An open email to the HR Manager, Central Region

Some names have been replaced with asterisks

A**e

Thank you for taking the time to write but it seems you may have missed the point of my original email, which now seems to have been passed around quite a few people without anyone actually resolving to take any action. Have you seen it?

My point is not, as you seem to be implying, all that much to do with being unsuccessful at my most recent interview. I did request interview feedback from Amy through the person who rang to say I was unsuccessful and repeatedly through my manager but she has failed to provide any. Please don't bother her for feedback as it is not the point of my emails and being fed endless platitudes is getting tiresome. 

S****n K****r emailed on 22nd July to say somebody had suggested a meeting with me to discuss my concerns. These are copied from an email I sent to Sharon:

It would be nice to see the NAS actually actively seeking to recruit and nurture people on the spectrum. This is the outcome I hope for. If not for me, for the rest of out there in the 85% of people on the spectrum who are underrepresented in the workplace. The feedback I got from the Team Leader position on our team was more to do with how much more the successful applicant had. This is the general feedback from other positions, too, which is unhelpful. I have constantly put myself forward and have, in fact, been given extra duties such as presenting talks to incoming students and their parents, training new mentors and running the Socialeyes groups. 

It's not much use guaranteeing interviews to people on the spectrum, as you say. I have sat across from far too many disinterested people at interviews and have definitely felt my presence there has been to satisfy their 'two tick' scheme rather than see me as a likely candidate. No, the NAS needs to be looking to recruit us, not just tick their own boxes. If, as the NAS claims, really supports people on the autism spectrum, why don't they prove it by aiming to put more of us into suitable positions?

I had an interview last Autumn for the NAS Leicester Information Hub adviser position and nobody even got back to me to say I had been unsuccessful. Not being called to an interview and not hearing is one thing but not being told the outcome of the interview is disgraceful and very unprofessional.

It isn't even about support in applying for jobs with the NAS. It is about the NAS actively seeking to recruit and nurture autistic talent in the employment pool. On all of the vacancies advertised with the NAS, it says: Applications for this job are sought from anyone who is suitably qualified and experienced for the role but particularly welcome from those with a diagnosis of autism or Asperger syndrome. This does not go far enough. You ought to be actively seeking to RECRUIT and NURTURE, DEVELOP and ENCOURAGE people with diagnoses of autistic spectrum conditions. Why is this so hard to understand? 

At the Manchester Autism Show in June (I was one of the speakers and had the biggest audience of the day) I sat down for coffee with Carol Povey and had a reasonably lengthy talk with her about this very subject. My question to her was thus: do you think the NAS is so used to seeing people with autism as service users, they don't really consider them to be realistic candidates in the application process? She seemed to think I had a point.

What do you think?

Will you be reviewing your recruitment policies at any time in the future? 

Regards

Laurie

A Birthday and an Anniversary

It’s my birthday today; or, at least, should be. Providing this story gets published on the right day after being completed and submitted in a timely manner, it ought to be July 3^rd. If it is, then well done all of us for coordinating everything to such sweet perfection. If not, well, there’s always another year. At least we like to think so. Birthdays have always been rather more significant than Christmas, for me, never having been a lover of the melee surrounding such a communal festival. While we may share our special day with several million other people around the world, we do not know most of them and, unless we are one of a multiple birth, will probably be the only person in the family celebrating their personal ageing process that day.

Do others tie global dates and events to things we can pin to our personal experiences? Like remembering what we were doing when JFK was shot? Bit before my time but you get the point. Where were you when you heard about Elvis being found dead? And how did you first hear the news of Princess Diana’s terrible car accident or the Twin Towers ‘tragedy’? What is it that makes me remember November 14^th, 1972 as the day Princess Anne married Captain Mark Philips? Heaven’s sake. That their wedding day fell on Prince Charles’ birthday? Why would anyone outside their immediate family remember that in the first place? Maybe my brother had a point when he said I was always good at remembering dates, which was astonishing news. How could I possibly be good at something I forgot most of?

Days and dates and measurables are important, very often, to people on the autistic spectrum and I am pretty typical in that aspect. This year, on the day before the first anniversary of Connor’s death will no doubt see it adding a lot of reflection on life, death and the passing of time. I will be thinking back to how I spent the day on July 3^rd last year. What were you doing? I cannot remember. Some birthdays are more memorable than others.

There is a Biblical proverb which says: For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. (Ecclesiastes 9:4, JPS 1917 ed). None of us wishes to be old, although many have longed for the wisdom acquired by years to have been more evident in our youth.

As the 107 days has passed and we have, together, counted them, a personal image has grown in my head, brought back from a dusty recess of a childhood memory and a visit to old Mrs Abbot. It was almost forty years ago and shortly after Christmas. Let me take you there.

There’s a clock standing in a dark wood panelled hall; a grandfather clock, standing to the left, set there by Old Father Time himself, surely. A dusty Persian runner stretches from one end of the polished floor to the other. Behind each door lurks a terrifying secret; maybe a monster ready to leap out and interrupt the sound of the languid tick (breathe) tick (breathe) tick (breathe) as its pendulum ambles from one side of the clock’s glass door to the other, hypnotising the dark Victorian house into submissive torpor. Maybe the door to the right will slowly creak open to allow a bent old hag to shuffle through on her slowly unwinding mortal coil? Perhaps the incumbent ghost is about to roll in from underneath the cellar door, like a sticky fog to rise up to the ceiling before stealing the souls of the petrified child shivering with fear in the gloom?  Words from Shakespeare grow like creeping ivy across the memory.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

the clock ticks and breathes. Old Father Time stands at the door.

To the last syllable of recorded time;

and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

Out, out brief candle!

     Life’s but a walking shadow, (Macbeth, 5:5:19-25)

Terrified, the frozen child stands like alabaster, hypnotised by the minute hand defying gravity to reach the top of the hour and chime.

This year, I will spend much of my birthday thinking about a remarkable young man I was never privileged to meet and whose family, no doubt, be thinking back one year to the last time life had some kind of ‘normal’ attached to it. To his family, I extend a Jewish traditional greeting on the death of a loved one and wish you all ‘long life’. May the memory of Connor, your lion, your Laughing Boy, remain in your hearts forever with the certainty the shadow of his life never leaves you.

Connor Sparrowhawk was a fit and healthy young man, who loved buses, London, Eddie Stobart and speaking his mind. Known as LB online, short for Laughing Boy, he also happened to have autism and epilepsy. On the 19 March 2013, he was admitted to Slade House Assessment and Treatment Unit run by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Tragically, after #107days in the unit, he drowned in the bath on 4 July 2013. 

Twelve months later #107days seeks to inspire, collate and share positive actions being taken to support #JusticeforLB and all young dudes. We want to harness the energy, support and outrage that has emerged in response to LB’s death and ensure that lasting changes and improvements are made.

The #107days of action will start on Day 0: Wednesday 19 March, and will continue until Day 107, the first anniversary of LB’s death, Friday 4 July 2014. This blog will be used to share information, ideas and evidence of the changes made, big and small. For more information, please go to:

 http://107daysofaction.wordpress.com/about-107days/

Text taken from blog.