Back to normal

After the disappointment (in some ways) of Denmark things have returned to a state of normality on my first day in The Netherlands, in that things have been productive and smooth!

I knew the last three days of the trip would be jam-packed, thanks to the excellent help afforded me by Lydia Flentrop of the Dutch Politieacademie. Since the very beginning Lydia has been excellent and has put me in touch with a range of people, all of whom have been keen to help.

I met one of them, Daniël Gellvoet, this morning. Daniël is autistic and had been involved in training previously at the Academy. I’m sure he will not mind me saying that he is a force of nature who barely paused for breath during our two hour meeting! Daniël is clearly passionate about getting the message out about autism, changing policy and influencing people’s perceptions of autism and autistic people. He is searching for the best way to do that, which is a difficult question when the aim is so big. I promised to think about it, and we’ll try to meet again at the end of the week. As I’ll come to, later in the day I met another contact whose ideas may be of use to Daniël so maybe I can influence Dutch policy as well as trying in Scotland!

My second meeting of the day was later on so I took the opportunity of some free time to visit Anne Frank’s House. Having read her diaries as a child the House was pretty much the only thing on my ‘must see’ list for the city and fortunately I researched it beforehand as you can only book tickets online and for a certain time slot. So after running the last 0.7km off the tram to make sure I made my slot, I spent just over an hour there. You basically follow an audio-guided trail of exhibits around the house and the Secret Annex and although the Annex rooms themselves are empty (the Nazi’s removed everything and Otto Frank decided to keep it what way) you still get an understanding of the families’ plight.

From that sobering visit, I caught a train to The Hague, did a very quick tour round the city centre then met Diederik Weve. I had been very much looking forward to meeting him and he did not disappoint. Diederik works for Shell and is involved with PAS Nederland (Dutch Autism group). He was diagnosed as autistic at 52, and decided he wanted to be open about it, and to emphasise the benefits it could bring as well as some of the problems. Supported by Shell’s Disability Network, Diederik began offering autism workshops for Shell employees and to date has trained around 1400-1500 people worldwide. He was kind enough to talk me through the format, and it was absolutely fantastic. I’ve been considering how I would make any training I want to come up with as interactive and engaging as possible, and his is exactly that. He manages to cover some of the theory by relating it to practical situations, and how it might impact workplaces within Shell, so it’s relevant to his audience, not just a bunch of dry facts.

This work led him to establish the Autism Embassy concept in partnership with a government project. He worked with the project leader and came up with the concept of having openly autistic employees working as ‘Ambassadors’ within their organisations. The idea is basically that autistic employees, with a strong track record of work and who wish to be open about their diagnosis, act almost as adverts, as myth-busters. Having people out in the open who can be role models and assistants to autistic colleagues, and also introduce an element of ‘normality’ into having autistic people in the workplace. There’s a wee bit more to it that that, and more information can be found here: http://www.diederikweve.nl/columns/nas-the-autism-embassay/

I absolutely loved the concept, although it’s important to note it’s not all plain sailing and straight forward, and we talked about some of the supports that need to be in place and the negatives that can come from it too, both for the individual and the organisation. Despite this I came away with a lot of positivity and a huge amount of respect for what Diederik has done, it’s inspiring.

I could have written loads more, however it’s nearly midnight, and tomorrow morning I’m off to Almere to visit the Politie!