PXC Hosts First Neuro-Inclusion Event for NiON

On the 14th of March, we hosted the first event of the Neuro-inclusive Organisations Network - NiON at our Manchester office.

NiON is an initiative built with the purpose of championing neurodiversity in modern workplaces, and is steered by representatives from organisations committed to neurodiversity inclusion like National Autistic Society, PXC, the BBC, Auto Trader UK, Rise Up, Talent and Royal Voluntary Service.

Thursday’s event focused on the topic "Neuro-inclusion - Challenging the Stereotypes", it was facilitated by Mari Saeki and opened by our Chief Operations and Technology Officer, Phil Haslam. The event was attended by delegates from over 25 public and private sector organisations.

Phil handed over to Dr Shirley Woods-Gallagher who talked about the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter and introduced a video message from Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham. Andy spoke of his vision of a neuro-inclusive workplace and emphasised the importance neurodivergent colleagues bring to the workplace.

Here's what Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham had to say...

The day continued with discussions centred around presentations from Sarah Musique of Think Musique who spoke about the Mycelium network which connects, supports and nurtures the growth of plants and fungi and Sarah drew comparisons to the neurodivergent community and the support and nurturing that community brings to the individual. Nicola Naylor of the Bury Council spoke about the myth that you have to be born neurodivergent and gave an emotional account of her own journey and her acquired neurodiversity resulting from a serious car accident and subsequent brain injury. Finally, Rob Brougham of Braided Communications Ltd posed the question that "great minds DON'T think alike", Rob went on to talk about the different ways we communicate and how different communication methods in meetings can be overloading to the neurodivergent individual.

NiON launched its new logo which was created by Sam Selly and Jenn Walkden of SENDCode who gave an insight of how the content was created and shown the development of the concept to use Neon tubing in the logo.

The event concluded with a panel discussion and final thoughts of the day were summarised by NiON chair Sean Gilroy of the BBC.

We are so proud to be part of NiON, building a more inclusive future.