The future of the neurodivergent workforce: Systems thinking and participatory research to identify pathways to skilled employment - The “neurodiversity umbrella” includes autism spectrum conditions, ADHD, learning disabilities, and psychiatric disabilities. We share similar lived experiences of disability, disability culture, and functional support needs. Although neurodivergent people often achieve high levels of education and training, we remain un- and under-employed, particularly in skilled jobs (i.e., those requiring more than a few weeks of training), despite a large and growing number of interventions. Reasons for this include the intense social stigma of neurodivergence, the origin of most interventions outside of the community, the heterogenous nature of our population, the interdisciplinary nature of the domain, and the high degree of complexity of real-world employment. These characteristics make it difficult to define both the problem and its solutions. Complexity science offers methods to approach these kinds of problems effectively.
The overall objective of this project is to use a participatory, holistic approach, informed by disability justice, neurodiversity, and systems thinking frameworks, to map a realistic, actionable path forward in reducing skilled employment inequities for neurodivergent people. We will achieve this in a series of workshops using stakeholder-engaged methods from complexity science designed to identify how to make change in highly complex situations. We will meet this overall objective through the following specific objectives:
O1: Define which problem/s in neurodiversity and skilled employment are most urgent to address and their desired outcomes / goals for intervention. I will compile a Stakeholder Team of people with lived experience of neurodivergence and professional expertise in employment policy, inclusion initiatives, employee management, disability services, and other dimensions relevant to skilled employment systems. Using a combination of community knowledge (i.e., what neurodivergent employees and their supervisors/businesses have been saying about the problem) and professional expertise, we will conduct the first three steps of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to define and prioritize the scope of our inquiry. Using this scope we will use two futures thinking methods, futures visioning and SWOT Analysis, to identify desirable and undesirable futures, reconcile them with the current environment, and expose factors that could facilitate or prevent them from occurring. I will conduct a content analysis of the futures workshop output to create categories and themes to for use with O2 and O3.
O2: Create actionable strategies with potential leverage for generating desired employment outcomes. We will use Group Model Building to create causal loop diagrams of the structures that generate the present dynamics of neurodiversity in skilled settings. I will verify these models using literature and real world data. We will then use the models to identify places of high leverage in which to intervene in skilled employment systems using Meadows’ leverage framework and verify them. Lastly, we will return to the SSM process and complete the next three steps to create realistic, actionable strategies with potential to activate leverage for the defined problem.
O3: Develop a roadmap for action. We will complete the last step of SSM, which is to “take action.” We will organize our findings into a roadmap of high-leverage intervention for use by the research, policy, business, service, and neurodiversity communities. We will create additional products including academic papers, policy recommendations, and tip sheets for businesses, service providers, and employees.
This project will provide the foundation for future innovative solutions in reducing employment disparities for neurodivergent people in skilled employment, including those who experience the most significant and stigmatized disabilities.
