Stanford Neurodiversity Summit Day 2 part 2

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part 1

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part 2

Unknown Speaker 0:00

Positive motivation there. So over time, you will, we hope that we will build a community of neuro diverse employees as well as their allies and mentors through this game.

Unknown Speaker 0:09

And that over time, we'll start to see data surfacing around what challenges are most common? What strengths do neuro diverse employees bring? What are some of the things that they have in common, or things that people need to learn more about. And then as we surface that data, that data can be used to drive organizational change. Next slide, please.

Unknown Speaker 0:31

So these are some of the high level areas that we identified for the challenges or the missions within within each game. So areas, new missions within self discovery, within self regulation, executive functioning, social competence, employment performance, and advocacy. And we know that going through a process such as this can come with some internal challenges can bring us you know, facing ourselves can be difficult. Sometimes perhaps there's a, you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:01

a player in there and an employee who has not been diagnosed yet, and they start to understand a bit more about themselves as process. So what we want to make sure is there's always access to mentors within the neuro diverse community, in the organization, with allies and human resources, other individuals and organization departments that could offer professional support for people as they play this game. Next slide, please.

Unknown Speaker 1:29

So what was our logic models? So coming from a research and evaluation background, it was important for me and for our team also to identify what would be what's, what's our theory of change, or a model around how this change is going to occur? So just looking at the new, diverse employee at this point, you know, our hypothesis was that engagement in this game will have a meaningful change, and knowledge about near diversity, feelings of belonging, ability to advocate for themselves, and real life skill acquisition. And so we use the acknowledge action behavior model in this case, and we identified some high level measurement tools that we could use, including different kinds of testing or psychometric measurement, metrics around challenge completion, Challenge Level of difficulties, engagement metrics, how involved are folks in the game? Are they linking their internal external worlds? Are they just trying? Are they playing solitary, like getting a sense, really of their engagement, we would have some self report surveys, and even journaling opportunities that will be private for the individual to sort of capture their feelings. And so we wanted to just outline that there was thinking and some ideas around measuring the engagement within this game, and eventually some of the impacts. And the outcomes that we would get we work backwards from in this case was really around self discovery and increased confidence and competence in certain areas. We also looked at in our research, some of our what is our evidence that this game is going to actually work. So we saw that with neuro diverse individuals is a really high rate of game affinity. A lot of people like to play games, the gamers span all diversities. workplaces are increasingly gamifying their tasks. And Wes alluded to that. And we've identified won't go through it in detail now. But we identified some of the best practices that are in game design for folks who want to play serious games. So those are educational, and entertainment, edutainment games. And in our case, we really want to bring the science and the fun. And all of that together through the Crg. I'll pass it over back to us.

Unknown Speaker 3:35

Next slide, please. So keys to sustainability for something like this, obviously has to be engaging, because if you're not going to get data, you're not going to get any kind of anything moving forward. Unless people want to play it. We would want to have some alignment with a corporate mission. You see a lot of the bigger corporations these days adding diversity as one of their core values. So I think that something like this would align. They're building internal and external partnerships and communicating progress and benefits. Next slide. I think this is really the my favorite slide is the impact slide. There's a lot of ways this could impact somebody, you've got employees that are building these traits. They're increasing productivity, they're feeling included and it can be authentic, increases mental health and learning development, career development, and human resources. They would get 100% on what we just saw the MDI with, presumably if they had the scores that they need, and a new talent pool a new employee data metrics from hiring algorithms and inclusive recruitment practices. Organizations alignment with corporate mission, corporate social responsibility, innovation, stakeholder values, above In groupthink, because if we're hiring everyone that has the same data set, then we're not going to get the innovation from different data sets, then the paradigm shift we've been talking about at this conference. Last slide, please. Next steps will be to continue to evaluate all the Brest practices. That's what the Learning Conference at multi stakeholder advisory groups, undertake primary research, assemble neuro diverse team for product and software development and explore potential interest from different groups such as innovation labs, trade groups, academic a partner partnerships, to measure and course correct, great senator engagement. Thank you. And thank you, for everyone's help on us. We'll take any questions.

Unknown Speaker 5:54

All right. Thank you for that wonderful presentation. And it was really cool to see from the beginning how your project grew and what it became. So there is a question, is there a link to this game for those who are interested in it?

Unknown Speaker 6:11

Well work we're in the process of conceptualizing the game. So no, there isn't the link yet. But we're very much in the early stages of conceptualizing it and starting to go towards Yeah, and then it said in the next steps, bringing people on board to start to build it, and create it. So hopefully, if this takes off, you'll see it.

Unknown Speaker 6:33

Alright. There's, there's not any more questions. So we'll go to the next group. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 6:50

So the next Thank you grew five. So the next group, the second, who got the second place, went to group 10. And the project title is LinkedIn employment acceleration program. The people in the group 10 are Shoshana CO and Stephanie dignam, eisah Garcia, Chris lenham, Sylvia Owens, and jurien. Ryan Murphy. Take away group 10.

Unknown Speaker 7:17

All right. Good afternoon, we are the leap into work team and our group comprised of three parents of neurodivergent young adults, one professional and one who's both a parent and a professional is excited to share our concept of how to improve employment opportunities for neurodivergent jobseekers. When we started our brainstorming, we honed in on the need for our population of increasingly well educated and trained neurodivergent adults to have access to the full range of competitive integrated employment opportunities, including the kind of professional jobs that might have been considered a reach in the past. What makes this moment even more powerful, is that we see employers being more open than ever before to hiring and capitalizing on the power of neurodivergent minds in increased roles. Taking advantage of this moment in time means that neurodivergent job seekers looking for competitive jobs need to use competitive job seeking strategies, including resources like LinkedIn. After some discussion, our group decided to focus on LinkedIn just because of its tremendous power in the marketplace. Despite its power, when we looked at what it takes to create LinkedIn profiles, we realize that it may be intimidating for neurodivergent jobseekers and the complexity could be enough to keep many from even trying to address this need. We created leap into work, which stands for LinkedIn employment acceleration program. leap into work is a program to accelerate neurodivergent participation in LinkedIn as a career tool. The intention is to create a practical step by step guide to help neurodivergent job seekers create a profile and use their profile to get jobs. The strategies language and tools used are specifically targeted to the needs of neurodivergent job seekers. We'd like to offer you a guided tour of the website version of leap into work. Or maybe not.

Unknown Speaker 9:41

I think we lost Shoshana. Did we Oh, there we go. Don't have audio. I don't have audio,

Unknown Speaker 10:10

which some people may use to reduce distractions that can cause anxiety at work. The tax is accessible and reassuring but not overly simplified, as we expect that users will be comfortable navigating the process inside itself. When we started exploring the concept for leap into work, we found that while many neurodivergent job seekers know about LinkedIn, they find it overwhelming and become resistant to the process of creating a profile. We first establish why it is important to care about the opportunity to showcase oneself to billions of prospective employers. We know that getting started with the profile can be complicated and confusing. So the site breaks the process into 12 manageable steps, with tips and advice for doing them well. For users who need more, we provide An Illustrated Guide with detailed instructions. We also provide information about including a video resume as part of a profile. Finally, we are working to identify a set of volunteer coaches who can help leap into work users get started or provide advice if they get stuck. Let's take a look at a few of the steps. A big part of setting up a profile is knowing what to have on hand before starting. So we provide a list of what to have ready. For some people. This might include a parent, or other support person. We also make it clear that the user can control what information appears on LinkedIn. We know that some may have anxiety about sharing personal data. Each step ends with a direct link to the next. Each step also contains simple instructions and easy access to guides and additional information. This page is a good example of universal design. It provides easy access in a highly visual format, as it provides tips for selecting a good profile photo. Many of the steps contain links to content created by Lincoln's profile development team or other experts. This is where a detailed step by step instructions can be accessed. Even to work curates the most relevant content, it does not attempt to replicate it, these links can be easily updated is more or better content becomes about building a profile using some terminology that may be difficult to understand, such as the difference between soft skills and hard skills. So we providing samples to guide the user.

Unknown Speaker 12:34

Legion has many features for which the benefits might be less obvious. When you're starting to build a profile. The site assures the user that these finishing touches can be added at the end of the process or skipped entirely. Like the rest of the site step provides a short explanation of the whys and house and then a direct path to any required steps. for users who want more detail, we offer An Illustrated Guide Book, which contains detailed instructions for each of the steps. In the future, clients will have an option to download a narrated version of the guidebook, which talks them through the process. We've been to where it also provides guidance on creating a video resume, which can be a great option for people who want to control the first impression they make. They can be especially helpful for job seekers and visual or creative fields. That can be an excellent way to showcase one's personality. We feature two types on the site. The examples that appear here are drafts created by our project testers. One serves as a video cover letter targeted to particular job and a hiring manager. The final version will include information about the specific job and a link to the profile. This video was created using a simple phone camera. The second is a job resume connected to the person's LinkedIn account through YouTube. This particular video was created in iMovie and took multiple hours to create. In the future. The site will also offer information about tools and software for creating the video resume. Our next steps include adding the narrated version of the guidebook and developing the coaching section of leap into work, which will provide direct connections to volunteers with experience helping neurodivergent jobseekers present their qualifications. We recognize that the user interface is absolutely critical in making the site accessible and useful to different users. With different expectations about the level of detail, visuals and the overall tone. We hope to work with an expert in human computer interaction to ensure that the design is a great fit with what our audience needs. You are welcome to learn more and provide feedback at leap into dot work.

Unknown Speaker 14:43

Right. We did some prototype testing of these materials a few weeks ago with some neurodivergent adults who are either current job seekers or close to finishing college. None of them had LinkedIn profiles before that. We prepared them by suggesting they set aside about two hours for this question. variance and consider having a support person available. We directed them to materials, have them create the profile and debrief them when they were done. And the findings were rather interesting the time it took for them to get through, it was between an hour and 10 minutes to two hours and 30 minutes. Our tester is representing quite a range of independence, our longest tester was completely independent, while our middle time tester at about one hour and 15 minutes frequently needed his support person. We knew we were on the right track with this idea when every tester and every parent expressed relief and gratitude that the neurodivergent adult finally had a profile up and running. Turns out parents had been nagging their kids to get on LinkedIn for years. The things I like most about the tool was that it was a clear set of steps. It had lots of examples and suggested strategies to help them overcome problems when they got stuck.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 15:52

Sorry, Chris, can you click swap displace Presenter View on our end. Shoshana Can you click on the left, upper corner, the third button. Thank you. We're on the last slide. But that's okay.

Unknown Speaker 16:23

As expected, the most challenging parts were the more open end activities, particularly creating the summaries. We asked their interest in having a coach for preparing or reviewing or using their profile. And there was some definite interest there. Only one of our testers were interested right now in creating a video resume with algebra still in college and weren't quite ready to think about that yet. I'm going to turn it now over to Stephanie, who's going to talk about some alternative delivery methods for this offer. Thank you, Chris. Despite our early successes in prototype testing, we already know that this is not a one size fits all solution. The time content can be largely the same, but the way the information is presented would likely need to be adjusted to reflect different learning styles and technology preferences. service providers like my organization often work with small groups on certain parts of the employment employment process like creating a LinkedIn profile or resume. I teach a weekly employment forum and have already began to work with these tools into a workshop style project that includes both peers and professionals working on each step as a group. So as part of our offering, we created a set of task analysis slides that showcase major profile steps and breaks them down in ways that decrease data overwhelm. Here's an example of this task analysis tool that shows how to customize your LinkedIn URL. When using this tool. Job seekers will be shown individual tasks to complete each profile step with each step building on each other until there is a complete profile. Given the prevalence of video instructions, we recognize that many might benefit from video tutorials to assist with step completion. This can be either leveraging LinkedIn videos or slide please. This can be either leveraging LinkedIn videos are creating new custom video material that targets our specific audience. These brief videos would have professionals or others clearly layout steps to profile completion in a way that is more appealing to visual learners. Slide please, many, many users start at the website homepage. If they want more help, they can open detailed steps. Some will want additional support via a narrated version of the detailed steps. In order to be able to arrive at a design that comes closer to the principles of universal design and to allow for the kind of information customization by segment that we have been discussing. We feel an important next step is to work with information and graphic designers, as well as specialists in technology and human interfaces. We want to be sure that this offer meets the specific needs of the indie audience broadly and offer some level of customization based on personal preference. This concept will be more powerful if we include support from a range of interested constituents. We can imagine several groups we will want to target employers to review profiles and provide targeted feedback, volunteer shepherds to help through the process and connect them with needed resources, professional organizations like regional centers and do our job developers and possibly autism at work employers. We are pleased to report that we already have a commitment from hands on bay area to offer volunteer experiences to help job seekers create LinkedIn profiles. So this is a very quick process that has the potential to be high impact. Many can be up and running participating in the mainstream job market after just a couple of hours. We are proud to have helped four people create strong profiles for the first time. We have discovered this process has several side benefits. It increases exposure to more about the process of attaining employment including things like online applications in skills tests. Slide please, it increases communication and engagement with families about jobs. It helps neurodivergent job seekers began to think about networking and how they will participate in making connections to enhance their job opportunities. And the slide we were talking over was going to be a profile slide that was created. And it was lovely and done very well. And mine is actually better to and I'm very happy with what this team has come up with. And we think this is a simple idea whose time has come. There is nothing complex about what we are trying to achieve, but the results could be profound for individual job seekers. The opportunity for innovation is there both in the multiple ways the offer can be configured and how we use the Bank of India experts to enhance its effectiveness. We believe this to be feasible, not requiring extensive resources to get to launch and potentially benefiting from all kinds of assistance through things like the paid internship program from regional center and possibly Stanford Student Resources. We're also very excited about the growth potential of this kind of an offer, we see the potential for what's next section that could offer related job seeking services or even direct access to employers looking to hire neurodivergent employees now to dream for potential partnerships.

Unknown Speaker 21:06

slide please. Here you see some of the companies we would like to partner with in the future. Topping the list, of course, is LinkedIn. Now on a personal note, I am absolutely thrilled to share with you that I have been working directly with LinkedIn. Later this month, I along with LinkedIn staff, will be conducting a special training for nonprofit currently serving 20 neurodivergent jobseekers. 20, LinkedIn employees have generously volunteered their time to coach each job seeker one to one for 40 minutes to review and improve their profile. I hope that this pilot training will restart and result in more collaborations in the future. If you haven't created a LinkedIn profile, or need to improve yours, what better time than now, please explore our website leap into dot work, where you will find two prototype options for creating a LinkedIn profile, one under the 12 step tab, and one under the guidebook tab. we polled 12 neurodivergent college graduates and three neurotypical college graduates and they preferred the guidebook. We invite you to explore both options and decide which one suits your needs. We welcome your feedback. Our team would like to thank Dr. Fung and his staff for providing this amazing platform for us to share our innovative ideas, making it easier for neurodivergent job seekers to advance their career goals. Now for questions.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 23:04

I think Mark might have some internet problem. So I'm going to check the q&a.

So I'm going to just read it off. Great concept. But some autistic kids are not comfortable speaking before camera or do not present well on camera. Having to shoot a video may create more of challenge and stress. They may need additional coaching or speech, acting and presentation to be able to shoot a good video resume. I hope you will include this step in your whole package. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 23:54

Yeah, I think it's absolutely isn't included in our how to video. Traditionally, videos have already been used for those that are more impacted, and can only demonstrate their skills and perhaps not even articulate them. So we envision working with speech pathologist, other professionals, I'm a professional in the field with over 20 years experience that we can work with them one to one before they're ready to create their video, I spoke to a gentleman that oversees HR for over 400,000 employees. And he said that anyone that submits a video goes to the top of his list for opening their resume.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 24:43

Thank you, Jerry. Sure. What nonprofit Are you partnering with that has your candidates.

Unknown Speaker 24:51

Unfortunately, at this time, that's confidential, but I'd be happy to share that with you when I'm given permission and authorized to do so.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 25:00

This is a attendee. So I think we you can continue keeping it confidential at this point. Do you plan to add more neuro diverse specific or neuro divergence specific content and advice, great idea, but doesn't go far enough to support unique barriers and concerns of young neurodivergent. Approaching LinkedIn?

Unknown Speaker 25:29

Absolutely, of course, this is just a concept. And it's very, very much the beginning of the concept. And so we're looking to get feedback from many different constituents and stakeholder groups, in order to build out a website that will be functional for many individuals. And so particularly that feedback form, we're looking for you to give us any tips that you would like to see moving forward, and we very much look forward to that information from all of you. So we truly do need the entire team working together to make this successful. So thanks so much. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 26:00

if anybody has individual questions regarding their own unique situation, I'm happy to personally assist you with that. If you're having any specific difficulties, please feel free to reach out to me.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 26:15

At splits act spectrum, fusion media, we are creating showcase platforms, and we are making introductory videos. Our adults on the spectrum are creating the videos for each other. Is there a way to follow up with you? Would like to take that? I'm sorry, I don't believe I heard the question. Could you repeat the question? That's for a video? I think. So following up with you. So you have the login dot work website? And there's contact information there. Right? Absolutely. And I'll type the website into the chat so that people have it. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, we got the last question. What about individuals with limited or no higher educational and work experience?

Unknown Speaker 27:13

Oh, I can speak to that. I can I can speak to I can speak to that. I think LinkedIn is valuable for individuals, regardless of kind of work experience, because there's also positions where people can put internships, people can vote volunteer experiences. So I think this is an opportunity for people to kind of set their bar high and then reach for for that. And so I believe that even if you don't necessarily have what you feel to be relevant experience, you do have soft skills, you have probably done things that you can add to a LinkedIn that would be relevant to a job that you're looking for, particularly if it's entry level, I

Unknown Speaker 27:47

would, I would like to chime in here to that as a professional in the field, what we typically do is try to teach skills for yourself when people before people are actually going to need to exhibit them. So start acquisition now. So even in middle school, high school, it's not too early to actually start your LinkedIn profile with whatever information you have related to your education, fill out as much as you can. And then as job opportunities, internships arise, you'll be prepared and can just, you know, go on, go forward and edit what you currently have and updated. So it's a Dynamic Document. And we encourage you all to get started if you haven't already.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 28:30

This is really excellent work. And I like to congratulate all of you and group 10, as well as group five and group six. You have done really tremendous work, very innovative and within only two months and in a multi stakeholder group, which is a quite a bit of adventure. And I think this is a very good experience for everyone. So with this, we're going to end this session and we are going to come back at one o'clock for our mental wellness in the workplace and beyond session. So please take your lunch ticks. Take a break and we'll see you soon. Good job, everyone. Major price reduction she doesn't have the address when I go look at it All right,

welcome to the Stanford neurodiversity summit. Some of you may have already participated all along in the summit. For those of you that just joined, welcome to the summit. We'd like to let you know that all sessions and are recorded and transcribed. Please check our summit website for YouTube videos periodically. All questions from the audience will be submitted through the q&a function at the bottom of your screen. And the moderators will try to cover as many questions as possible. This session is mental health at workplace. And Dr. Janie Hong will introduce the speakers. Thank you, Lawrence.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:43

Hi, everyone. I'm Janie Hong and the first person I'm excited to introduce is Michael Fieldhouse. And he'll be talking about mental health data in the workplace.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:14

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the session. I'm Michael Fieldhouse. So I've been running the downline program, which is started 2012. And we first launched in 2014. And we've been, we're very busily kind of collaborating with a number of academics across the globe and also have a evidence race research program underneath the downline program. And one of the things we found very early was, was mental health, mental health challenges really faced by neuro diverse people. And that was really the number one was really the number one factor for sustainable employment. So we spent quite a bit of time globally working through a, you know, really trying to work and develop some assets, we've got a lot of material around kind of mental health, but I wanted to kind of share some of the really a an employer's view of really mental health. And one of the key parts for us with mental health is really, what we're keen to do is really understand how the employer or the environment and also the individuals can actually participate together really interesting to really have a, you know, really have a, you know, to increase the kind of the, the, I think the mental mental health kind of safety and also, and also increasing people's overall goodwill. Also, everyone's goodwill in it. So what I'm going to do is really kind of share a couple of slides and from our kind of what we've been saying, and this is really focused about stress at work. And one of the things we've kind of seen through our kind of program is some of the things that actually around job factors. And this is kind of one of the some of the things we've seen is regards insufficient work is also one part. So not having enough work is actually great, it's great to actually stress, but also ensuring that there is actually good brakes, when workers work being undertaken. We've also seen some challenges when it guards to kind of shift work. And that's particularly in regards to you know, as things change, and change, and this may change, we do see the changing aspect of it, creating a creating stress, and therefore that relates to other, you know, other being people feeling unwell. And obviously, that manifests into kind of people, people taking time off work. conflicting demands, not able to kind of prioritize this is really getting down to some of the executive functioning issues, that sometimes people with their neuro diverse actually have challenges with unclear performance expectations. So in regards to that, it's really from a really being very, not for a manager and maybe also a co worker being very clear about what the actual, you know, what, what's the outcome you're really looking to? And what was, what do you see performance to be and that's, I think, for everyone who's actually involved in work, that's always, always a challenge. Also, work overload is another another issue, we find, not able to kind of prioritize and actually raise raise a hand and you look for probably look through this list is probably really no different to reading one. You know, that's kind of neuro typical. But I think the key part is actually how people individuals manage it. Unclear role, goal, unclear or getting some clarity around their role, especially in some of those when the role changes, or there is some modification to the role due to changes in, you know, in the business, and also might be a reorganization that goes on. And also, I think job future as well, we find that projecting forward that it is quite, quite a challenge. Some things in regards to current kind of kind of careers. We've kind of have been really focusing on really, you know, this idea of temporary employment status, and it's kind of interesting this has been that we found through our program

Unknown Speaker 1:14:48

is that having a, having the first first year is kind of as a so having some breakpoints in the program and also in employment actually helps the individual so this kind of thing we've kind of seen both from a, you know, talking to people and through our research that is that the temporary employment actually has issues. But also the it has actually has some advantages is that maybe their motivation for the job is not their motivation, but their parents motivation for the job. So we do you see that as a kind of a recent benefits in that. Also, under employment, I think this is I think we do see quite a lot of use, is about people not actually going ahead and not able to self advocate for for new opportunities, but also the opportunity to actually do new work. So it does not mean no going ahead and getting, you know, more work than being an extra next ranking or going up the next round. But it also is about actually getting new, new, new, new, extra new work or could be different work. One thing we've been kind of tracking in our program is also obviously, salaries, we've been really quite interesting through our program, we track how people advocate for a salary increase and ensuring that again, this is not a sign of underemployment. And the key parts that we see in this is really low self advocacy skills, and also self determination skills. So I think there's kind of two cup, two elements we really focus on. One is obviously management styles, I think one of the things we've learned is, you know, in weed management styles is really managers, sometimes not understanding some of the differences between, say, autism anxiety or any other mental health issues. So they kind of a judging, and this is this idea of taking some of the biased out. But also, it's about understanding, and I think the key part is with for us is we've been rolling out for mental health, first aid, mental health training around in this, we just kind of kind of critical. So if you looked at from an employer's perspective, I think you can do one thing for a manager is really about that, you know, really improving management, proving understanding of mental health, understanding how to actually support somebody in a manner that's having maybe a, some challenges in mental health, but also, I think the part of it is ensuring that the managers actually do have the skills. So we've all our first Mental Health First Aid training, we do, we do have a module, that's actually more about neuro diverse challenges. So you know, people that that do have, that are neuro diverse, we have a few modules around that make it making sure that they understand the difference between anxiety and also the difference between autism. Obviously, you know, organization, you know, again, this is some of the opposites, some of the challenges that might create some anxiety in the workplace. So, you know, really inconsistent communications, you know, incompatible work culture, what I mean by that is, one managers, one manager is very different to another manager, and styles are very different. But also, I think that the challenge with this is, you know, as being in for some people, it's just really knowing how to manage between those, those different kinds of work cultures, so we do see some of those, these great stresses. And then also, there's environmental factors, as I mentioned before, too much noise, not enough space. So, and from also, I think, some of the big, more negative ones, you know, obviously, workplace conflict, workplace bullying, and, and also not getting enough, insufficient social support. I'll just go to another slide that's latest comes through. And this kind of manifests into for the individual into quite a few little things. It really is about, you know, what we say is no, this is in the work environment, I think this is what we've seen. Unfortunately, you know, obviously hate, you know, for what they feel like the body saying, body's healing, your heart racing, you know, different with feeling sick, obviously, not feeling energized. We also have some of the things of some of the behavior, that things that comes through is kind of difficult concentrating, being irritable to other people. And all of this is kind of more, as you know, could be definitely related to other people that as well. So, we do see this, I think the some of the kind of more nuances for us is we do things see elements such as

Unknown Speaker 1:19:38

having people having challenges with sleep disorders, so that's probably another big one for us in in that, you know, having, having, you know, irregular sleep patterns. So we've been very focused on with the individuals we have in our program is getting good behaviors before getting to sleep that might be turning off devices. Making sure they're not reading or having blue screen. So taking with it, there's a whole bunch of things, it's helping out with those elements. During the, during the workplace, we've also read rolled out an application called Life Sherpa. And that's helps with regards to, it's a mobile app. And that's very much we've been using that to help with, you know, if dealing with stressors at work. So there's, there's kind of this couple of features we use heavily is, you know, which is a very simple traffic light system, which is all about, you know, it's, you know, red and green for how people feeling today, and allows our, our coaches and our support workers to intervene if there are issues that are going on, we do so so we've been very big on those elements of what we do. The other parts we also been focusing on is other behaviors in, in in such as focusing on things such as it might be caffeine intakes, you know, one thing is a lot of a lot of the individuals sometimes have been having way too much caffeine, like I think all of us sometimes had to, but that's been another focus of the program kind of regulating caffeine and those monster cans a drink, that was quite, quite interesting number of individuals in our program actually developed a routine to regulate the intake of caffeine, because that was impacting sleep, and therefore, therefore impacting work at the end as well. Service been a couple of big pieces. And probably the the other part we've kind of seen a little bit is, it's quite interesting through our research and the program. You know, we've seen this lower, lower levels of suicidal ideation. And that's really been driven by friendship. So friendship is a real critical element of we found, obviously, social inclusion, feeling like there's, there's a friend, and we know that these things are good for everyone's mental health. But we've, through our research and our programming, that's a really key factor. So what we we do with that is ensure that we have a good, good mental health framework in place to allow for it friendships to be built. And that's a part of the program, especially in the first, you know, in the first element of it being, you know, in the recruitment, we try and do a boot camp approach. We also then focus on things such as you know, ensuring that there's regular social activities, and it's particularly in COVID-19, we've been very big on that. And that's been a real big challenge for us as some of the stressors around COVID-19. And not being not having the social kind of interactions. So we've been very busy on, you know, having a virtual kind of cafe, you know, making sure there's a zoom session that's running constantly, sometimes allowing them to interact with each other in our teams. And also regular, more regular check ins to actually help with that, but, and also working through what the differences are between a work environment and also a home environment. And they've made some stresses around that, which has been constant. And probably the other thing that's kind of from an employer's perspective is we've been focused on is this is around the idea of trauma. We've seen this kind of manifest in the workplace, which we've had to manage. What I mean by that is that this the need, the individuals might have had a traumatic event, or there actually has something that's occurred, and they've had like a bit of a lack of understanding of it. And that's obviously then amplifies, they're in their head about this kind of the event and the Secretary catching it early before it really manifests into into something too serious. So we've been capturing those making sure we understand. If there is an event that's occurred, how do we actually get on get on top of it very quickly. And that might be an interaction with somebody else that could have been something outside of work, we interesting thing, we've dealt with a lot of things outside of work outside of work and then mostly manifests in the workplace. But that's another big thing. We've been really focusing on recognizing trauma. And that's something we we do roll out in the program for our managers and also for the individuals understanding when they're actually having difficulty with an event and then that event then obviously gets amplified in their head.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:40

Do you want me to do you want me to stop here or what would you like me to do? And I've got those other sessions.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 1:24:51

Do you have more slides that you want to show? I can keep going so I know maybe another like five minutes So and then we already have some questions. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:05

Okay, probably the other public couple of big things we've done been focusing on is really about, it's really focused on interpersonal kind of relationships. And this is something that we've been kind of really been tracking for a little while. And I'm trying to say this is very much from an employer's perspective. So everything I'm trying to say is very much from an employer's perspective is, you know, we've been rolling out just what we call had had positive relationships in the workplace with the same and opposite sex. And that's kind of we found that there's number of stressors come around with that, is that, you know, how do you actually interact with somebody, you might like somebody, what's the most appropriate way of doing it. And that's been a big driver to actually build up that education, because we've seen, you know, number, a couple of more than more than a couple that we've seen events that are actually spiraled out of control, really, with not really having enough knowledge about what's appropriate, and what's inappropriate in the workplace. So that's kind of been definitely something we've been focused on. A lot of, of what we probably you probably hear me talking about is really, it's about going ahead and ensuring that we have the right level of education for managers and co workers. And then really, for the individuals having a lot more focused around, really, really focusing on self determination, and really understanding that, you know, how do you actually improve some of these, you know, these, you know, recognizing when I'm actually I'm not in the best position? And some of the things we do we mean, they're not in the best now they're not in the best position is focusing on what what do they do next? And might be going for a walk, it might be breathing exercises, yoga, we try and make it how do you actually reduce their kind of levels of level stresses? And actually getting them done? Understand what what is a stressful situation? How do they actually potentially remedy remedy remedy that stressful situation. So I think one of the key activities is, you know, just part of actually recognizing as in actually been going, having having some routines that kind of work, you and that might be going for a walk, ensuring that, you know, they might go ahead and they need to kind of talk to somebody, they might need to also, you know, you know, go ahead and ensure that they've kind of going ahead and talking to somebody that might actually know a little bit more about the issue. So one of the key paid parts for for, especially with support is ensuring that we have psychologists and on board in our program that actually gives them support. And also they understand, they understand the difference between autism and mental health, which is, I think, also a challenge with a lot of employee assistance programs, which we've had to kind of audit over the last corner, we had to order out in the first instance, to actually make sure that support was actually there for the individuals. But I think the key part of that is, you know, is recognizing it, taking the stigma out of it. And I think that's very important from an employer's perspective is actually taking out the actual stigma of it. Let me open for questions now. It's

Unknown Speaker 1:28:33

things, Michael, would you like to maybe stop sharing slides then?

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 1:28:42

audience will see better. So, first question is, how do you see the training of employers, occupational health providers to understand their diversity? I am an employee with ASD and dyslexia. I was referred to mental health providers and severe learning disability support with no understanding of specific learning differences, or ASD. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 1:29:12

think it's very important for employers. I think the number one recognize, you know, this is a challenge and I think by providing broad training for the obviously the general workplace, but I think then it's going into a little bit more detail when you're in regards to, you know, some of these other areas such as people learn your diverse I think that's just important to ensure that they had to have some training on board and I think men as I said before, managers a key and co workers a key of understanding. I think that that also, you know, the ability to self advocate without fear of repercussion. I think it's important as well.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 1:29:58

So the next question is asking about seems clear that the research was predicated on helping mentally ill individual acclimate to standard environments and evaluates them by their employers typical standards. This assumes that at least mentally ill workers are at deficit. And maybe some are, while they are crammed into typical systems. You just referred to autism as a mental illness and talked about eliminating bias. Autism is a neuro diverse perspective, and many people who have it are incredibly high functioning. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:49

Yes. So yeah, I think that the key part is not that we're not saying that autism are mentally ill. But we do recognize that there is a high percentage of, of mental illness within within the within neurodiversity. And I think that's just in general with you know, we talked about one in five people in generally had mental health issues, I think the key part is ensuring that we have, you know, the appropriate level support and support and more nuanced to not just having been general. As we know, women's health, mental health is very different from men's mental health. And I think that the key part is ensuring that we have those new instances in during, and what we've learned is that some of our mental health supports, and not having a head don't have the same kind of level of depth or, or perspective for people that are neuro diverse. And I think that for every, you know, I think for all of us, I think for corporate corporations, we need to get better at providing a targeted kind of mental health approach to ensure that everyone gets the appropriate level of mental health. And we know, for example, mental health is very different. Even in age brackets, you know, if you go from from, you know, somebody's adolescent to somebody who's actually going into med a pause or pre med or pause, or very, very different, so

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 1:32:15

next question. So as soon as this and other people who see things differently, this research seems, that is not for neurotypical, obviously, they will not work well to force to adapt their system to a typical system. Some of their systems are superior HSM SR speeds, beats, don't forget dates, and can access their memories in very useful way. rigid programs to help that assume strains are disability would onboard cause stress and cause a lower performance level? Why is this focus on forcing never divergent people to conform, rather than enabling them to succeed? Why is why are the employers perspective, more important than letting everyone contribute?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:19

I think I said this in my combined with probably the previous one, it's about ensuring that we have a mental health frame that supports all I think that's the kind of a critical part, if you look at as a properly emphasized, when we know mental health is very different in very different groups or community settings or community setting. So I think the part of it's actually how do we actually support people, and not allow people kind of just to languish. And when you talk about performance is really about, we know, if we don't have the people that don't, for everyone who don't have a good mental health strategy in place or good mental health. In general, we know performance is very low.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 1:34:02

Okay, we have one last question before moving on to the next presentation. I think, like sherpur is an extremely useful app. Do you think that you may extend life sharper, to include ways for the participants themselves to have reminders, cues, thoughts, etc. to help with sleep regulation, attention, and other areas of executive function? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:34:34

I think, absolutely. I think one thing we've found with life sherpur itself is that it's all about we've found the individuals now develop their own cue cards or other or reminders and develop their own kind of executive functioning. So we're very big on self determination and really self advocacy in that kind of model. So we've seen that with regards to, you know, one individual had a routine called monster And it was really about them regulating their how many monster candy drink they had really that there was a cause and effect in regards to them having sleep issues.

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent 1:35:16

Thank you, Michael. There are some more questions, but we're going to leave it to the q&a after Dr. neurons. All right. So, Jamie, please go ahead and introduce the next speaker. Sure.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:37

The next person that we have is Caroline grants. Dr. Grants is a clinical neuropsychologist at UCLA. And she will be talking to us about peers for careers.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:12

Maybe I'll unmute myself first. Hi, everyone. So thanks for having me, I'm going to be talking about some UCLA programs that we are developing to support autistic adults in transitioning from high school through whatever post secondary education or supports that they need into careers. I always forget on zoom, how to make it go for it, there we go. So I really don't want to spend a lot of time on the statistics in terms of employment outcomes. But it is the data that we have indicates that there is a challenge in supporting effective employment or in autistic adults, even who may have really lovely skills and be very, very qualified in accessing and sustaining employment. And so we know, we talk sometimes about the resource Cliff in terms of after the age of 21, it can be incredibly difficult to maintain the services that have helped individuals be successful in a school environment and kind of navigate into the educational or, and career environment after high school. And we also know that there's been a real deficit in research funding to support adults with autism and really kind of understanding how they can, you know, be the kind of employees and engaged as they want to in adulthood. And so our program is really designed to help support that transition and help young adults kind of self determine where they want to be with some skills that might really help them get there. So we call our program the college to career program, and it is multifaceted. There's three domains that I will talk about peers for careers is the domain that we got Autism Speaks funding for. And so I'll go into that in a little bit more detail. Some of the things that are kind of relevant or is that it's employment related skills that we're focused on, and that the coaches appear not apparent so that it's more ecologically valid for the age. Additionally, we also have a program called ame, or adults with autism independence and mental wellness, that is a group program for young adults with autism spectrum disorder, that is really intended to have the group as a whole decide what topics they feel are important to focus on for the 10 to 12 week sessions that we have. And so the idea is that as a group, we can discuss what it is that these individuals are experiencing and what they are wanting to work on. So that we're really ensuring that the therapeutic strategies and supports that we're thinking about are driven by the adults that we're working with, and that are that are part of this group. And so I am one of the people who facilitates that group. And then usually I have a trainee as well. And we're really pulling from cognitive behavioral dialectic, behavioral and acceptance and Commitment Therapy is to because there's evidence base for all of those really supporting skill building, and generalization of skills. And then we've also divided that by gender to allow for more targeted full size. So if you think about things like dating, there can be safety issues that you really might want to focus on specifically in different ways. And we found a lot of support in the adults that we've worked with and really liking having a space that is that it's kind of for them. Okay, sorry, I'm I'm wanting to go forward but now something has jumped up on my screen that is not listening to me. There we go. Okay, so then we also have what's called the bear or Brewin evaluation for autism with recommendations and One of the things that can be challenging for young adults is accessing high quality evaluation services. So really making sure that they are getting the, the correct diagnosis, and that they're understanding themselves well, and so we've worked with the insurance that UCLA students have to be able to provide them with the type of autism evaluation that we think really helps get at the root of whether or not this is an individual on the autism spectrum. And then we provide service recommendations related specifically to who they are, where they're wanting to go both academically and then into their career as well.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:41

And then peers for careers is a group and a program that we've been working on for several years now. And so we started in 2018, with focus groups of young autistic adults and their parents. And the idea was really to try to understand what it is that individuals want in, in employment services, what it is that they want to be successful, and what they think they they need, what would be helpful for them to be successful in terms of employment. And so we spoke with parents and young adults separately, because we wanted their independent ideas. And then we also spent time with employers to really understand the employer experience of working with neurodiverse individuals. And some of the things that emerged, were the ideas that there are some differences in what young adults are focused on and what parents and employers are focused on, which was really helpful to kind of understand that, you know, everybody's kind of seeing different parts of this constellation of needs. And, you know, some of the things that stuck out to us was that the mentorship that both parents and young adults wanted for these young adults, they wanted it to be outside of the family. And that's something that's really helpful in thinking about how to support young adults, because often family remains a very important component of supporting a young adult and transitioning into adulthood. But it's really clear that that can't be the only support that's there, because that's not what's desired. And we know that that cannot, that's a big pressure on on the family. So um, we then did a pilot study, that was 10 weeks long. And basically, twice a week for 90 minutes we had young adults meet with career coaches, and career coaches were peers that were selected and trained in the intervention. And were paired with young adults based on a meeting that everyone had, where they got to meet, all of the young adults got to meet all the coaches to see what good fits were. And so we prioritized the desires of the young adults and who they wanted to be matched with, and then made sure that everybody had a match that was a good fit in terms of career goals. And one of the things that we noted was that it was a pretty intensive program, right, so you have three hours a week of didactics. And then you had up to seven hours a week of homework assignments and practice, that included things like designing a resume, making sure that your interviewing skills are being practiced, etc. And some of the pilot data that we found is that the young adults really were feeling after that treatment, that they had more kind of knowledge and skills to pursue employment effectively. And also more of them were employed, which was really exciting. We actually had several that became employed during the program, as well as several after the program and did which was very exciting. But kind of currently, where we've moved is that we took that pilot data, and we transitioned that into a grant to really try to understand how this didactic and this program is working. And to make sure that it's it's kind of effectively doing what we were doing the skills that are going to enhance employment obtainment and maintenance. And one of the things that was pretty clear to us and that the participants were very clear about is that 10 weeks was too short, it was too It was too intense of a burden. And so we actually switched it to a 20 week course, and then a subsequent 10 week internship and we are just moving into the internship component of our first cohort now, and that allowed that 20 weeks has allowed us way more time to be able to have individuals practice and consolidate skills without having to just then get into the next skill immediately. So the goal of this current study is to understand how this peers for careers program is impacting employment related social skill acquisition and success in subsequent internship settings. And to really understand when is the best time to have a quote In terms of your process through this program, and that's something that I think some of the speakers later will be talking about as well, when is it really useful to have additional supports, to be able to effectively practice and demonstrate the skills that that are that we believe are going to be helpful in obtaining and maintaining employment. And then also to understand a little bit more about, are there specific things within individuals that we need to be mindful of to support the success of this intervention, but then also employment, right. And so if we know that are there things that we can be supporting individuals like planning, executive function, etc, that might be helpful.

Transcribed by otter.ai