Managing church with neurodivergence

I wonder what feeling genuinely welcome means to you. In this column I am speaking to a range of people from around the URC about their experiences of church and what welcome might feel like, for them. This month’s columnist experiences discrimination on the grounds of neurodivergence, which comes under the characteristic of ‘disability’. It is important to know, though, that many people, of all neurotypes, see neurodiversity as a natural part of being human – the disability is the attitudes and actions of others, which make it difficult to navigate our society if you are neurodivergent.

Neurodiversity is the idea that everyone’s neurotype – the way they think – is different. Neurodivergence is a way for a person to say that they have a neurotype that is different from the average. This may include experiences of AD(H)D, autism, or other specific learning differences. For example, I am autistic and describe myself as neurodivergent….

This column is curated by Alex Clare-Young, a leisure sector pioneer special category minister for the URC in Cambridge. This month’s contributor is anonymous

___

This is an extract from an article published in the March 2023 edition of Reform

Subscribe to Reform