.
[7:55] Sharmeen Ziauddin: So then when you reflected on your professional life, could
[7:58] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you see it in
[8:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: that? Well, no. I mean, I'm gonna say the reason
[8:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: why is I've, this June, I've been practising for 36 years.
[8:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: So this will be a woe to some social workers
[8:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: in that when I started off, as you said in
[8:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: the introduction, I was a probation officer.
[8:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: And that time we had a secretary.
[8:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: So you dictated into your, what was it called now,
[8:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: my uh dictaphone dictaphone, that's the word. It didn't ever
[8:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: come up in work because people were typing up my
[8:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: stuff for me.
[8:33] Dr Arlene Weekes: But also, even when you did handwritten reports, sometimes you know,
[8:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: we would write our handwritten reports back then.
[8:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: We had a system that was called gatekeeping, and it
[8:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: wasn't for dyslexics, it was just for everybody. Somebody else,
[8:50] Dr Arlene Weekes: a colleague would read your report and you'd read theirs.
[8:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: So there were systems in place that I think supported
[8:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: me and for those of you who know about probation,
[9:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: it's very report driven.
[9:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: So I was churning out reports just like anybody else
[9:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: and expected to churn out reports, and that was the
[9:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: early time parts of my career, but by the time
[9:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was diagnosed, I had been a manager for 1012 years,
[9:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: so I wasn't.
[9:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: So much writing reports, and I am, believe it or not,
[9:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: despite being a dyslexic, I do love reading, and I'm
[9:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: very good at auditing, right, reading people's QAing other people's stuff,
[9:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: so I can see somebody else's mistakes, and, um, yeah, so,
[9:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: I chair panels now and so I have to read
[9:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: somebody else's minutes and I will check the minutes and
[9:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: I can see something's in the wrong place and whatever, so.
[9:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: I, I can honestly say, I don't feel that it's affected,
[9:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: it affected my practise.
[9:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: In any shape or form, if you were to ask
[10:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: me about when I entered um education full-time, uh, as
[10:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: a lecturer, I definitely feel that it impacted. Would you
[10:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: want me to say a little bit about that? Yes,
[10:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: please
[10:13] Sharmeen Ziauddin: do, because you said it was when you were writing
[10:15] Sharmeen Ziauddin: your PhD.
[10:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: Yeah, well, as a social work lecturer.
[10:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: I found this to be the worst experience of being,
[10:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: and I was a social work lecturer before I became
[10:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: a lecturer in leadership and management.
[10:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: I found as an academic working in an institution that's
[10:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: about being,
[10:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: Open to all forms of learning the hardest. I felt
[10:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: that there was very little compassion, in terms of deadlines
[10:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: and working and the system. I don't feel that was supportive.
[10:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: I think when I was a practitioner and a manager,
[10:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: As I said, one
[10:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: I had a secretary, but even when I was practising,
[11:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: we didn't have this open plan offices and whatever. I
[11:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: had my own office, and so noise impacts me if
[11:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: I'm around lots of people talking and I'm trying to concentrate,
[11:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: that really jars my cognitive. I'm, I'm, I'm somebody who
[11:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: always turns and glares at people, you know, if you're
[11:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: talking around my desk.
[11:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: Because I, I, I can't, I can't do any work
[11:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: there because I'm distracted. I'm really sensitive to noises and,
[11:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: you know, my children and my husband would hit me
[11:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: saying like, they're working and they've got a radio on.
[11:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: I can't cope. Yeah, I'm, I'm not too much noises
[11:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: and stuff like that. But, uh, but I think in practise,
[11:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was able to navigate that.
[11:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: Because of when I qualified and the environment that we
[11:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: were working in then.
[11:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: Going into academia, I found that it's all open plan.
[11:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: There are,
[12:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: Unrealistic deadlines in terms of when you need to do
[12:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: things as well as do your job, marking and whatever,
[12:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: and I found,
[12:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: Managers in academia the most insensitive that I've ever experienced
[12:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: in terms of having any form of neurodiversity because I
[12:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: wasn't the only one. I did, um, can I say, um,
[12:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: that I always disclose after I've got the job, because
[12:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: I just believe.
[12:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: That people will make excuses for not appointing you when
[12:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: they know that you've got some form of dyslexia or something,
[12:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: and I, I, I, I believe the same in terms
[12:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: of ethnicity. I've got a very English speaking name and
[12:50] Dr Arlene Weekes: so often I have seen people be surprised when I
[12:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: walk into the room, whether I'm a practitioner or
[12:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: Or a lecturer when they, Doctor Arlene Weeks, or as
[13:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was before, Arlene Weeks, because they're not expecting a
[13:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: black person with that name, but definitely I think when
[13:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: you're Nora diverse, you have to think I have had
[13:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: to think, I know other people have had to think
[13:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: whether or not you disclose it straight away once, because
[13:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: I don't need help when I'm being interviewed and stuff
[13:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: like that. I can do an interview fine.
[13:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: Again, I've developed techniques to write down a few key
[13:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: words that are going to help me get through the interview,
[13:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: but I do find it that, yeah, it can be
[13:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: more difficult if you diagnose it, because people think, oh
[13:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: my goodness, what am I going to do to have
[13:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: to support them.
[13:38] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Yes, and we can actually come back to that later,
[13:41] Sharmeen Ziauddin: but that that does kind of segue in quite nicely
[13:44] Sharmeen Ziauddin: into your research that where you've interviewed five black women
[13:48] Sharmeen Ziauddin: with dyslexia. Could you share some of the things that
[13:51] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you discovered?
[13:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: I discovered that first thing is that people always need
[13:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: to work out whether they are going to disclose. Also,
[14:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: the common was about the amount of support that people
[14:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: are going to get, um, and the support starts with
[14:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: just an understanding that I might need, or they might
[14:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: need a bit more time to do something.
[14:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: To the kind of equipment, physical support that people are
[14:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: going to receive or not receive.
[14:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: A lot of it is either.
[14:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: The support is not timely, you know, it can take
[14:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: 6 months, a year before you get equipment because people
[14:33] Dr Arlene Weekes: are fighting, whether it's access to, um, work that are
[14:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: going to give you the equipment or they are going
[14:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: to give you equipment.
[14:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: And particularly when you work in large, large organisations, whether
[14:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: it is in a local authority or in a school,
[14:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: the reality of it, most employers have to provide it
[14:50] Dr Arlene Weekes: because they're too large of an organisation for access to work,
[14:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: but you as an individual get caught up in that,
[14:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: who's going to provide it, and it can take you.
[15:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: Years, I literally took me 18 months in one organisation
[15:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: before I got any equipment, and others talked about similar things.
[15:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: There's also a lack of understanding of what strengths people
[15:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: with dyslexia have, and so,
[15:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: You get into a job.
[15:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, and a team.
[15:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: Maybe particularly newly qualified social workers not understanding or not
[15:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: knowing what the demands are going to be, and then
[15:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: they start to struggle with the demand to have it
[15:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: done in X amount of weeks or X amount of days,
[15:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: and rather than managers being able to understand that because
[15:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: of their dyslexia and as you said in the introduction, cognitively,
[15:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: it's not that they can't do it, cognitively, they're operating
[15:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: at a slower pace.
[15:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: There is no understanding. It's that's the deadline, get it in,
[15:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: and people are feeling really burnt out. A lot of
[16:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: the interviewees were saying that they're working so much harder
[16:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: to keep up with everybody else with very little support.
[16:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: And then one of the, you know, at least 2
[16:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: of the interviewees talked about disciplinary action, capability action.
[16:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: Before any support around the dyslexia, and one was demoted.
[16:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: Another one was taken through capability measures without that corresponding
[16:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: support to them, um, in terms of doing their jobs. What,
[16:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: what I noted that the younger of the, the cohort
[16:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: that I interviewed, because it, it transpires that, you know,
[16:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: I started with the 1st 3, and they were somebody
[16:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: in their 60s, somebody in their 50s, and then somebody
[16:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: in their 20s, and then I thought, oh, I need
[17:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: a few more. So I aimed for somebody in their
[17:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: 30s and somebody in, in, in their 40s. And so
[17:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: the people who were, yeah, newer qualified or
[17:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: Younger, they had developed, I think, quite sophisticated ways of
[17:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: managing that, and that was like, I'm getting out of
[17:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: this particular area of work and I'm choosing an area
[17:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: of work that will work with my skills. So one
[17:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: person went into charity work.
[17:33] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, and one went into disability type work. So I
[17:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: thought that was an interesting discovery for me, how conscious
[17:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: people were of I need to work somewhere else that
[17:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: is going to work to my strengths. Somebody went into fostering,
[17:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: which is very report orientated, but then found themselves having
[17:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: a bit more of a supportive manager and not doing
[18:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: the sort of like frontline pressure.
[18:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, protection, kind of, yes, yeah, those were some of
[18:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: the discoveries. I, I think there was, well, not I think,
[18:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: but there was kind of an emotional period for me
[18:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: in that one of the, um,
[18:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: Interviews, the eldest one was actually put in an educational
[18:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: behavioural school, because they were dyslexic, and that was really,
[18:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: really sad for me to hear, and even in reading
[18:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: back my own work, it's, it's just something that really
[18:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: does jar me, in terms of our educational experience and I,
[18:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: and you know, granted,
[18:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: You know, she's in her 60s, so it was a
[18:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: different time. It rang true to me thinking back to
[18:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: my own studies where there was a male in my
[18:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: cohort who was dyslexic, and it's something I didn't even
[18:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: know about. Yeah, I was 19, rising 19, going to university,
[19:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: and he relayed about having to wear a dunce cap
[19:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: in school because he found out later on in life
[19:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: as being a dyslexic, and he had gone to
[19:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: university as a mature student, and from my memory he
[19:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: was at least 20 years older than me, maybe 1520
[19:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: years older than me, and,
[19:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: One of the things that has always stood for me
[19:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: even when discovering I was dyslexic, was that he was
[19:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: the only one out of our cohort that got a first.
[19:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: But he'd spent, yeah, he'd spent his life as a porter.
[19:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: Because during his school years,
[19:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: He was told
[19:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: He wasn't capable
[19:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, and so that person in my, um, research who
[19:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: was put in an educational behavioural school just tricked me
[19:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: back to all those years ago when that had been
[19:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: somebody's experience of when the education system gets it wrong,
[20:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: and in her case, even her family got it wrong
[20:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: for her, um, that what happens when you don't get
[20:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: the right kind of support.
[20:13] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Yeah, and the dunce cap thing is really sad.
[20:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: It, it was really, really, really sad, uh, you know, um,
[20:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: but I would say it, not comparatively, but just on
[20:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: a level of being put in an educational behavioural school
[20:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: when there is nothing wrong with your behaviour which that
[20:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: you couldn't read. And she describes, and it's in the
[20:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: um the chapter, that she didn't learn to read until
[20:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: she was 14.
[20:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: But what's really interesting and then sort of a lovely
[20:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: end to a story, as it were, was her life story,
[20:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: is that she went on not only to qualify but
[20:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: become a practise educator, practise tutor, and I think 2
[20:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: or 3 years ago she was awarded by her students
[20:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: as the best in terms of BASA, British Association of
[21:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: Social Worker, the best practise teacher.
[21:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, and done to her, and well done to her,
[21:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: but the very thing that people think she wasn't able
[21:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: to do, which is read and write and whatever, she
[21:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: has to do that because she still does that role
[21:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: for students.
[21:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: And because of her experience, she's very supportive of students
[21:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: who have additional needs,
[21:27] Sharmeen Ziauddin: and that takes an enormous amount of resilience and determination
[21:31] Sharmeen Ziauddin: to keep going.
[21:33] Dr Arlene Weekes: And that's what I saw. That's another thing that I
[21:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: would say every single person, including myself, you have to
[21:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: be resilient to adapt to an environment that is pretty hostile.
[21:47] Sharmeen Ziauddin: And did you find differences in terms of women that you,
[21:52] Sharmeen Ziauddin: the younger social workers that you interviewed, but did you
[21:55] Sharmeen Ziauddin: find differences in how they would, you know, their understanding
[21:59] Sharmeen Ziauddin: of it and their diagnosis and the disclosure of it,
[22:02] Sharmeen Ziauddin: like just because for older people and maybe there's more
[22:05] Sharmeen Ziauddin: stigma attached. Did you find there was slight difference in
[22:08] Sharmeen Ziauddin: attitudes in how they disclosed.
[22:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: Really, I think what, what, what, what happened though, and,
[22:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: and that this will explain why they're not really, because
[22:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: the vast majority got diagnosed when they were either on
[22:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: an access to social work course or on their social
[22:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: work course. So regardless of age, there was only um
[22:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: two of the cohort who were diagnosed in school time.
[22:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: There was one who was on a different,
[22:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: Path, scientific kind of path, and then she was struggling with, um,
[22:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: all that that involved, and then moved into social work,
[22:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: so she got diagnosed at university but different course.
[22:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: I was the only one who got diagnosed way into
[23:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: my career, so people's diagnoses were, were different. I don't,
[23:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: I don't remember anybody in themselves questioning, oh, I'm dyslexic.
[23:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: It was more aha moment. There was one person whose
[23:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: parent was like dyslexic. You can't be dyslexic.
[23:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, another person whose parents and school knew but didn't
[23:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: really give any extra support, it was just like I've
[23:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: arrived at a diagnosis, um, and so that was more
[23:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: the issue than like, oh, I'm dyslexic and this.
[23:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: Means what. So, there wasn't, I, I never picked up
[23:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: a defendedness from anybody about having that. It was more,
[23:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: this explains why I am either struggling or not keeping
[23:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: up or see the world differently. And like for me,
[23:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: as I said earlier, noise, like, you know, people like, oh.
[24:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: I even get now students say, you know, they'll be
[24:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: having a conversation and I've heard every single part of it.
[24:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: So how did you hear that, Miss? And I, you know,
[24:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: because I am so sensitive and so there are things
[24:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: like that people discovered about themselves as opposed to I'm
[24:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: really surprised at this. Yeah,
[24:21] Sharmeen Ziauddin: and that's.
[24:22] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Really interesting because when people think of dyslexia, they just
[24:25] Sharmeen Ziauddin: sort of think of reading and writing. Through this campaign,
[24:29] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I've learned so much and the campaign that my colleague
[24:32] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Anastasia Koutsounia is running, like I've learned so much through
[24:35] Sharmeen Ziauddin: her and all the people who have submitted and one
[24:37] Sharmeen Ziauddin: of the things these sensory issues are not just related
[24:40] Sharmeen Ziauddin: to ADHD or autism, which is kind of what you
[24:43] Sharmeen Ziauddin: think of.
[24:43] Sharmeen Ziauddin: When you think of noise and like the thing you
[24:46] Sharmeen Ziauddin: mentioned about your cupboards and your chairs and everything being tidy,
[24:49] Sharmeen Ziauddin: you might relate that to OCD but actually there's a
[24:52] Sharmeen Ziauddin: lot of overlap between all the different neuro divergences.
[24:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: And I think it's a way, I mean, my understanding
[24:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: from myself but other people, you have to find a way,
[25:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: you talked about resilience of managing.
[25:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: The world that you're in, because the world doesn't change
[25:07] Dr Arlene Weekes: for you. And so I used to think, oh God,
[25:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: you're a bit OCD early, and I used to kind
[25:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: of rip myself before people would say it because I
[25:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: still find like people like, oh, she's very particular, and
[25:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: I'm like, what is particular, you know, in my head
[25:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: I'm trying to work out how I manage a system
[25:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: that isn't going to adapt for me.
[25:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: Uh, yeah, so I've got to adapt, and if I
[25:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: say that's a bit noisy, please don't think, oh, I'm
[25:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: being difficult. Think about actually, she's dyslexic, so, or she
[25:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: might have some form of neurodiversity because they might not know,
[25:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: you don't wear a label saying that you're dyslexic, but you,
[25:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: you kind of need to understand that there might be
[25:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: other things going on for somebody.
[25:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: That we don't need to disclose, but you should be
[25:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: a bit more sensitive.
[25:55] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Yeah, and I think this is one of the main
[25:59] Sharmeen Ziauddin: focuses of the campaign is to educate people and educate
[26:03] Sharmeen Ziauddin: organisations and people who work, who have their senior positions
[26:05] Sharmeen Ziauddin: because I mean it's not their fault that they don't
[26:08] Sharmeen Ziauddin: know about things, so we.
[26:09] Sharmeen Ziauddin: You know, knowledge is power, right? So once you know and,
[26:13] Sharmeen Ziauddin: and actually you mentioned about job interviews and you know
[26:16] Sharmeen Ziauddin: there is this attitude um amongst within some people and
[26:20] Sharmeen Ziauddin: some organisations that oh my God, neurodiverse, blah blah blah blah.
[26:23] Sharmeen Ziauddin: So and they, you know, they see it as a negative,
[26:26] Sharmeen Ziauddin: but the more I'm learning about um neurodiversity really come
[26:30] Sharmeen Ziauddin: to the conclusion not only does it belong in social work, it,
[26:33] Sharmeen Ziauddin: it makes social work better.
[26:35] Sharmeen Ziauddin: And it's just uh it's really is about knowledge and
[26:38] Sharmeen Ziauddin: that's one of the things we hope to do with
[26:39] Sharmeen Ziauddin: the campaign. But talking of, sorry,
[26:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: can I just say that I do think it's about knowledge,
[26:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: but I think like with most things is, it's not
[26:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: enough just to know it's something to do.
[26:50] Dr Arlene Weekes: So like, I, I totally agree with you. If you
[26:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: don't know, you don't know, but once you know, you
[26:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: need to do something about it. So for example, an
[26:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: organisation that I work with, both myself and my manager
[27:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: were neurodivergent, different.
[27:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: And we had a thing about in our diaries, we'd
[27:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: put everything in our diaries for ourselves so that we're
[27:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: clear about what we need to do and what, so
[27:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: we don't forget. And I had a manager who basically
[27:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: said to my manager, they just don't like it that
[27:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: I put in my diary admin time. Yeah, and that,
[27:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: as my manager rightly knew, I said to her, because
[27:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: I put in my resignation probably like 6 weeks after that.
[27:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: And I was like, if I have to.
[27:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: Say to somebody why I need admin time in my diary.
[27:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: And my manager's advocating, I, she was saying I do
[27:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: the same and it works for me and I know
[27:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: where she is. That shows to me that that person
[27:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: has no desire to adapt their way of being to
[27:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: suit somebody who's neurodivergent. It was almost like my way
[28:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: or the highway, and for you to say to my
[28:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: manager to relay back to me, I just don't like it.
[28:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: Mm, yeah, um, and I'd literally resigned after that, yeah,
[28:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: and then when I resigned and I made clear why,
[28:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: it was like, oh, I didn't mean to, I think
[28:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: your work is so wonderful, and I looked at my
[28:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: manager as to say, I told you they were going
[28:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: to say that, because I had told her that, it's that,
[28:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: it's that defendedness over what you didn't do, rather than
[28:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: that acknowledgement, is that,
[28:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: You have to be prepared to adapt the way you
[28:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: do things to support a neurodivergent person, and obviously it's
[28:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: a big they're big organisations. I'm not talking about every
[28:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: single thing, but something as simple as we have diaries,
[28:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: we have to have our diaries open.
[28:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: For somebody to put in admin time and you just
[28:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: say you don't like it, really, I, I just felt
[28:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: like there is no point in me trying to work
[29:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: in this organisation, because you are on the, on the
[29:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: surface an organisation saying that you welcome diversity, but that
[29:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: very act shows that you don't.
[29:13] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Knowledge is nothing if there's
[29:16] Sharmeen Ziauddin: an action taken afterwards. And actually talking of support, what,
[29:21] Sharmeen Ziauddin: what kind of things do help you in work, um,
[29:23] Sharmeen Ziauddin: any tools because I think lots of people listening could
[29:27] Sharmeen Ziauddin: might not have the things that you have and it's
[29:29] Sharmeen Ziauddin: good to learn about things that might be able to
[29:31] Sharmeen Ziauddin: help them. So what's helped you?
[29:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: I mean, for me it's, it's these things that we
[29:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: struggle to get on like headphones and things like that
[29:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: to block out noise. I mean, one organisation, or several
[29:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: organisations to be fair, but the last one, second to
[29:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: last one came to mind is thinking about where do you,
[29:50] Dr Arlene Weekes: in an open plan office, where do you
[29:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: Like somebody who's, we're talking about dyslexia here, but I'm
[29:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: sure it's the same similar for other, where can they sit?
[29:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: Don't assume that plunking them in the middle of an
[30:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: office is going to work for somebody where they're people
[30:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: are passing or putting things on their desk because it's
[30:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: the easiest place.
[30:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: The issue around um technology works for some and doesn't
[30:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: work for everybody, so, um, things like Dragon, naturally speaking,
[30:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: is a good tool, but what a lot of my participants,
[30:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: interviewees say is that they were often just given the
[30:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: licence and expected to get on.
[30:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: And just do it themselves. And so I would say if,
[30:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: if we're going to talk about um giving people technology,
[30:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: they need to have the training and I was fortunate,
[30:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: as I said, I, I was diagnosed with my, doing
[30:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: my PhD and I got my support from student finance
[30:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: as opposed to my local authority and therefore I got,
[30:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: I think it was like 25 hours of 1 to
[31:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: 1 tuition.
[31:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: Which was very supportive for me and therefore I'm good
[31:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: at that, whereas a lot of the people that I interviewed,
[31:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: they said it just sat on their desk because they
[31:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: weren't given the support to use it and know people
[31:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: use AI chat GP and co-pilot.
[31:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: And that equally can be beneficial, but one of the
[31:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: things that I'm finding with a number of my students
[31:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: and people that I speak to who practise now is
[31:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: the expectation that they use it as opposed to that
[31:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: it's helpful to them. So one of somebody I spoke
[31:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: to recently, um, and they're not neurodivergent, but I, you know,
[31:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: was that they have to spend so much time correcting it.
[31:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: That it's not really helpful, and that's where Dragon, naturally
[31:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: speaking works better because you train that to your voice,
[31:56] Dr Arlene Weekes: where co-pilots and you know, all the ones that you
[32:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: just get as part of the Microsoft package are not
[32:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: specific to no a diverse people
[32:07] Sharmeen Ziauddin: and dragon is like a speech to um writing AI.
[32:12] Sharmeen Ziauddin: AI tool.
[32:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: Yes, but like, naturally speaking, well, you can say things
[32:17] Dr Arlene Weekes: like put a comma, and it will put a comma,
[32:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: whereas if you're using some of the Microsoft Suite, it
[32:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: will write, put a comma, yeah, yeah, and that's hard
[32:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: work for somebody, particularly dyslexic, then you've got to go
[32:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: back and correct it. So there are, there are tools
[32:34] Dr Arlene Weekes: like that. I think the other thing that people talked
[32:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: about in my research is,
[32:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: Managers being able to give them time.
[32:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: Yeah, and, and, and that's both in terms of their workload,
[32:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: but also time in supervision, yeah. How many managers do
[32:51] Dr Arlene Weekes: stop and think, I'm dealing with somebody with neurodiversity, while
[32:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: I give everybody an hour and a half, I might
[32:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: have to give them an hour and 50, 45 minutes,
[33:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: or an hour, yeah, because depending on what they're neurodiverse and,
[33:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: being in a room, stuck in a room for that
[33:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: length time if you're ADHD and you're like, uh, stir crazy.
[33:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: You know, those kind of adaptations are important and equally
[33:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: the whole issue about working from home.
[33:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: Some people work better. I'm not saying that people shouldn't
[33:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: go into work, but do you afford somebody who's neurodiversant
[33:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: with the, actually, you might need to work at home
[33:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: 3 days of work, where I might only give somebody
[33:33] Dr Arlene Weekes: once a week because there's different needs. And those things
[33:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: that people talked about in terms of support. But a
[33:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: really big thing was not looking at their,
[33:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: Nor a diversity as a capability issue first.
[33:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: Supporting, offering support first because what a lot of the
[33:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: people were saying is they're already so tensed about making
[34:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: a mistake that they end up making the mistake because
[34:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: they feel that they're being watched and not supported, penalised
[34:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: rather than supported, and those are the things I would
[34:13] Dr Arlene Weekes: really urge managers, supervisors.
[34:17] Dr Arlene Weekes: Even colleagues to have a better understanding of what that
[34:21] Dr Arlene Weekes: might mean for somebody, um, and, and also what came
[34:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: out of the research, I should have said this a
[34:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: bit earlier, but I kind of think it fits here
[34:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: is that,
[34:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: You, you expect social workers to be supportive of service users,
[34:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: but you don't afford them that same kind of support
[34:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: of understanding that, you know, you might need to do
[34:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: it in this particular way for a client who a
[34:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: service user who's got, who's neurodivergent, but you don't stop
[34:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: and think, actually, I've got a workforce that are neurodivergent.
[34:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: And equally in terms of task, I think having been
[35:02] Dr Arlene Weekes: a manager for in excess of 26 years, I know
[35:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: my staff, and rather than somebody, you know, the government's
[35:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: always about this kind of thing, we're losing social workers,
[35:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: how many social workers either leave the profession or leave
[35:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: an organisation because they're neurodivergent and nobody supported them to think,
[35:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: Actually, you're in front line, but you might be better
[35:27] Dr Arlene Weekes: suited to family support.
[35:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: Because that would tap into your skills rather than making
[35:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: you work in an environment that doesn't suit your skills,
[35:39] Dr Arlene Weekes: doesn't meet the organisation's output needs, and don't get me wrong,
[35:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: I'm a manager, I understand you've got output needs.
[35:48] Dr Arlene Weekes: But actually we could use our staff better.
[35:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: With their skills.
[35:55] Dr Arlene Weekes: Rather than funnelling everybody into the same job because we
[35:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: feel that's the, what we need to do.
[36:02] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I was going to ask you what advice you'd give
[36:04] Sharmeen Ziauddin: to students or newly qualified social workers who are dyslexic
[36:08] Sharmeen Ziauddin: and trying to navigate a career in social work, but
[36:10] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I think you've answered quite a lot of it in
[36:13] Sharmeen Ziauddin: the
[36:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: last answer. Yeah, I think the other thing that I
[36:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: would say with students in mind or newly qualified people
[36:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: is there is this real push for you to do
[36:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: frontline in safeguarding because, you know, it doesn't look good
[36:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: on your CV if you don't do that.
[36:31] Dr Arlene Weekes: But there are other ways that you can manage.
[36:36] Dr Arlene Weekes: Your knowledge and your learning around safeguarding that doesn't put
[36:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: you at risk, and I think people need to be
[36:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: honest with themselves if they have got that diagnosis before
[36:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: they go into work, about what works for them rather than,
[36:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: Chasing a type of role that's never going to suit
[36:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: their ability.
[36:59] Dr Arlene Weekes: And it's so much different to when I qualified. When
[37:03] Dr Arlene Weekes: I qualified and I started off, as I said, a
[37:05] Dr Arlene Weekes: probation officer, we moved every 3 years because that was
[37:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: seen as a way to give you an opportunity to
[37:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: practise in different areas. Now people end up getting stuck
[37:17] Dr Arlene Weekes: in a job that they've worked out within. I had
[37:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: a student contact, well, she's not a student now, and
[37:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: one of my ex-students.
[37:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: Who contacted me this week saying she's neurodiverse and like
[37:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: I can't do this, and this is her 2nd role.
[37:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: In 3 years, because she's feeling that nobody's listening to
[37:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: the fact that she can't, she, it's not that she
[37:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: can't do the job, but she's been, because she is
[37:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: good at the job, she's just getting overloaded and she's
[37:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: getting burnt out.
[37:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, but what happens, as I've had in my on
[37:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: my CV, oh, they're moving too quickly, right? And without understanding,
[37:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: I had somebody where the feedback to me was that
[38:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: she hasn't stayed in a job a lot. So not true, yeah.
[38:06] Dr Arlene Weekes: But actually, the job that I was leaving was because
[38:10] Dr Arlene Weekes: of the demands around my neurodiversity, but nobody, you didn't
[38:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: ask me that question in the interview, why have I left?
[38:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: You asked me why I applied for the job and
[38:20] Dr Arlene Weekes: I told you. But if you'd asked me, I would
[38:23] Dr Arlene Weekes: have been able to tell you that, but you made
[38:25] Dr Arlene Weekes: an assumption on the basis of that.
[38:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: You know, and so I would say to students, you
[38:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: have to chart your own course, knowing that you're dyslexic
[38:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: or neurodivergent and find a role if you can, and
[38:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: that might be working in a charitable sector, and I,
[38:44] Dr Arlene Weekes: and I worked in charity. I'm not saying charity is easy,
[38:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: but there is different kind of pressures, and I think
[38:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: it's really important that, and I would say this is
[38:53] Dr Arlene Weekes: twofold to academic institutions and students.
[38:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: Be mindful of the support that you get in academia
[39:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: that you're not going to get in practise. So often
[39:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: in academia, if you're doing, you're a divert, you might
[39:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: get an extra 5 days or 7 days, but that's
[39:11] Dr Arlene Weekes: not the real world of practise. So students leave thinking,
[39:15] Dr Arlene Weekes: People are going to be so much more understanding when
[39:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: I go into practise, but universities are set up to
[39:22] Dr Arlene Weekes: offer a different kind of support, whereas in practise, you
[39:26] Dr Arlene Weekes: have to meet a court deadline. The judges really don't
[39:29] Dr Arlene Weekes: care that you've got dyslexia, and why should they? And
[39:32] Dr Arlene Weekes: I'm not being, you know, anti-judges. It's for your manager
[39:37] Dr Arlene Weekes: to say, actually, this is once 4 weeks. I know
[39:40] Dr Arlene Weekes: you need 6 weeks. I'm not going to allocate you
[39:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: that case.
[39:45] Dr Arlene Weekes: Rather than, OK, they're just the next one in the
[39:47] Dr Arlene Weekes: queue that needs to take a case, and you put
[39:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: unnecessary pressures on them. So I would say to students
[39:54] Dr Arlene Weekes: as well, hold the line of saying that's not going
[39:58] Dr Arlene Weekes: to work for me, because we know in terms of
[40:01] Dr Arlene Weekes: the Equalities Act, if you say for my dyslexia, I
[40:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: can't do that, woe betide any manager who then says
[40:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: you have to.
[40:09] Dr Arlene Weekes: Because they're going against the Equality Act, and so it's
[40:12] Dr Arlene Weekes: for us to advocate for ourselves, as much as it
[40:16] Dr Arlene Weekes: is to expect our managers,
[40:19] Dr Arlene Weekes: To, to, to know better,
[40:20] Sharmeen Ziauddin: yeah. I could speak to you all day, even in
[40:23] Sharmeen Ziauddin: our offline chat, we spoke for so long, but I,
[40:27] Sharmeen Ziauddin: I think we have to leave it there. Thank you
[40:29] Sharmeen Ziauddin: so much for your time and for your wisdom and
[40:32] Sharmeen Ziauddin: for sharing your research. Book is out in May, um,
[40:35] Sharmeen Ziauddin: that you contributed to. I'll put a link to it
[40:38] Sharmeen Ziauddin: in the show notes for everybody.
[40:41] Dr Arlene Weekes: Can I just say a big thank you to you
[40:43] Dr Arlene Weekes: and Community Care and Anastasia for this campaign, because I
[40:46] Dr Arlene Weekes: think it's really, really overdue.
[40:49] Dr Arlene Weekes: Um, and I, you know, I, I, I mean it
[40:52] Dr Arlene Weekes: widely as a thank you around neurodiversity, but I also
[40:57] Dr Arlene Weekes: want to thank you for getting in contact with, um,
[41:00] Dr Arlene Weekes: Shantal Thomas of the ARM anti-racist movement, a big plug
[41:04] Dr Arlene Weekes: for that, that to give us an opportunity as black
[41:08] Dr Arlene Weekes: social workers to say that there are nuances around being black.
[41:14] Dr Arlene Weekes: And neurodivergent, that's my, what my chapter talks to. Yes,
[41:18] Dr Arlene Weekes: neurodivergency affects everybody, but if you've got the other layer
[41:24] Dr Arlene Weekes: of being seen as black and somehow seen as incompetent
[41:28] Dr Arlene Weekes: that you're wearing, you're,
[41:30] Dr Arlene Weekes: Wearing sort of two heavy coats on, so I really
[41:35] Dr Arlene Weekes: do want to thank you for that opportunity of giving
[41:38] Dr Arlene Weekes: black women, but also um a little voice in this.
[41:42] Dr Arlene Weekes: I really appreciate your, your time.
[41:44] Sharmeen Ziauddin: Thanks for saying that and also, I believe Shantal has
[41:47] Sharmeen Ziauddin: got a piece coming out soon, a written piece on Communitycare.co.uk.
[41:52] Sharmeen Ziauddin: So yeah, we look forward to reading that. Thank you.
[41:56] Sharmeen Ziauddin: That was Doctor Arlene Weeks. Look out for part two
[41:58] Sharmeen Ziauddin: of this podcast where I'll be interviewing another social worker
[42:01] Sharmeen Ziauddin: who'll be sharing their experience of being neurodivergent. If you
[42:05] Sharmeen Ziauddin: want to get in touch, you can via Instagram, we're
[42:07] Sharmeen Ziauddin: community care official or drop us an email at communitycare@MarkAllengroup.com.
[42:13] Sharmeen Ziauddin: See you next time.

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