Bradburn Films and Atypical Support CIC are producing a new documentary about the barriers to employment for autistic people. This lottery-funded project will focus on the positives that autistic people bring to the workplace.
We would like to showcase examples of successful relationships between organisations and their neuro-diverse employees. This will involve a couple of days of fly-on-the-wall filming and interviews in the workplace.
The final documentary will be distributed to film festivals worldwide, to local authorities and also to employers - with the aim of encouraging people to think differently about neuro-diversity in the workplace. and to help break down barriers to employment. We are looking for employers who want to be part of this inspiring project. This is your opportunity to share the good work you are doing and help us to change attitudes!
Over the course of the Atypical Isolation Buster, the Well Newcastle Gateshead funding has been used to support multiple small businesses ran by neuro-diverse owners. We have used the fund to employ five businesses and some work has also been subcontracted to seven more businesses to help create collaborative links. On top of that seven further mentors have been employed, using Access to Work funding via DWP, to support the business owners.
Bradburn Films has produced promotional videos for Phil Benton Photography, Sylvan Skills, and IR8 Bespoke to help in the future to support them with advertising and as documentation of the work that is able to be achieved by these individuals. Atypical Support CIC also has a short video created to help both show what can be achieved by neuro-diverse people and a highlight of the project as a whole to be shared with Bluestone Collaborative.
As of March 31st 2022 the Well Newcastle Gateshead funding has been used to support multiple small businesses ran by neuro-diverse owners, including one start up. We have used the fund to employ six businesses to run interactive projects and additional work has also been subcontracted to five businesses to help with marketing, administration, social media, legacy film making, and on site support. On top of that five further mentors have been used to help support the businesses to help implement the project.
Most of the project leaders have been involved in running classes or events in the past, but two are using this opportunity to step into the role (Shannon and Chris) to help with the longer term of their business development. In the background Bryn (Grassroots Admin) has never taken part in an event either but Will (ASCIC Project Lead) has regular calls and meetings to make sure as the back office support, that he is also supported and focused as well. Others have either ran their own classes or been a part of events in the past and have a clear understanding of what they need to do and achieve at the end.
To help support the project we hired the autistic owned admin support, Grass Roots Admin to take on some of the day to day duties. During the project, he was in charge of taking bookings for the different sessions, responding to and handling the emails that came through, advertise and market the sessions on social media and provide weekly reports for Will, describing what has gone well and bad in the week and social media reach and engagement figures and also collating and collecting all the needed paperwork.
We also brought back Chris Bradburn to do the legacy videos for each project leader as well as for the over arching project.
NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY BUSINESS CLINIC
In 2021 we reached out to Northumbria Universities Business Clinic to help us investigate the barriers into employment for people with hidden disabilities.
Below is what we focused on: -
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
GATESHEAD COUNCIL MATURITY ASSESSMENT
Gateshead Council’s Digital Transformation and Support Fund was created to support small and medium-sized voluntary and community (VCSE) organisations, identifying the training and digital innovation these organisations needed to help them grow and thrive. After meeting face-to-face with digital experts from Sunderland Software City, this assessment was produced as a comprehensive overview of the organisations current digital maturity and what steps could be taken to enhance that maturity with immediate support and access to a small amount of funding to invest in training, software or equipment. In addition, broader recommendations have been made to instruct the organisation on how long term principles and actions could help develop their digital maturity beyond the scope of this project.
This assessment will cover your organisations current ICT systems and infrastructure, cyber resilience knowledge, data management, digital culture and behaviours and any impact of digital on service delivery. In the latter half of this document, you will find your organisational support plan. This plan will clearly outline areas for development, priorities for the organisation such as one to one training, specification development, documentation writing and for some, a small amount to invest in software or equipment.
Current Situation Overview
Engaging with their community, encouraging interaction and promoting the visibility of Atypical Solutions is where Will and Rachel find their work focused around at present. Both contend with work-life challenges which can be exacerbated by the physical hardware they lack to produce the content they wish to be making.
Action Plan for Programme Support
With a breakdown of Atypical’s costing structure, Adam & Nathan will engage Gateshead to see how far their funding schedule can be expedited to get the necessary hardware into Atypical’s hands ahead of the production phase, beginning in early February.
If additional funding can be secured, Atypical appear well-positioned to action their output for digital marketing and web design.
After discussions, we have provided a breakdown of costs for the equipment which will help take their content production and online presence to its next stages of development. Some costs have been derived from specific suppliers that Atypical Support would like to work with based on their alignment with the organisation’s values.
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