World Autism Awareness Day

IPFA is committed to driving and supporting change with respect to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the infrastructure and energy industries.

Between 28 March – 3 April we are supporting World Autism Acceptance Week, which is inclusive of World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April.

As part of raising awareness for these initiatives, we wanted to share resources, articles and inspiration that we have sourced through partnering with our members. Please take a look through and let us know if you would like to contribute.

Our Voices, Our Stories | EY’s Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence

Our Voices, Our Stories is a series of conversations with IPFA members and industry leaders, where we hear about their experiences, in their own words.

This conversation was recorded as part of our activities to raise awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace.

In this episode, Mayur Gondhea, founder of the financial modelling consultancy Cubelynx, is joined by members of EY’s Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence team Jamell Mitchell, Shelly Ramsey and James Hudgins. In this 20-minute discussion, we learn more about neurodiversity and challenges in the workplace for neurodivergent people. We also hear from EY about their Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence, the difference their program has made for their neurodivergent colleagues and how other organizations can follow in their footsteps.

Watch the video here.

NAS Autism at Work Programme

We would also like to share one of our member organisation’s CubeLynx experience of being part of National Autistic Society’s Autism at Work Programme (UK). In this video members of the CubeLynx team share their views of the programme along with other employers/employees.

Mayur Gondhea, the founder of Cubelynx commented: “CubeLynx is a financial modelling consultancy company that was created to give autistic people employment opportunities. There is a gap in the job market because often autistic people have lots of abilities but face employment barriers – both in terms of getting a job and also while working in a job. I am grateful for the overall support and guidance the Autism at Work programme offers autistic people, from the recruitment process, through to the job itself. If anyone in our infrastructure community would like to speak to get more details, please do get in touch!”

Watch the video here.

We encourage members to let us know if there are similar programmes running internationally as we would love to support them.

Neurodiversity Resources

Please find a list below of neurodiversity resources. Whilst this initiative is focused on raising awareness for Autism, we wanted to highlight that many of these resources that apply to Autism also apply to many other forms of non-visible disabilities.

Weblinks:

What is Neurodiversity? – Genius Within

What Is Autism? » NeuroClastic

Resources for Employers Archives » NeuroClastic

Autism and women — Insights of a Neurodivergent Clinician (neurodivergentinsights.com)

Misdiagnosis Monday — Insights of a Neurodivergent Clinician (neurodivergentinsights.com)

Disability Confident – Are you disability confident? (campaign.gov.uk)

Neurodiversity At Work: Assimilate Or Integrate? (forbes.com)

Making agile working suit everyone — Roar Louder (everybodyroar.com)

Neurodiversity Paradigm PDF (squarespace.com)

Books

• We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation by Eric Garcia
• Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman