We were invited to facilitate a talk on neurodiversity to a community group in another county. This audience was predominately of an older generation and for people with lived experience of a specific physical disability and / or their support network such as a partner, friend or carer. The community group were seeking to understand and explore the general term neurodiversity as well as gain an appreciation for the hidden impact(s) people can experience when they are neurodivergent / living with neurodivergence. This talk involved embodied movements and wandering through different snippets of anonymised lived experience as an animated story-telling presentation; which included the use of visuals props. This talk concluded with a spoken word poem as well as a question and answer session, with collective sharing of knowledge being facilitated. IMPACT: Participants from the audience of the neurodiversity talk commented / feedback that the experience had been ‘really engaging’, ‘relatable’ and ‘connecting’ to hear real examples that were ‘not medicalised’ in how they were being communicated. The audience members also shared that they were mainly use to professionals facilitating their talks rather than people with direct lived experiences. The combination of difference in how the talk was delivered as well as insights from an authentic lived perspective were valued by the group. Participants chose to take the time to reflect on how the talk had either related to their own experience(s) or influenced a shift / change in how their perceived another person within a specific situation. In addition to this there were discussions held about how far society had come in terms of it's understanding of neurodivergence such as the use of language. There was also a noticeable consensus within the group that society still had a way to go in terms of having empathy for one another. Potential inter-generational differences and topics such as the impact of shame were touched upon during these conversations. We had a consultation to produce a workshop for an organisation that predominantly provides support to the voluntary and third sector. The workshop was co-designed to reflect the identified needs of the organisation clients as well as being sculpted by information of the subtleties that can tend to be overlooked but have impact in terms of peoples empathy towards one another. This workshop integrated the arts with use of poetry, movement and lived experience to illustrate points. This was a half day workshop. It was important that the price of these tickets was low so that this could be an accessible experience for people working in the third sector. IMPACT: We are currently awaiting detailed feedback from this session collated by the organisers; the initial feedback was that this had contributed to ‘challenging people’s perceptions and opening up further discussions’. The organisers themselves felt like they had gained a lot from this workshop, expressing that it had inspired many conversations around accessibility and how workplaces manage conflicting reasonable adjustment needs within a team. Hidden Capacities CIC began to initially reflect ourselves on the learning / unlearning from this workshop in the absence of more detailed feedback. This workshop had been a significant catalyst for new information emerging to us in terms of what is needed from a workshop venue in terms of facilitation. There was also a noticeable rising tension in people’s ‘fears’ around their organisations being negatively affected by implying or not implying cultural changes within their organisation related to neuro-inclusion. See organisation self-reflection added to part two for more detail. From 30th November 2024, Hidden Capacities transitioned from being a dormant company to trading / active as we received our first payment in December 2024 since we have been set up as a CIC organisation, transitioning our status from dormant to active / trading. Hidden Capacities CIC was approached by a local organisation to explore assisting them with the co-delivery of working in partnership on a project that focused on providing mentoring services to young people in schools and the community. We assisted the organisation with reviewing their collated research that suggested there was a legitimate need for such services locally in Norfolk. In addition we supported with the co-design of a project proposal based creatively around what the presenting needs were from this evidence base and also integrate neuro-inclusion into this proposal. We were also filmed, giving a short presentation about the project to assist with this grant application process. The joint bid had been successful in being shortlisted to the final eight projects that may receive funding but was not one of the projects selected to be funded at the last stages of selection. We have an authentic alignment with this organisation who had approached us as they are collaborative in nature, integrate evidence base into their processes and value lived experience knowledge.

PART 2 – CONSULTATION WITH STAKEHOLDERS – Community Group Talk Feedback: There were requests from the group to explore neurodivergence in more detail as there was an appreciation that this is a vast subject and these initial discussions had left people curious to know and co-explore more. The use of art appears to depersonalise lived experience, enabling opportunities for curiosity and open dialogue as well as intensely engage people’s focus in what could potentially be a emotive or challenging subject to collaboratively explore together. PAUSES & ACTIONS: We will remain curious about how we can integrate arts and culture into enabling / co-creating collaborative learning spaces. Seeking to develop further the use of creativity in engaging openness in conversation. The audience responded to the use of visual props to illustrate points and being able to make comment / ask questions and safely co-share experiences. Being approached by a group outside of the county we are based in also presents us with questions about what localities we are physically prepared to travel to and what are the parameters that will influence whether we choose to offer a service or not. Such as the ethics associated with carbon-footprint impact. For example would this be authentically taken into consideration if we only engaged in taking public transport or would this present with restricting who we can serve, for example in rural locations where transport potentially could be restricted. More time and consideration needs to be given to this. Joint grant application feedback: Grant writing and preparations take a lot of time logistically and there is no guarantees that the time spent on them will result in the project proposal receiving any support or funding to enable delivery. For us this was an opportunity to get to know our collaborators better and creatively explore what could be possible, hone in our skills and understanding of bid writing processes and also expose us to the reality of grant applications. Would we need to consider capping the time we choose to give to this funding avenue as it can require a lot of time but not necessarily add our community impact or make us financially robust as an organisation. Pauses & Actions: Consultation continues with this organisation as it is anticipated from both sides that we could collectively offer services that would potentially be impactful in the future. Our operational values align so they would be a congruent match to consider partnering with in the future. We will only apply for grant funding that aligns with legitimate presenting needs, is within our resources and mirrors what we are passionate about as an organisation. Operational Performance / Staff Reflection: Hidden Capacities CIC has had some long term operational difficulties to overcome. We have consent to transparently share that our Founder of Hidden Capacities CIC wasn’t able to volunteer their time to the organisation from September 2024 due to a unexpected bereavement. In addition to this they experienced adverse life circumstances in December 2024 which impacted and extended their need for time away from the organisation. Hidden Capacities CIC consulted directly with Companies House during this time, requesting two extensions for our accounts / CIC report submission which were granted due to the exceptional circumstances. Sadly we could not extend the submission date further with Companies House and Hidden Capacities CIC’s other director was not able to independently complete this documentation on the Founder’s behalf as she did have access to the information required to fulfil this responsibility. PAUSES & ACTIONS: As a start-up transitioning from its dormancy status to active we had not anticipate at this early stage that the Founder would require a sudden length of time away from supporting the organisation’s development. The learning taken from this is that systems need to be put in place so that Hidden Capacities CIC can be self-sustaining and thrive without the Founder. This has been a goal to work towards in terms of its legacy however the reality is it needs to happen early on from inception both from a wellbeing perspective and to allow Hidden Capacities CIC the ability to sustain through risks to its existence. Other director(s) need to be supported in having access to the information they need in order to meet , complete and fulfil these stationary requirements. Energy needs to be placed in developing a team for Hidden Capacities CIC and a movement away from Founder-reliance is critical. Collaborative Workshop Feedback & Reflection: Hidden Capacities CIC initial self-reflections in terms of supporting participants and facilitators to feel comfortable within workshops. We identified some non-negotiables in terms of our venue needs. Checking the venue has access to a clock on the wall in the workshop room – the facilitator experiences time in a non linear way due to their own neurodivergence. In the venue there was no clock on the wall or in the room, so a mobile phone was used instead. This presented as being problematic as each time the clock went back into the facilitators pocket after checking the time, time would became a nonlinear experience again. This resulted in some of the interactive parts of the workshop that had been laid out ready to engage with not being initiated as time ran out. This would have impacted on people’s access to different learning styles as well as their opportunity to co-learn from one another, the room was full of a vast range of expertise and experiences and the futile ground for co-learning had been advertently stifled. In addition the venue was in a lower ground basement which had impacted on people’s access to natural light in the environment, the room was hot without access to windows and people needed card access to get back into the venue, which had implications on peoples opportunity to have unrestricted movement to come and go from this learning environment. There was also difficulties with accessing movement for both the facilitator to wander and for participants themselves to engage with movement if needed or desired. At times the facilitator was seeking to wander in locations within the room which it became apparent there were no feasible routes to use. As stated in part one of this report, the feedback from this workshop is being collated by the organisation we worked in partnership with and will seek to explore this together to reflect further. Its paramount that in sharing our own learning being integrated with participant feedback that is conveyed in a way that supports the opportunity for co-growth to continue rather than endorses a blame / shame culture. Pauses & Actions: Hidden Capacities CIC will endeavour to continue to give time to pauses, time to be reflective and proactively adapt as an organisation from these experiences / findings. Hidden Capacities CIC will follow up on consultation with its delivery partner and integrate these findings / learning opportunity into subsequent training and workshop offerings. We are due to offer a recap service for participants which their feedback will directly mould what that delivery looks like / becomes. Hidden Capacities has also collated the ‘top’ one thing that each participant wanted to know the most, this has been recorded so that this information can continue to inform future workshops.

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration