This handbook brings together experts by lived experience, educators, practitioners and researchers to present a transformative, neuro-inclusive approach to social work. Emphasizing the importance of developing and implementing neuroaffirmative perspectives in social work education, practice, and research, it advocates for neuro-inclusive and equitable social work practice with neurodivergent people who access social work services and those who provide them.
This groundbreaking volume delves into critical themes, including the role of neurodivergent social workers, the impact of systemic conditions, epistemic injustice, and the importance of culturally sensitive community-informed research. Offering recommendations, reflexive activity and frameworks, this handbook is essential reading and an invaluable resource for students, educators, academics, practitioners and researchers in social work and related professions.
Part I: Towards Neuro-Inclusive Social Work: setting the scene.
Chapter
1. Introduction (Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Lesley Deacon and Jenni
Guthrie).
Chapter
2. The wicked nature of neurodivergent needs: centring
knowledges from the inside, learnings from other minoritised identities
within social work (Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Lesley Deacon, Jenni
Guthrie and Aga M. Buckley).
Chapter
3. Neurodivergent needs from the
outside, social work with neurodivergent populations from a distance (Hanna
Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Lesley Deacon and Jenni Guthrie).
Chapter
4.
Entering neuro-inclusive social work(Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Lesley
Deacon and Jenni Guthrie).
Chapter
5. Capturing Context:
Neuro-inclusion/exclusion in international social work (Jenni Guthrie, Mary
Ayim, Caitlin Hughes, Lill Hultman, Elle Winterwood, Vesle Krey, Aga M.
Buckley and Ilse Noens).- Part II: Neuro-inclusive professional development
and leadership.
Chapter 6: Developing a Community Space for Neurodivergent
Social Workers (Jenni Guthrie, Eilis Long, Lubna Mushtaq and Ray Kathryn
Radnell).
Chapter
7. Black female dyslexic social workers: overcoming
systematic barriers in the profession (Arlene Weekes).
Chapter
8. An
auto-ethnographical account of the intersectionality of racism,
neurodivergence and work using critical self-reflexivity and the minority
stress model (Rachel Finn).
Chapter
9. Its about adapting to the person,
not the label: the application of neurodiversity to social care practice
needs time (Lesley Deacon, Lucy Mortimer, Chantahl Rodwell, Kate Aspray,
Lindsey Salkeld, Louise Colley, Colette Rankin, Natalie Bell, Andrew Robson
and Anna Yoxall).
Chapter
10. What? So What? Now What? - Developing a
reflexive model for neuro-inclusive supervision relationships (Florence Smith
and Jo Williams).
Chapter
11. Becoming a reflective neurodivergent social
work supervisor(Jo Williams, Jenni Guthrie, Andrea McCarthy and Florence
Smith).
Chapter
12. Being and Doing neurodivergent reflexivity in social
work practice (Jenni Guthrie and Lill Hultman).
Chapter
13. Autism in social
work management (Dan Wilkins).
Chapter
14. Neuroqueering Professionalism in
Social Work: Relational Ethics and the Art of Unbecoming (Caitlin Hughes).-
Part III: Neuro-inclusive Social Work Practice.
Chapter
15.
Neurodiversity-affirmative psychoeducation: co-creating psychoeducation
through community materials(Lies Van Den Plas, Eleonora Tilkin-Franssens,
Lora-Elly Vannieuwenhuysen and Ilse Noens).
Chapter
16. Emotion Regulation
for Autistic and ADHD Clients: A Neuro-inclusive Social Work Framework (Elle
L. Winterwood).
Chapter
17. Lets talk about sex, baby! A social workers
guide to neurosexual inclusive support (Vesle Krey).
Chapter
18. Towards
competency, not blame: Reflections upon social work practice with autistic
families. A parent-carer perspective (Alice Running).
Chapter
19. Working
with parent-carers of neurodivergent children: practising neuro-inclusive
social work(Lesley Deacon, Zeta Bikova, Matt Deacon, Yasmin Thurgood, Jaynie
Mitchell and Melanie Barrett).
Chapter
20. Working with global majority
families who have neurodivergent children (Daniella Baidoo).
Chapter
21. Do
you see us now? Acquired Brain Injury, Neuro-inclusion, and the Hidden Faces
of Social Work (Caroline J. Bald, Kate Mellor and Sam Shephard).
Chapter
22.
Exploring dyslexia (and its cousins) in social work practice: from
challenges to an affirming lens (Lesley Deacon and Kimberley Sempe).- Part
IV: Neuro-inclusive Social Work Research.
Chapter
23. Creating an Inclusive
and Relationally Attuned Research Space for Neurodivergent
Participants(Jessica Dark).
Chapter
24. Creative Methods in Neuro-inclusive
Social Work Research and Education (Aga M. Buckley).
Chapter
25. Researching
with Neurodivergent social workers: a journey through epistemic healing to
embrace research confidence (Lesley Deacon, Dean Stamp and Suzie Keyes).-
Part V: Welcome to Another Social Work: Neuro-Inclusive Social Work.
Chapter
26. Introducing an inclusion passport: Complexity in the context of
neuro-inclusive social work organisations(Jenni Guthrie).
Chapter
27.
Concluding reflections: another kind of social work (Lesley Deacon, Hanna
Bertilsdotter Rosqvist and Jenni Guthrie).
Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist is Professor in Social Work at Karlstad University, Sweden, with expertise in neurodiversity and neurodivergence. She edited The Palgrave Handbook of Research Methods and Ethics in Neurodiversity Studies (with D. Jackson-Perry) published in 2024.
Lesley Deacon is Associate Professor of Practice Research at the University of Sunderland,UK. Her areas of interest are neurodiversity and practice research, particularly safeguarding and lived experience of parent-carers.
Jenni Guthrie is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Winchester, Uk, Doctoral Researcher in Social Work and Social Care at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, and director of Neuro Inclusive Solutions.
All three editors are neurodivergent.
