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Meet Sarah Burrell. She is an energetic and powerful woman who is passionate about inclusion. Sarah is currently self-employed at Sarah Burrell Inclusion as a Strategic Inclusion Consultant, specializing in organizational Cultural Transformation. Here is a blog about her work and how she got here. All written in green italic is words of Sarah from the interview conducted via email.
She explained her work as a Strategic Inclusion Consultant as below:
Organizations often have difficulty knowing how to implement actionable steps to ensure inclusive processes are embedded in strategy in a sustainable way. This is where I come in. I support organisations understand the steps required to embed inclusive strategy carefully to align with organisational business objectives. I support organisations to build cultural intelligence into working practices enabling effective engagement, inclusive leadership, and psychological safety. These processes combined support sustainable inclusive growth, encourage true innovation, motivate a productive workforce and given time will ultimately result in cultural transformation.
You can subscribe to her newsletter here. Her brand new website is currently under development and will be launched around late September.
What is the motivation behind your work?
Society is changing. More than ever before, people see benefits in diversity, and most importantly they are beginning to see the benefits to inclusion. But we are still in a transition phase. If we work together, we can understand the delicate dynamics of power and privilege. Inclusive cultural transformation is possible. We all need to hold ourselves to account, open ourselves up to engaging with people who do not necessarily resemble our own thinking and outlook, who do not look like us, talk like us, or share similar beliefs and values. It is a challenging road ahead. We all have a part to play. But in the end, we realise that we can all embrace difference. We need to be mindful to cultivate inclusive cultures that benefit everyone and empower everyone to thrive, as their most authentic selves.
You mentioned your own disabilities before. Could you tell us about how you became interested in the work on inclusion?
Curiosity, logic, and interesting conversation drew me towards philosophy early on, it only seemed fitting to pursue this pathway, as I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in life. Philosophy helped me build a good foundational skillset for whatever was next. It was halfway through my second year, when I truly realised life with a disability was going to be challenging. I had struggled with my mental health before but realising the life-long road of mixed challenges ahead enhanced the strain. Over the years, I have come to terms with my own mental health journey. In frequent bouts of self-doubt and high stress – anxiety hits, and depression comes along with it. It’s quite a predictable cycle. But the good news, I know it will pass, it will come back round - but that’s ok. I’ve accepted this as part of my life. A wise person once said, ‘it’s not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain’.
You and Kana got connected through the common passion on autism. What is your connection to autism and neurodiversity?
I had always had a fascination for neuroscience so not knowing what to do at this point in my life, I was lucky to be able to pursue that interest and went on to study cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology as a postgraduate masters degree. During my time studying, I expressed particular interest in emotional intelligence. My thesis and bulk of my research explored the prevalence alexithymia - a trait linked to emotion recognition, processing, and regulation - specifically in those with Autistic Spectrum Conditions (ASC). As these processes are different, they require different areas of support. My proposal for further research was to design devices to effectively support those with emotional processing difficulties. Unfortunately, I didn’t pursue this research but I’m happy to learn that research into advanced practical solutions designed to lift barriers and support those who experience challenges in emotional identification and processing, enabling everyone to fully participation and thrive, as their most authentic selves. and s by people who are neurodiversity.
What do you think you and other so-called "disabled" researchers can bring to research?
Unfortunately, it is often the case that as disabled people we need a post-graduate degree or a PhD to become recognised as a credible voice in the research community. Expanding and diversifying perspectives within the research community is critical to revealing previously uncovered areas and approaches, especially crucial in the field of neurodiversity research. For example, we need to diversify and mindfully adapt research methods, especially when looking into the topic of loneliness in autism. We need researchers who are able flip turn and realign research focuses. A common assumption is, avoidance of social situations indicates a dislike or disinterest in socialising, but this fails to query and breakdown the underlying construct.
We need to openly question the experience of such discomfort or overwhelm around the typical myriad of social conventions. It unfair to assume we process things in the same way, and somehow expected to manage social and emotional interactions and internal understanding. Discomfort or overwhelm arising from social interactions is not fully understood enough. If we don’t question this carefully and in the scrutinise our approach, we limit, and skew data collected as a result. To truly understand, we need to stop assuming and ask the open questions to enable our traditional social conventions, constructs, and barriers to dissolve and reflect on what we discover to generate new ones that are flexible and enable all of us to feel comfortable to be around people and make friends in a way that works for everyone.
We end this week's blog with Sarah Burell here. Next week, we hear more of her perspectives on inclusion and diversity in our first 'Guest Blog' series.
At the Grace Center for Autism, we will also write about alexithymia in our blog at some point. So, if you are wondering what alexithymia is, keep an eye on our future blogs!