 All right. Let's get started. I'm just going to turn on our backup recording. Recording in progress. All right. Well, welcome everyone. Welcome to Brain Club. I will just introduce myself to begin. Mel Hauser. I use she they pronouns and I'm executive director here at all brains belong. And this is brain club. And before we get started, I just want to I know that there's many people joining from outside of Vermont today. And for those who are inside of Vermont and are impacted by this terrible flood I just want to sort of acknowledge acknowledge the heaviness of all of this and for for the stress that so many people are under and for all that all that many people have lost. I just wanted to to name that before, before anything. Hold on I'm having to, I'm having a technical difficulties related to user error. Next. Okay, great. All right. And thank you, Lizzie's posting in the chat for those who are local and need some resources from all public is put together some resources around emergency housing and locally in Montpelier. Another way is gathering food and clothing, and we'll try to share some other links as we as we go through. All right, I'm going to share screen. So tonight, we'll be discussing neurodivergent employment and health. This is brain club are very are for the past year and a half this is our education space for the collective all brains belong community for the purpose of educating the community around neurodiversity and everyday like brain life topics. So many of you have many different types of relationships with us we like to just like name, name the context of brain club this is an educational space. It's not a support group, and we're not able to give medical or mental health advice in this context, because, and just to name the thing of that. When, when, when people start processing trauma or other kinds of of issues that without wraparound support and ongoing medical and mental health care. It can be unsafe for that person. So we like to just name the thing brain club is for education. All forms of participation are okay here. Many of you have figured out already you can have your video on or off and even if it's on we don't expect anything of you. We certainly don't expect you to look at a camera or anything so feel free to, you know, walk, move, fidget, stim, eat, take breaks. But do it, do whatever needs doing. And everyone is welcome here at brain club and all formats of communication are welcome so you can unmute and use mouth words you can type in the chat. We'll likely have a smaller group tonight, probably due to the circumstances. So, the, the, the, the selectivity of reading out the chat may not may not be so relevant as it is when it's a bigger group. The other piece of ground rule that I'll name is just that we affirm all aspects of identity and that we respect and protect the groups collective access needs what the group needs for full and meaningful participation. And safety is the most important thing to us so if there's anything that makes you feel uncomfortable for any reason during brain club. Lizzie per at our education programs coordinator Lizzie can you wave. If you're able to wave. It's totally fine for not. Amazing. Okay, so that's Lizzie. So you can send a private message to Lizzie who will be able to respond a lot a lot more quickly than I will, especially if I'm insured screen mode and not looking at the chat. All right. So, what last bit of ground rules, just giving just respect and give space for all participants. Yeah. And, and last bit of access needs so close captioning is enabled. You just need to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So, depending on what version of zoom you have, either using the live transcript close captioning icon but if you don't see that one look for the more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles. You can do the same and choose hide subtitles if you'd like to turn them off. And if you're new to zoom, or just by way of refreshing the chat box on tonight tonight will be a community panel community member sharing their, their lived experiences related to employment. So it's a prerecorded panel. So we'll have the chat box going during the panel portion and we'll have plenty of time for discussion afterwards. So that is that speech bubble icon. That's the chat box. Okay, so tonight we're kicking off our new monthly theme around reimagining community. And we'll be looking at various aspects of community inclusion. Tonight we'll be talking about employment and the intersectional variables that that that that that come from issues around employment. Next week we'll have a special guest on one of the co authors of one of my favorite books, Parenting for social justice, Chrissy cologne brat will be here. And then our book chat for July is we're not broken by our Garcia. All right, we will start. What I would say is that for those especially for those who have not been to bring club before and or maybe maybe all brains belong is is new to you too. So we're an organization that is trying to make life better for neuro divergent people across the lifespan. And it was very clear to us when we launched a year and a half ago that to do anything for the neuro divergent community, we have to do everything. It would be it would have been, you know, okay to open a medical practice. That's one of the things that we do, but you have to change the world. So, in addition to educating the broader community around neuro inclusivity, we have employment support programs, and we help people access their education make friends. So because these are all part of health. And when we think about employment. There are a lot of people who do not have their access needs met by the defaults of society. You know, defaults of health care, you must pick up the phone to become a new patient, the defaults of the education system, you know you must sit in the chair you must sit still for eight hours. There are a lot of defaults of workplaces there are a lot of defaults at a lot of different workplaces right so so when we think about access, anything that someone needs for full participation. There are a lot of different types of access needs, and so therefore a lot of opportunities to be thwarted. And what happens often is that the person doesn't recognize that it's their access needs being thwarted. They internalize that there's something wrong or broken about themselves a lot of the time so one of the things that we do often a brain cloud shutter like unlearn that and break that down. So, when we think about neuro divergence and employment, the consequences of large numbers of neuro divergent people not having their access needs met in the workplace is that autistic adults are two and a half to eight times more likely to be unemployed or employed, and 75% least of ADHD years experience employment related challenges as well. What we know is that, you know in this we're always thinking about health as a community health organization, employment and health are inextricably linked. Unemployment increases the probability of developing a chronic health condition by 83%. So employment at any level has a huge impact on reducing mental distress and we could think about all of the reasons for that. The financial aspects of that the psychological impact of that. When we think about inclusion. We talk a lot here about all of the ways in which humans are marginalized and other and how, especially if you have many aspects of your identity that are marginalized and other. There's that intersectional impact of that marginalization. When we think about the intersectional experiences of being marginalized in employment. This becomes even more problematic. We looked at this graphic at our last brain club, looking at, and this comes from the Vermont Department of Health, looking at like how all of these things connect to health all of the social inequities, which you know interrelate with the institutional inequities which of course impact people's living conditions which going to zoom in and make it make it bigger. There we go. So there's just all of these things which impact health. And then when you also throw in. So here we are you know we're going to be when we, I'll get to class in a second but when we think about these social inequities which are going to have a huge impact on like that the the systemic barriers to all of these things that connect to health. And then we also work people's ability to access health care. We see a lot of problems. What we don't want is we don't want the square peg being hammered to fit into the round hole. And that is what happens so often for all kinds of people. So the book parenting for social justice and this is the book I referenced earlier we have one of the co authors is coming to present a brain club next week. Class is described as relative social hierarchical ranking. Another way of looking at that might be might be similar roles in the economic system, it might be cultural knowledge skills networks and all of these variables with all the other ways in which people are marginalized plays out. And so, you know in thinking about this as a combination of access to resources, your relationship to work. All of these many reasons that impact how much you feel like you belong and whether you have power, and there's so many power imbalances in any given situation. This is a quote from parenting for social justice so Jamie Lynn Castle describes what what economic oppression has has felt like for her. We were drowning in a river of stress, trying to swim through it and mostly failing. I'm in guilt that I carried with me, or how society viewed me simply because of my circumstances was extremely heavy. When I've been completely stressed out worrying financially, my brain just couldn't work efficiently, it took so much energy just to exist. And so with that, I'm going to introduce our community panel. It was really important to us here to have many different fields of employment, many different types of jobs represented in this community panel. So we have someone who works in food service construction, laws, social services, childcare, and all the many different types of employment status represented. Anyway, I all this this this background context just for like a lens to be thinking through as we watch this panel, I am going to stop share. I'm going to actually look at the chat. And I am going to open up our video. And one of the ways I that that that I support my motor planning differences is talking through all of the sequencing steps so don't mind me. Okay, here we go. Did I click the sound I don't remember someone do it again. I did. What have you seen in your workplace or in workplaces that you've worked in about how working conditions impact health. I work food service jobs. I'm a baker. So I've all of my jobs have been in kitchens. The things that I found that impact health conditions. The most are the practices in food service around. Scheduling, I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase in school. The bell doesn't release you I release you in you know early education or the pandemic hit or struggling. It was a field that was already really kind of hemorrhaging people it was really suffering. Here we were open 10 and a half hours every day for children. And so teachers were required to be here on either end of that too so like for an administrator, I would be here for at least 12 hours a day. But so we had, we kind of walked into that scenario and then worked to even just maintain it, you know, just to keep it keep the machine going. So it's like, I know it said nine on your sheet, but you're here until it's done. And because food service tends to pay less than a lot of fields. It can be very, very dangerous to try and set boundaries and situations like that so because we need it I mean these are human lives that we're taking care of so we need to be here. We're covering, we need the proper legal ratios of adults a child. So we could we were less flexible with people schedules, longer hours we had more kids we really kind of when we came in. We filled the rooms because that's like the business model of course like more kids equals more money coming in. So we had more kids in rooms larger group sizes and fewer teachers. It ended up being sort of we're just doing everything we can to survive. What have you seen in your workplace about how working conditions impact health. I mean I think it in terms it impacts health in terms of stressors and I think there's like, in a lot of ways there's a ton of them. There's like social stressors conflict conflict with co workers supervisors, those performance stressors understanding tasks and executing them. There's productivity stress. Can I meet the output and production expectations in the time that's allotted with the with energy that I can sustainably access. I'm working during preset hours with a schedule that's often set by somebody else at varying locations for varying durations, varying activities varying obligations so if I'm a person that has effect emotional or executive functioning or motor pattern, I'm working or attention or energy challenges or uns, unpredictable sleep patterns. All of that can make keeping track of schedules. Having the energy to follow schedules, being able to get to the right place at the right time with the right supplies and and perform consistently during the hours of obligation. My body clock and my energy very widely, along with my ability to plan and anticipate needs and concentrate and pay attention. I have a brain that means that I really really need to know what's going to happen before I go and do something. And it becomes extremely dysregulating for me and for a lot of other people who I've worked with when we can't have like even a ballpark of like how many hours we're going to be working what that shift is going to look like how many people are going to be there whether everyone else is going to show up because those are all common concerns in the field that I work in. And the uncertainty of that makes me dysregulated to an extent that it's like, okay, I said I could do these things and I could be responsible for these tasks. But you know, I am not fully present anymore so it's a lot less physically safe for me to be you know lifting the 50 pound bags of flour or operating the heavy machine. Trying to cut this thing super fast because my understanding of my body has gone from like 30% to 0% because it doesn't feel like I can. It doesn't feel my needs don't feel relevant to my safety and my environment anymore. So I am not going to think about whether I'm too warm I'm not going to think about whether I'm thirsty I'm not going to think about whether I need to sit down for five minutes and eat something. I'm just going to do it until it's done and I can be done being here. And so how to be a person in and who highly values autonomy, like, like a lot of us are, you know, that the PDA stuff persistent desire for autonomy so how do I how do I be in a workplace, and a person who consistently values autonomy, and needs to have someone else's way is better in order to really get myself to do it in an environment where basically unquestioning or minimally questioning compliance is expected. So something that I really struggle with is like, there's social cues and then there's the social cues of capitalism. And those are like you can't find out like once you find out like the motivation behind what someone is telling you. You have to do the like what is the hardest thing in the world to me and just accept that the answer is just because I'm like I need to know why something is happening why something does something and it's very very hard for me to be like it just is that way and you need to not think about it for a while. And part of that motivation that like drives all business is like not wanting people to know that they have to ask certain questions or have to advocate for themselves in certain ways, and certain jobs, making it much much more risky to have like try and enter into those negotiations. So I've been in situations where I'm being like dramatically underpaid, because I did not know that everyone else around me was getting like the salaries that they were getting from a place of like, I've been doing this that and the other that is beyond the job description I signed on for it is time for you to pay me more money because I am doing more labor for you. There's been times in that where, like, you know, it's my turn to talk or relate something or engage in the conversation. And I, I want to make a point I have a point to make. And then I start getting the sense from the facilitator that like, you know, that person here she will cut me off or kind of like, you know, I get the sense moving along, and which I think, because I also suffer from some low self which is an outcome of me, you know, my ADHD. So then I'm suddenly like in this loop where I'm like, well, you know, maybe what I have to say is not of interest, you know, and it's really just I think that I in that kind of environment. So there's a lot of pressure on getting to the point and letting the rest of the group engage and I certainly want to, to fit into that, trying to, I guess, you know, sort of navigate within that framework that is the framework that is mostly dictated by neuro typical people, right. Right. And so there's, there's also this element of, you know, the, the, the, a neuro inclusive space would, would involve a facilitator that like lays out ground rules about there's no right way to participate there's no right way to communicate and like explicitly naming that, you know, that's not what most groups do with kitchens have. But also, like, I'm transgender. And part of that was that I recently had, I like I experienced or experienced chest dysphoria. And so for a long time, I was binding my chest and that meant that like not only is it super dysregulating to work in more than eight hour day, but doing that results in like stabbing rib pains that may or may not you after surgery. So part of it was like, I had to have surgery, and that was a medical necessity for me, like regardless of how it impacted my mental health. And like accessing other forms of gender affirming healthcare were really, really imperative to me and that's not going to be the case for every trans person but like, I think that's definitely like a really important question as kitchens tend to attract multiply marginalized people because I've been in a lot of kitchens with other trans folks with other neurodivergent folks where it's like, okay, so these expectations are built around cis bodies and a one neuro type. And my body actually can't be here for 12 hours. I'm having heart palpitations. Yeah, so and then and then you add on top of that the personal life stressors that that can come up. And any of those things, one can have difficulty, I can have difficulty managing become dysregulated. So hyper focus means that I tend to get and stay distracted from work. Those are all stressors, and then, once I get like any of those stressors, you know that that can start to lead that that it goes unresolved can lead to really gets me into a vicious cycle of a dysregulation in my life. So I get, I get stressed out, I get anxious that which leads to mental and physical tension. I go into defensive behaviors, worry, self protective avoidance distraction. And there's this regulation, including sleep, which leads to less capacity for attention less capacity for motor skills and motor planning less executive functioning, which then can lead to more and bigger mistakes, hyper focus getting stuck on the wrong details and externalizing blame attacking perceived sources of threat, of which go over really well in a work environment, leading to more fit more negative feedback possible discipline job loss, bad reviews that limit my potential to advance and my potential for access to organizational power and privilege that could actually help me fix the problems that are affecting me. And then all that leads to more dysregulation, less resilience greater vulnerability to that tendency to hyper focus, which is consistent for a lot of us with ADHD and autism, and it's a superpower when it comes to focusing on job related tasks, but it's a liability if there's a stressor and that's troubling because then it becomes difficult to think about anything or do anything else until that stressor is resolved. And so, unless there's an ability to resolve, to resolve issues of concern, the hyper focus tends to tends to really get in the way of the things that that employers are looking for. So, when my needs aren't met, but me asking to have my needs met is going to be penalized. Remember, when I was working at a childcare center, my position was as a floater, which meant that I didn't know what was needed of me or expected of me or what my day was going to look like until I was there. I remember having a big conversation with my boss and being like, okay, this next year around, I can't handle this and I feel that my, my showing up here my attendance and being good employees being impacted when I don't know what's expected of me. So, it was a big wrong talk and then she like reformatted it that floaters would be assigned to specific rooms. So you would have at least know where you were going to be who you're going to be working with and everything and I was like, oh my gosh that's so amazing. I remember having, oh, and it like, oh man, it puts a little ache in in my chest. I remember feeling so like proud of that and everything and then walking by and hearing someone be like you mean I have to do the same thing every day. And I was like, oh my gosh I just ruined that person's life. Like, now that person is going to have to do the same thing every day and it's all my fault. I have a control over all of their feelings. So, so a couple of things that are standing out for me, listening to this part of your story. One is, it's a story of unmet access needs access needs being anything that someone needs for full meaningful participation. So you needed novelty you needed multiple different things in the day you need multiple locations you needed movement. You know, you need a variety like all of this and so that was unmet. Another thing I heard from your story was it's a story of interdependence like I think independence is so overly glorified. Autonomy is really important, but but but the idea that like you don't need other people interdependence being connected to relying on other people like, like how profoundly human is that. Anyway, that's I'm also that I'm also hearing that from your story, and that you know in the team that you're leading now that you are bringing this lens of whether you're using this term or not, you're thinking about access needs and how to help the people that you're using have met access needs and like, you know, I think there's a lot of small businesses that struggle with, like hiring good people and keeping people and like all the, all the lost revenue of turnover and all the things or any training person. Like when people have their access needs they are less likely to quit their jobs. For sure. Yeah, right exactly. It's just not a one size fits all not just because it was in childcare typically at that time I think like a revolving door staffing wise and people were really burning out. It was a recipe for burnout stress fatigue. We couldn't actually do our jobs I mean, yeah, I mean it ended up being sort of we're just doing everything we can to survive. What strategies have you found helpful to cope with unhealthy work environments. What I started to write these down it was sort of an off the cuff I started to kind of laugh, but and I sort of thought well I just being like, you know kind of off the cuff and sarcastic but actually think these are are actually these are actually the strategies they use, which kind of says like saving enough money to quit or take extended lease of absence. Getting health care professionals in my court so I can qualify for continued health insurance under the family medical leave absence or temporary permanent permanent disability when I do leave. I'm structuring my life simply enough that if I need to quit, I can get government benefits, structuring my income so I can earn just enough to afford rent and still qualify for food stamps heating oil and Medicaid. Researching ways to house myself if I end up homeless self employment to get to to get myself maximum freedom and independence. I think there's there's a lot of people who are in work situations that are not working for their brains. How did you come to start your business. I've been a corporate traditional architecture practice setting for almost 20 years I started working. I went to architecture night school for architecture successful but my own measure. I felt like I wasn't actually doing anything, and I had a really tough time sitting at a desk. And so, you know, so I, I, I looked for opportunities to basically get out of the office what bought a house and I started to do work on it. I would go into the office in the morning, and then say I well I got to go, you know, I can only put in half day to day and I'd leave and I had all my equipment set up and I climb out the bedroom window and put shingles up on the side of the house. And that was like super. It was just so fulfilling to me. I basically started the construction business. And the reason for that was, people would drive by the house when I was working on it and they'd stop and they'd be like I need somebody to reach out really shingle my house and, and so that's how I got into doing construction. So, so I'm completely self taught when it comes to like, you know, estimating and that whole side of I'm trained is is an architect so the design part of it is is very manageable but and and the practice has been through some ups and downs I changing careers. I mean, literally as my, I like, in my 30s, my mental capacity to really do the grind of law started to massively decrease and I just couldn't cognitively sustain 60 or 80 hour weeks were being massively on. And so I switched to sort of a mental health and then eventually more peer support, which, which drew a lot more on experiential and empathic capacities and I didn't have to be. It didn't have to use my problem solving abilities like, you know, 16 hours a day and that was much and that and that's been a much better path for me. I had a lot of pressure in a kind of business, you know, environment small business whatever to move things along get to the point, you know, set the table and let your my team delegate so so that's where it sometimes it gets in the way of not that I'm, I don't think that I'm, have learned to be pretty good about delegating, but sometimes it just takes me a long time to get there so I made the decision to myself that I needed a business partner that could sort of ground the business in the things that I didn't have, or that I couldn't bring to the table kind of worked through to figure out like what I need to prioritize in a job in the hiring process is I, if I can, if I can avoid it I won't take jobs where I can't wear headphones. And, because for me, music is my like number one self regulation technique. And it helps to block out the sound of air vents and convection ovens which is super overwhelming to me. So one of the questions that I always ask on like an interview or training days like okay how many other people are going to be in the kitchen with me. Will I need to be super alert to people like passing through the kitchen, can I bring headphones or earbuds in with me. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love it. A lot of people get siloed into food service as like a school of marginalization of like, we're going to shove you back here and underpay you where no one can see you for 20 years, but, um, you know, it's, it's cool that I get to like go to work every day and I know that what I'm, what I'm doing, like what I do is feed people. I make food for people to eat that makes them full or makes them happy or makes them frustrated and gives them something to complain about with the other people that they got breakfast with. Um, but like, I know that the job that I'm doing is necessary for like human beings and that it often adds extra joy to people's lives. And I know that when I leave the building my work is done. I'm not worried about like I missed something I'm not worried about like, is this take home work going to take me like the amount of time that I thought it would I like my time once I leave the building is mine. Um, what do you wish other employers knew about creating healthy workplace culture. Exactly. And so the pandemic actually was helpful in the sense for us that we reevaluated like we is this working for us, and we're able to reflect on some observations and say, actually that's not working for us and really be like wait a sec. What are we doing and why, and then, and that change based on what we want to be doing. And one of the things we wanted to be doing was less of a revolving door more retention in our staff because we know that consistency of care will also provide a better foundation for the children if it's the same teachers and those same colleagues working together. And we know people want to be here and so the question is, what do you need to be here, like what what is it that you need in order to be doing this job that you love or that you want to be doing. So before we connected with Mel and all brains belong before even knowing about the term access needs, we were sort of asking folks what their access needs were to be able to show up and feel good about the work that they were doing because people were kind of showing up but it wasn't feeling good, you know, and so to feel good in your work, and to show up was really important and it just was a lot of a lot of conversation individual conversations conversations as a whole, as a whole staff to determine sort of what we needed, and really making a difference for those voices to be heard. And so it wasn't that Vicki and I were saying, this is what people need, you know, as sort of part of the leadership team. It was really asking those people to tell us because we can make tons of assumptions but a lot of those tend to be inaccurate and so that was a really, I just want to end this is how important that piece was for us in the process. We learned that particularly to the pandemic, we learned that a lot of people didn't have a primary care doctor or didn't have health insurance, including some of the admin team, and so we became in a sense, especially Cecilia like resource coordinators and we would have on the clock, you know during the work week, we have we still do this we have time with people who need because you're working Monday through Friday but that's when everything's open and you have to make your phone calls. And so we have time for people to connect with one of us, usually Cecilia to like call Vermont Health Connect and figure out health insurance or to call the health advocates or to call and have the emergency housing, find a therapist, access to food, access to food, yeah so those kinds of things where we just had to learn more about people's individual struggles and individual situations and also then the collective needs of like what are the barriers to doing the work that we want to do. And we really want to go against the rhetoric that like everything should be done in isolation by yourself and so that's also a way that we open that up to say, but do this together because, you know, health insurance for example doesn't make sense to a lot of us so if we can work together and support each other that feels better for everyone. So I use this, like a to do list app kind of thing, like just, they're not task reminders they're reminders to me, either my brain or my business owner and one of the things is, you know this pops up every morning. So when I'm starting work is good leaders offer opportunity for growth but as importantly they also understand unique needs of the people they are leading. So, you know, for me that's like, that's what I had to when I recognize that it was because I recognize like that was my own situation, you know, so it makes sense that like, I can't expect myself to be kind of, you know, neuro typical then there's a likelihood that all my staff is like nobody's neuro typical right you know so there is no such thing as absolutely agree it's just the, the like the, the assumptions cultural beliefs that people grow up with like you're a little kid and you're basically taught there is one correct default way to be a person, and it's nonsense. There's a lot of trade partners subcontractors materials suppliers and stuff like that and it is so we are so dependent, you know, and, and we, we try to have, we try to have a framework of expectation for certain things because you know it can't be just the total free for all, but at the same time like there's like our, our plaster that does almost all the board and plaster on our jobs. He's a single dad. He, he manages, you know, the all the business financial end of his business. He's got a couple of staff. He also stocks like the job sites every his job sites every morning you know. So, so we know, I know just over the years that we're not likely to get a quote, but we've talked and we know enough that we know what his pricing is. So, you know, we make, we make some accommodations there, and then, you know, he's going to send me a message on usually, you know, maybe Thursday. You know, can I get a check, you know, and that's really tricky and what I'm hearing from you is this awareness of like the whole of a person, you know, so you mentioned, you know, this person's a single dad and they're doing this and they're doing that and they're doing you're even thinking about them as the character in their own movie of their own business which I mean that's the way that my brain told you took your story and translated it and I'm picturing the, you know, the guy and he's doing all the things and he's deliver this anyway he's got the kids anyway. Like, you're seeing that and think about so many people are not giving a character like that the right time of day. Yeah, for sure. I think. And the challenge. It hasn't been easy to stay in business. Because, because it takes time. That's not necessarily. And that that kind of investment is not what our system is set up to reward by, you know, making, making enough money to keep the doors open. Right, especially when you've got you know so see, as you've described you need a team and interdependent team to run the business. And then when you're responsible for the livelihoods of other people minutes. I feel it too it's just a lot of pressure. It is a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. Because you do feel responsible for your, your team and your trade partners and your vendors and their families and their communities and you know it's. Yeah, you that that interdependence is, it's all about community. Which other employers knew about creating a healthy workplace culture. Um, that it's not enough to fix problems as they come up you have to think about the people who are working for you the people who might work for you the things you might not know about the people who are working for you. And whether or not there is already space for them to work comfortably and healthily in that environment. Um, and I think that like. That is something that's like really under considered and that like a lot of the time that leaves room for people to create ableist and classes practices on and couch them in language of non discrimination. Um, and that if you really think about like, okay, could this kind of person who experiences these kinds of marginalization walk in here and feel like they could commit to this job. And like, would they be able to do it would they be able to account for their safety and their health, would they feel comfortable knowing that they would not be fired for being trans or for being a person of color and have it like couched in some other terminology to make sure that this place is not only safe but like has space built in for people who are not like the normative sys head white man model that we built the 40 hour work week around on. And that like, if you aren't seeing a group or several groups of people represented in your workplace, that is because you made it a space that they could not show up to you either like are advertising for employment in the wrong channels or offering enough money you are letting your employees say micro aggressive ignorant stuff that they don't know about you are expecting your employees to be able to do things with their bodies on that they don't necessarily have to do. I really think we need to reimagine work. I mean I just, I think it's bigger than just. I mean I think certainly think that there's ways that employers can be sensitive to a variety of stressors and sort of, you know, do this universal design thing, but it still doesn't get away from the power imbalance. Like having employers who are like kind of like preemptively thinking about like, how are my employees how are my coworkers moving around this space and like having coworkers who were like, Okay, I've got a little bit of positional power here how can I use this to make my co workers lives when I know it would be heard better coming from me. And that's something that like having had people do that for me is like really important to me is like if I see a co worker at my job being treated unfairly or like see something in like the kitchen get like that tends to get them bent out of shape, knowing that like as a man oftentimes people are more willing to listen to me than like my femme and woman counterparts being able to be like, Hey, I've noticed that like we could really fix that problem a like a lot of people work in areas that tend toward exploitation and dehumanization on and some of those folks are like, I'm just doing this until like, I make it in a creative field I'm just doing this until I am finished with this certification that's going to let me do this because I really care about. And some people are like, I've been forced to do this because of racism because of classism and discrimination and hiring practices, so on and so forth. And some of us are there because we want to be. And because we think that it's important that people do those jobs and that whether you are working a job that tends towards exploitation and dehumanization, or you and your day to day life are like other people working those jobs, whether it's buying your coffee at a coffee shop that a barista makes, or like, go into the grocery store where someone is stocking the shelves. Those are jobs that like are inherently like full of dignity, like that work matters on a fundamental level, and is important, and is noble, and like, even if you want to do it being treated poorly doing those kinds of jobs can really weigh on you and like, it's important that you're doing that work, whether you continue to do it or not it's, you should be proud of it. Do you have any advice for other employers that might be wanting to be more aware of this kind of thing, prioritize humans and not profit. Yeah, that's exactly right it's about respect for humans. And to make it's not, it's not easy but it's kind of simple. And, you know, you can't have a healthy workplace environment, where we're spending all of these waking hours, if you're not thinking about those workers who are there. And really recognizing that humans deserve to feel belonging and deserve to feel a place where they're part of something and in fact we thrive off of that sort of social collaboration and I think for a long time, a lot of us have been socialized before to sort of silo isolate, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that's something we really want to break down and try to rebuild in a different way where we're utilizing one another as supports. And this is all really important for us to be transparent about because we're teaching the children they're they're watching our every move. And it's important to us at Turtle Island that children are going into the world, you know with ideas about respect and kindness for humans and understanding that other human has a place and has feelings and emotions you know and perspective. And if we're asking kids to do that then we better be doing it ourselves. So there we have it, I just want to put up one more slide, just to thank our panelists. So, we are so grateful to Sarah Knudson, Nathaniel May, Cecilia Puglio, Theo wrote us and Vicki Senni for sharing sharing their experiences with us. And I think what what what we heard from so many people in the chat all along was that there were so many things that resonated with so many people here. And I would love to to hear any other on any any it's what's standing out for for any of you who would like to share. And then that guy back to be all workplaces are different. But then when the near typical like someone in our level capacity goes in there. It's going to be a challenge for us how do we fit into that environment. How do we fit into within the colleagues, you know, the colleagues that might be there. Every learning care. Yeah, and I think that it is really when when someone is in a situation where the environment is the people in it, like, don't get it. And there is. It's, you can't make people do the work. And I think that it's it's it's like, you know, neurodivergence is like, it's only it's it's it's I mean, and I would I would say that, you know, when like when we do trainings for employers, we're not like, here's how you're inclusive of the autistic people or the ADHD years like we're just like this is how you structure neuro inclusive environments. This is how you build environments for people with all types of brains to thrive. It's not like doing something special. It's, it's, it's about doing everything you do in, you know, in multiple different ways, you know, you teach people about universal design, because I think, you know, first off, I'm not not all neurodivergent employees are going to feel safe that they're not going to be safe disclosing at work like that's that's one piece to is they don't actually know. Um, you know, right so so and so so so to be able to say like what we do it this way this is the default but like we're happy to do something special on the side like that's not that's not going to Anyway, and I think that I said this in this this video we just watched about like think about how many people are putting their jobs and how many people like just just like the turnover and new employers who are having a hard time filling positions and keeping people in positions like turns out like this benefits everybody universal design benefits everybody. Well, for even for someone like me my level of capacity I actually work within the, um, I actually opened up the zoom groups for the turn of the system here in Australia. And I never thought at some of my level of capacity. It's not a long thing, but then we used to worry about one more colleagues have to go away overseas. And I actually got they let me into open up the room and everything and sit with people who shared their stories and I never thought I could even say the word colleagues in my life because I've never really made it work. I just had my birthday on the weekend and like, even after my age of 2049, I thought I'd never able to say that word colleagues. But now I can because these these people that they're down in New South Wales and stuff, they accept from they accept me for me where some other organizations still see this as a some form of defect or I'm not up to speed or something. And I'm like, well, you know, I'm starting to work that out like what the hell. This is me. This is what we get. Yes, I'm out of brain damage and more and autistic, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm hearing a pain, but hey, this is me. This is what we get. Why can't we all accept each other for who they are. And so we can get along with along within within within the community and society no matter where we live. I can't think of a more perfect way to wrap up this brain club. Thank you, Tanya. Because really, that's what this is about. This is about and you're describing you feel like you belong. These people make you feel like you belong. Isn't that the point? Oh, yeah. Yes, it does. It took so long for me to get there. And there is still hope for people, even though they feel down and I thought there's nothing's happening for them. But hey, I keep, I keep chipping away. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you just keep chipping away. You just never know something will be around the corner. Right. And, you know, surrounding yourself with people who get it where you do feel safe where you do feel like you belong because if you've never felt safe in a group, you don't know it's possible. You're going to yet another toxic environment. You're like, oh yeah, that's how I feel like around groups. It's like, no, that's how you feel in groups that are not inclusive. Right. So, so you have like you, you, you don't know what safe feels and if you've never felt it before and then like the ideas that you know, yeah, it's chipping away but it's like more than that it's more like you have to be able to discern safe from not safe because you have to have something to compare it to. So anyway, all, all, all, all part of reimagining community. Thank you all so much and I hope you'll join us next week. And as I said earlier, we're going to be joined by guest presenter, Chrissy cologne brat, who's a co author of a Vermonter who's a co author of the book Parenting for Justice. And I'll say good morning. Good day because it's not I am here Australia. So you'll have a lovely evening over in your neck of the woods to any good. Thanks everyone. Bye.