Lewisham Council: Inclusion works both ways
Two linked workshops brought young people and employers into the same conversation—building confidence on one side of the employment journey and practical inclusion on the other.
An inclusive employment programme can prepare a young person brilliantly for work and still leave a crucial question unanswered:
What kind of workplace are they being prepared to enter?
Confidence, communication and self-advocacy matter. So do clear recruitment, thoughtful management and an environment that does not make somebody fight the same invisible barriers every day.
That is why Divergent Thinking’s work with Lewisham Council on 31 March 2026 was designed as two connected sessions rather than one isolated workshop. The morning focused on neurodivergent young people approaching employment. The afternoon turned towards employers and managers who shape the other side of that journey.
The shared message was simple: inclusion works best when everybody has something practical to do.
At a glance
Organisation: Lewisham Council
Format: two live online, interactive workshops delivered on the same day
Audiences: young people preparing for work; employers and managers
Focus: strengths, self-advocacy, communication, inclusive recruitment and workplace practice
Young-person action: “Use clarifying questions with my employer more frequently.”
Participant feedback: “I really hope this workshop manages to reach a wider audience, it was very clear and easy to understand!”
Organiser feedback: “I really enjoyed them too and definitely people were engaged.”
Follow-through: further conversations about how neuroinclusion could connect across Lewisham’s wider employment work
Why the two-sided design matters
Lewisham Works describes an employment ecosystem connecting residents, employers and training partners. Lewisham Council also provides employment advice for young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including routes into training, apprenticeships, supported employment and work experience.
That ecosystem view is important.
Employment is not a test conducted on one person. It is a relationship between an individual, a role, a manager, a team and a set of working conditions. A person may be capable of doing the work and still be excluded by an opaque interview, an ambiguous induction or a workplace where every question is treated as a lack of initiative.
The workshops made that relationship visible. Young people explored ways to understand and communicate what helps them. Employers explored how to make their processes easier to access without lowering the standard of the role.
Neither audience was cast as the problem. Both were invited to become part of the solution.
Start with strengths, not a deficit story
Neurodiversity discussions can become a catalogue of difficulties surprisingly quickly.
Divergent Thinking chose a different starting point: people have varied profiles, not a single line from “less able” to “more able”. Somebody may bring strong pattern recognition, deep focus, visual thinking, empathy, originality or detailed knowledge while finding rapid verbal processing, unclear priorities or a sensory-heavy environment much more demanding.
A strengths-based approach does not pretend that barriers disappear. It places them in context.
Instead of “I am bad at interviews”, a young person might recognise: “I answer more accurately when I can see the question, have a few seconds to think and know what kind of example is being requested.”
That is not an excuse. It is useful information about how to create a fairer opportunity to demonstrate ability.
For employers, the same shift replaces assumption with design:
Does the recruitment task test the real job or confidence with an unfamiliar format?
Are instructions concrete enough to act on?
Can somebody ask for clarification without being judged?
Is there more than one credible way to contribute in a meeting?
These questions widen access while keeping expectations meaningful.
Young people: making the unwritten rules more visible
Workplaces contain many rules that are rarely written down.
How soon should a question be asked? What does “use your initiative” mean in this team? Does “ASAP” mean today, before lunch or stop everything now? Who decides when two priorities compete?
People often learn these norms through inference. That can create unnecessary difficulty for neurodivergent young people entering a new environment.
The morning session made room for practical strategies:
asking what success looks like;
checking the priority when several tasks arrive;
repeating back an instruction in a clear sequence;
requesting written information where it helps; and
recognising that a clarifying question can be a sign of responsibility.
One participant’s intended action captured the value of that approach:
“Use clarifying questions with my employer more frequently.”
That is a small sentence with a large effect. A well-timed question can prevent hours of uncertainty, protect the quality of the work and help a manager understand where communication needs to be more explicit.
The responsibility still cannot sit with the young person alone. The workplace has to make questions safe to ask.
Employers: design for access before disclosure
Many neurodivergent people do not disclose at recruitment or in the workplace. Some have no formal diagnosis. Others are still finding language for their experience.
Inclusive practice therefore works best when it is available by default.
The employer session explored actions that improve access without requiring an employee to explain a private medical history:
Recruitment
Describe the stages and purpose of the process in advance.
Use questions that are clear about the evidence being sought.
Review whether timed or performative tasks are essential to the role.
Tell candidates how to request adjustments and respond constructively.
Starting work
Turn broad expectations into observable examples.
Provide an induction sequence rather than an information avalanche.
Identify where procedures, contacts and priorities are recorded.
Agree how questions and feedback will be handled.
Everyday management
Give important actions in writing.
Separate urgency from importance.
Check understanding without making the person feel tested.
Offer predictable one-to-ones and usable routes to raise friction early.
These practices benefit neurodivergent employees and make management more reliable for everyone.
Clarity became part of the method
The delivery itself needed to reflect the message.
Ideas were explained in plain language, linked to recognisable situations and turned into actions. Participants had space to respond rather than being expected to absorb a dense stream of information.
Gem Hurley’s feedback spoke directly to that experience:
“I really hope this workshop manages to reach a wider audience, it was very clear and easy to understand!”
The organiser, Philip Jolly, also wrote:
“I really enjoyed them too and definitely people were engaged.”
He went on to say that he would keep the learning in mind while developing new pieces of work and considering how to create the greatest possible change from his role.
That response is an encouraging sign of useful training: the ideas did not remain inside a single workshop. They became part of a broader question about how a system can work better.
The employment gap makes shared responsibility urgent
The employment picture for autistic people illustrates why preparation alone is not enough. The UK Government’s Buckland Review of Autism Employment reported in 2024 that around three in ten working-age autistic disabled people were in employment, compared with around five in ten disabled people overall and eight in ten non-disabled people.
Those figures should not be read as a lack of autistic ambition or ability. They point towards barriers across recruitment, workplace support, progression and employer confidence.
Local employment services are well placed to connect those parts of the journey. They can help young people build language and confidence while helping employers replace guesswork with practical inclusion.
Lewisham’s public offer already reflects this connected landscape. Its work-preparation activity involves employers, schools and careers guidance, while Lewisham Works links residents with business and training partners.
The paired workshops added a neuroinclusive layer to that ecosystem.
What a joined-up journey can look like
The Lewisham work suggests five useful connections.
1. Preparation and recruitment
Teach candidates to ask clear questions. Teach recruiters to answer them without reading difference as difficulty.
2. Strengths and job design
Help people identify where they work well. Help employers describe the real demands of the role accurately.
3. Adjustments and everyday practice
Explain how to request support. Make good communication and clarity normal before a request is needed.
4. Confidence and psychological safety
Support young people to speak. Make sure managers know how to receive what is said.
5. Entry and progression
Do not let inclusion stop at getting through the door. Consider feedback, development and career movement as part of the same journey.
This is more ambitious than a one-off awareness message, but it is also more practical. Each part of the system reinforces the others.
What other councils and employment programmes can take from this case
The format can be adapted for local authorities, supported employment providers, careers services, colleges and employability programmes.
A useful starting sequence is:
Map the journey. Where do neurodivergent young people encounter avoidable uncertainty—from first contact to sustained work?
Listen on both sides. What do candidates find hard to access, and where do employers lack confidence?
Build shared language. Use terms that support conversation without reducing people to labels.
Teach matched actions. Pair self-advocacy with manager and recruiter practice.
Create routes forward. Connect training with services, resources and future programme design.
The goal is not to make young people perfectly prepared for every workplace. It is to build better matches and more inclusive workplaces.
The strongest bridge is built from both sides
The most memorable feature of the Lewisham work was not a single slide or technique. It was the architecture of the day.
Young people were not told that success depended entirely on changing themselves. Employers were not given abstract encouragement to “be more aware”. Each group received relevant, practical responsibilities.
The feedback reflected that balance: a young person planned to use clarifying questions; another participant wanted the clear learning to reach a wider audience; the organiser saw engagement and carried the ideas into wider systems thinking.
Lewisham Council created space for inclusion to work in both directions. Divergent Thinking helped turn that space into shared language and practical next steps.
That is how an employment journey begins to become neuroinclusive—not through one heroic adjustment, but through better connections all the way along it.
Build a neuroinclusive employment pathway
Divergent Thinking designs neurodiversity training and workshops for councils, employability teams, youth programmes, education providers and employers.
Programmes can connect young-person confidence and self-advocacy with inclusive recruitment, management and workplace design.
Contact nat@divergentthinking.uk to discuss a paired workshop or joined-up learning pathway for your local employment ecosystem.
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