Oxford Health BRC Neurodiversity Conference

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Neurodiverse Connection (ndconnection.co.uk) exists to advocate, amplify, challenge, educate and promote & we were created to improve support and outcomes for Neurodivergent people.

I was delighted to represent the organisation & our mission on Friday, 19th Sept at NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (OH BRC) @nihr_research Neurodiversity Conference 2025 at @oxfordsbs @oxford_uni

Grateful to Andreia Santos (Neurodiverse Voices Podcast) for the invitation to attend.

As part of the invitation to be part of this event & I was invited to speak as Neurodiverse Connection Development Lead on two panels:

1. Lived Experience in Action: Neurodiversity & Research

2. Working Together: Researchers, Neurodivergent People, & Families in Mental Health Research

You can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it" (saying attributed to Einstein)

At the event, I spoke about decolonising our bodyminds.

The key points I shared included:
Research, academia, and mental health services often take a capitalist, ableist, normative, and coloniser “observer” view. Even those of us who are Neurodivergent can be conditioned into these mindsets.

That’s why we need to neuroqueer our lens and decolonise our minds and approaches - shifting away from the medical model of “deficit and disorder” toward a depathologised understanding of bodymind diversity as natural human variation.

When we ground research in lived experience, we start to see how some “evidence-based” practices (like PBS) can actually harm —contributing to suicidality, masking, and loss of identity — because they were designed without acknowledging the embodied reality of living in oppressive systems. We can then ask, are they actually a coloniser tool?

We must question the very origins and purposes of psychiatry & psychology: do we want to keep perpetuating a system that pathologises survival responses (meltdown, shutdown, situational mutism, distress behaviours)? Or do we want to create something different, an alternative system that recognises these as adaptive responses to trauma, poverty, and systemic oppression?

Bodymind diversity is not an illness and does not require treatment. Instead, we need to diagnose systems, cultures, norms, and attitudes. We must rehumanise both care and research.

And importantly, researchers and practitioners themselves need bodymind & wellbeing support - so they can regulate, embody, and extend a truly humanised & relational approach in their work.

I also shared about our work on the Culture of Care with NCCMH @thercpsych & with FoNS @fonscharity, and our promotion of the SPACE Framework by Autistic Doctors International (Mary Doherty, Seb Shaw et al) - go to our website ndconnection.co.uk to find out more.

Change starts with re-imagining how we understand, research, and support human bodymind diversity and reduce human distress: #thinksystemically

#OHRCBDConference2025 #OHRCNDConf2025 #livedexperience #research #mentalheath #neurodiversity #oxford
 
Interconnectedness.

We all have strengths, and we all have support needs. For some of us, the contrast between them is more pronounced — and that’s okay.

The reason I was able to attend the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (OH BRC) @nihr_research conference in person on Friday was that, most of the time, I work remotely from home in a sensory-friendly, low-nervous-system-arousal environment that helps me manage my energy and avoid burnout.

Also, I am grateful for the support of my husband, who accompanied me on the trip. He planned our journey, drove, and supported me with some executive decisions, making it possible for me to conserve energy to show up and engage in a regulated way, accessing my full strengths.

This is part of what access and interdependence look like for me.
Remembering our interconnectedness means allowing people to be fully human — to have both strengths and support needs.

And if we were to create humane systems, cultures, and norms that support the needs of the most sensitive bodyminds (the 'canaries in the mines' Dr James Stacey alluded to) & built more processing space, and lower-sensory & nervous system arousal environments, everyone (every body) would benefit.

We all deserve environments that don't overwhelm our nervous systems & to create that, we need to #thinksystemically​

We need to slow down. Turn down.
Make space.
And feel.

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