How a university opened its doors to neurodivergent employees
From all-around support to tailored recruitment, a University of Nottingham initiative offers a blueprint for improving neuro-inclusion in the technical workforce
It’s ‘a bit of a funny story, really’, says Elijah Carr about how he first came across the Neurodivergent Employment Opportunities (NEO) Now programme at the University of Nottingham, UK. Visiting his old special needs school for a reunion, his former science teacher suggested he should consider the new initiative, designed for neurodivergent people struggling to find or stay in work. ‘I was thinking it was just going to be a bit of a cleaning job’, Carr recalls. Two years later, having completed the programme and graduated with a BTEC, he is now in a permanent role as technician in analytical services at the university’s school of chemistry, working, at times, on machines ‘that cost more than [his] house.’