How SPACE helped my wellbeing at work as a Late Discovered AuDHD person
Antonia Aluko, NdC Lived Experience Advisor, shares our fifth blog of our latest campaign ‘Against PBS & ABA’.
Antonia explores her experiences of the workplace as an AuDHD woman and shares how the SPACE Framework (Doherty, McCowan & Shaw, 2023) supported her in finding accommodations that offered meaningful support.
When I first started my role at Neurodiverse Connection, I entered it knowing very little about adaptations and accommodations I could make for myself.Being a late discovered AuDHD woman, masking felt easier than asking for support and I was used to the university system where disability accommodations constituted a sort of checklist dependant on specific difficulties. This included things like being able to use a laptop to take notes, having extensions on deadlines and having a few days added onto my library loans to support processing. These accommodations were useful for the academic context, but it felt like I was ticking off a list of stuff that I that was not personal to me and how I manage competing pressures, different sensory environments, and my sense of self.
As an adult at work, these accommodations certainly weren't individualised or person centred to what I needed, and frankly, I didn’t know what I needed! If you asked me about accommodations or supporting my wellbeing in a lived experience role, I would have told you that I was fine and maybe I just needed to sit in a quiet room. Whilst that was useful for a previous me who was familiar with masking, it was no longer applicable. The version of myself in my lived experience role where I would discuss my own and others’ negative experiences of inequality and iatrogenic harm, needed a more robust form of accommodations that considered my intersectional experiences, wellbeing, and unmasking.
Within my first few months at NdC, I was introduced to the SPACE framework as part of my work on the Culture of Care programme. As a team we developed some training showing how the framework could support inpatient mental healthcare. As we created the training, I wondered, ‘if this could support patients, how could this support me at work?’
I broke down each of the letters of SPACE (sensory, predictability, acceptance, communication, and empathy), thinking more broadly about how processing, emotional and physical spaces may have an impact on my wellbeing. From this, I identified some accommodations and understandings I would need to maintain overall wellness in my role:
Sensory
Understanding why my home is the best sensory environment for me as a home worker and what I could add or take away from my home to make it more sensory friendly.
With this, I stopped putting requirements on myself to use the ‘big light’ when I was working from home. If people could see me in an online meeting and I could see my work, that was all that mattered!Putting in accommodations for myself whilst travelling as part of the programme.
Now I never leave the home without some form of migraine relief when I’m in a bright environment (the 4Head stick is super convenient and portable). I also always wear layers to put on and take off as I struggle to regulate my temperature (I can adapt my body temperature if I have a cardigan with me!)Using quiet rooms at different locations and making sure there is always a quiet space onsite when I am facilitating.
Having access to a sensory neutral space to recover when I am in an unfamiliar environment has become a must have instead of a ‘nice to have’. It means that I can step away if I need to. Sometimes I don’t need to use the space but when I do, I am always grateful for it.
Predictability
Understanding the need for my own balance between routine and novelty.
This was hard to get along with at first. I love routines but I struggle to stick to them because of how easily I get bored and then it feels like I am cycling through a list of new routines. I realised that I could have both and integrate a routine of novelty, creating new ways to do the tasks that I routinely need to do. (e.g. starting each day by answering emails but changing the modes in which I respond such as answering less important emails via voice message or Teams message).Remembering that flexibility is not the enemy and can also mean me being flexible with myself.
The Neurodivergent Wellbeing Approach course here at NdC taught me to start working with my natural rhythms but because of my need for novelty, my rhythms can change. If I come to work and I feel more depleted, I can be somewhat more flexible with what task I embark on such as catching up on trainings instead of focusing on more cognitively intensive tasks. I allow myself to be creative about how I can contribute to deadlines whilst diversifying how I approach my work. Progress is Progress and I can plan that in for myself. This also lessens the guilt of how I approach my work.Being clear with others what I need and what is needed of me.
If I am travelling, having pictures of the space, an awareness of food around and planning travel in advance with colleagues is necessary to maximise my effectiveness and comfort. I am also a lot more honest about what I can realistically deliver, even if it is minimal (or nothing!). This allows me to add in predictability for myself and others.
Acceptance
Stimming whilst facilitating.
No longer forcing myself to sit still or be conscious of my arms moving. I allow myself to just being who I am and how I am in a space because that is authentic to me.Feeling more comfortable introducing myself as Autistic. Before this role, I heavily leaned on masking to the point where I would almost never disclose that I was Autistic. Autism is often described as a hidden disability and for a while I hid behind that (in certain settings I still do!) but I’ve started to get better at coming into the room fully as my authentic self and part of that experience is my autism. It means that I can, where I feel safe, communicate my needs and experiences.
Communication
Coming up with backup plans for when I lose my words.
These include cofacilitators know the content I may have to deliver or briefing others on filling the silence (with my permission) in case my words go.
Empathy
Finding areas of shared values, hobbies, strengths, and challenges with colleagues. This includes taking the double empathy problem with me in all that I do, especially in settings where colleagues and I have contrasting needs and expectations. Joy, challenge, hope and anger are all part of the discussions I have with colleagues that allow me to sit with others and for them to sit with me. Equally, sharing passions outside of work allow us each to see each other as people, Neurodivergent or not.
Am I perfectly doing all these things at any given time? No. But the process of beginning, of exploring how I can keep myself well is a skill that I have developed from using SPACE. In using this framework, I have approached myself with the same empathy and compassionate curiosity that I encourage NHS staff to have with Autistic patients and it has meant that I have understood my Neurodivergence in a way that I never would have before. It’s by no means concrete or fixed and because of that, I can still improve and update it to fit the version of me that needs it. Using the SPACE framework to promote my wellbeing means that I can more confidently attempt to be my authentic self at work.
References
Doherty, M., McCowan, S., & Shaw, S. C. K. (2023). Autistic SPACE: A novel framework for meeting the needs of autistic people in healthcare settings. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 84(4). https://doi.org/10.12968/hmed.2023.0006
Want to learn more?
We’ve created a free interactive toolkit that supports a neurodiversity-affirming approach to care planning for Autistic individuals across health, education and social care.
The foundation of this toolkit is the Autistic SPACE Framework – a person-centred care approach developed by Dr Mary Doherty, Dr Sue McCowan and Dr Sebastian CK Shaw (2023) – which we build on by integrating a stronger emphasis on emotional safety, sensory support, relational trust, embodied understanding and human rights.
We believe that compassionate, relational and context-aware approaches are a more ethical and effective alternative to behaviourist models that prioritise compliance over wellbeing.
