Supporting Autistic Workers - Leah's PhD
Donation protected
Hi! I'm a PhD student at the University of Sheffield.
About Me -
My passion is autism research. I've grown up with friends and family on the Spectrum, and watching them struggle with employment broke my heart. I believe all people who want to work and provide for themselves and their families should be able to, and the law backs me up on that. The Disability Act (2010) legally requires employers to make “reasonable adjustments” to working environments and situations to enable impaired workers to work healthily. But, I've witnessed the huge failures in this area. Employers often fail their workers, and fail to comply with legislation, in part, because of lack of knowledge about how to support their workers. I'm doing this research, which follows on from the research I did in my Master's, to try to fix that. I want to help equip employers with the knowledge they need to make workplaces and job roles more suitable for their autistic employees.
My background is psychology – Neuropsychology undergrad and Psychology postgrad which I did as a research Master's instead of a taught one. That means I did no modules, and one large research project. I've also worked since graduation in 2013 in various research roles, both qualitative (e.g. interviews) and quantitative (e.g. questionnaires). My PhD will mix the two approaches, and build on the research experience that I have in a way that I hope will enable me to make real change in the UK world of employment.
Why am I on GoFundMe?
Well, I study part-time because I wasn't able to get funding, so I work 6 jobs to self-fund (for a total of 6 days a week if you include my studies). The more I work, the less time I'm able to spend on my PhD, but a girl's gotta eat! I have to work to pay my bills, but this can be difficult as any time away is time I could be spending on studying and researching.
Any money you donate will go towards helping me to support myself financially and cut down the time I spend working. This means a faster turnaround-time on my research project, and that means I can make a difference sooner. Please consider supporting me, even if it's only £1. Every penny counts.
Other Stuff
As part of my fundraising, I am also creating a Patreon and a YouTube channel to match, where I'll create videos about my experiences. Some will be available to the general public, others will be available only to Patrons. I will share the details for this later when it's all ready.
There will be two types of videos:
1) Vlogs about my progress through the PhD (e.g. challenges I face and how I overcome them, my experiences, my thoughts and advice about how to get onto a PhD and how to stay in one)
2) Research papers. These will be short, 3-5 minute videos where I'll translate research papers from academic to normal language, I'll explain how the papers work, the key findings, how these findings could be applied, and my opinion (as a researcher) on these papers. I want to do this because I think that it's really hard for normal people to access and connect with research, but knowing and understanding current research is key to changing perceptions and practice for the better.
About Me -
My passion is autism research. I've grown up with friends and family on the Spectrum, and watching them struggle with employment broke my heart. I believe all people who want to work and provide for themselves and their families should be able to, and the law backs me up on that. The Disability Act (2010) legally requires employers to make “reasonable adjustments” to working environments and situations to enable impaired workers to work healthily. But, I've witnessed the huge failures in this area. Employers often fail their workers, and fail to comply with legislation, in part, because of lack of knowledge about how to support their workers. I'm doing this research, which follows on from the research I did in my Master's, to try to fix that. I want to help equip employers with the knowledge they need to make workplaces and job roles more suitable for their autistic employees.
My background is psychology – Neuropsychology undergrad and Psychology postgrad which I did as a research Master's instead of a taught one. That means I did no modules, and one large research project. I've also worked since graduation in 2013 in various research roles, both qualitative (e.g. interviews) and quantitative (e.g. questionnaires). My PhD will mix the two approaches, and build on the research experience that I have in a way that I hope will enable me to make real change in the UK world of employment.
Why am I on GoFundMe?
Well, I study part-time because I wasn't able to get funding, so I work 6 jobs to self-fund (for a total of 6 days a week if you include my studies). The more I work, the less time I'm able to spend on my PhD, but a girl's gotta eat! I have to work to pay my bills, but this can be difficult as any time away is time I could be spending on studying and researching.
Any money you donate will go towards helping me to support myself financially and cut down the time I spend working. This means a faster turnaround-time on my research project, and that means I can make a difference sooner. Please consider supporting me, even if it's only £1. Every penny counts.
Other Stuff
As part of my fundraising, I am also creating a Patreon and a YouTube channel to match, where I'll create videos about my experiences. Some will be available to the general public, others will be available only to Patrons. I will share the details for this later when it's all ready.
There will be two types of videos:
1) Vlogs about my progress through the PhD (e.g. challenges I face and how I overcome them, my experiences, my thoughts and advice about how to get onto a PhD and how to stay in one)
2) Research papers. These will be short, 3-5 minute videos where I'll translate research papers from academic to normal language, I'll explain how the papers work, the key findings, how these findings could be applied, and my opinion (as a researcher) on these papers. I want to do this because I think that it's really hard for normal people to access and connect with research, but knowing and understanding current research is key to changing perceptions and practice for the better.
Organizer
Leah Derham-Boyce
Organizer
