Equality: Fair Work

Taking Fair Work Forward

1. Introduction: What is Autism?

What is autism and what is not?

Learning points:

  • Being autistic means having a brain that it structurally different than most
  • This influences how autistic people perceive, interact with the world as well as how they communicate
  • Autistic people are not broken non autistic people, autistic people are fully whole people in their own right

 

Reflective question

Reflect on the video and consider your own knowledge about autism and autistic people. Where does your knowledge come from? Can you think of any sources of knowledge you have accessed that have been shared by people who are autistic themselves?

Around one in 100 people in Scotland are autistic, so it is very likely that all colleagues, education leadership, and Reps will know, and work with autistic members, or you might be autistic yourself.

Autistic workers bring a wealth of experience and value to the education sector. As a group, autistic people are as diverse as non-autistic people, but in the workplace, they are often described as highly conscientious, reliable, detail oriented, able to be hyper focused and have excellent long-term memory. Furthermore, autistic people are often highly empathic and care deeply about social justice, principally standing by causes such as anti-racism, halting climate emergencies, animal rights etc.

Autism is often thought about only in the context of children, but nobody grows out of being autistic, and to many people it is an integral part of their identity. Unfortunately, many autistic people continue to experience barriers to their equal participation at work due to unhelpful workplace practices.

Fair Work for autistic workers, means addressing these practices.