Right. We're we're on onto our next, which is... Well, I'm very, excited about. Let me bring up the overlay. So we've got designing neurodivergent futures. And then after that, a very serious section on understanding suicide risk in ADHD. And followed by our leaders panel. Right. I've got a very exciting task to to do to do my introductions. We've got Clare Deakin, Claire Barton, Stephanie Kyle, Paul Turpin all waiting in their wings to come forward. This is about, can a building make ADHD easier or harder? The spaces around us, classrooms, campuses, workplaces, and homes can reduce distraction, can reduce sensory overload, or they can load our executive function. They can make everything harder. And this panel is about designing.

With purpose to reduce those things and to design for people. Leading it is Clare Deakin.

Welcome, Clare. Oh, hi, Henry. Thank you very much.

Yeah. And, Clare, she's head of marketing business development at Galliford Tri Building Southern. She's a non executive director of SECBE. And she's a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing for more than twenty five years spanning marketing, business development, and building development. She's created Call of a Tri's building center and podcast, bringing together educate... Educators, designers, builders, and people with lived experience to create better spaces for children with special educational needs. She's cofounding Building Minds with a new construction industry initiative on neurodivergence launching in 2027. And she is a late diagnosed ADHD herself. And she is bringing with her, Claire Barton. Welcome, Claire.

Hi.

Claire has been a partner at the Architects Haverstock since 2006. She led the design of Wilmington Farms, supporting living for young adults with autism, which won the Civic Trust Selwyn Goldsmith Award for Universal Design and the REBA Southeast Award. This year, she sits on the national judging panel of the civil trust awards and her practice designed Bulgaria School in Havering, a 300 place SEND school, set to be one of the largest in The UK.

Which I believe Claire's company is not a company. Yep. We're working on it together. As always.

And then introducing Stephanie Kyle.

Hi.

She's an associate architect and inclusive design consultant at Floyd Slasky Architects, an assistant professor of architectural design at the University of Nottingham. She's the first ever AJ 100 change maker of the year. And the judges said, Stephanie is like fireworks. This is the energy you wanna see in the world. This year she won the people's choice award, the design in mental health award. I wrote the neurodiversity design guide for UK University of States and she brings her own lived experience of ADHD and autism. And last and not least, is Paul. Paul Turpin. Welcome.

Thank you. Paul is principal architect and education lead at Arcadis. He's more than twenty years designing schools. He's a team's paddock school in Tutting, a SEND school for a 122 people, has achieved premium outstanding for its new building, the top rating, and is a finalist for the SEND project of the year. It's for absolutely brilliant minds, and on intentionally designed spaces. Well, without further ado, I'll hand over to Claire. Thank you for leading it. Thank you all for being here. I am genuinely inside awe of all you've done, and I'm really looking forward to the session. Pass it over to you, Claire. Thank you very much. Thanks, Henry.

So welcome, everybody. Good evening. And this is our design panel on neuroinclusive design. From classrooms to colleges to universities, workplaces, design has the power to influence far more than how a building looks. It can shape confidence, independence, belonging, and ultimately, life outcomes. So I'm really excited to be joined by three friends today. I'm going to... Henry's done such a fantastic job introducing everybody. But could we just for a second just have a quick think, or can you each comment on what you... One design one design decision that you think can make a big difference to someone with ADHD? Claire, can I stop you? Claire, you're on mute.

Basic mistakes. The favorite. I don't really need to... Henry's done a great introduction, so I won't go too much into that. No. I think, ultimately, for me, the kind of single design doesn't... That makes a disproportionately big decision... Difference to a neurodivergent person is is choice. And in my view, choice gives comfort. And when you have comfort, it's really about being able to control your environment and... Because otherwise, it can feel very unpredictable and very overwhelming. So it's all about you being able to choose how you make that environment suit your needs. And I don't think there is one perfect kind of neuroinclusive environment.

Because people need different things. The same person needs different things at different times. So for me, when, you know, the role of desire is not to prescribe kind of an ideal condition, it's just to create enough choice that people can find comfort and, you know, regulate themselves.

And engage in a way that works best for them. Absolutely. Stephanie, what do you think is one of the most important design? I'm gonna give you too many ones. One is for buildings that have lots of people in.

And one of them is for your individual house where you use complete control and you can do what you like. So building on what Claire has said, where we've got buildings where we've got lots of different people, we don't know what things people are gonna need, whether people are hypersensitive or hypersensitive, whether they need more or less stimulation. Make... If you're a designer and you have the choice of controlling a building, minimize the.

Sensory stimulation in your primary surfaces as much as you can. So we don't need zigzag zigzag floors or crazy patterns on the walls. Minimize that as much as you can, but then add in the ability to increase stimulation through things that can be removable. So bold features in things like cushions, rugs, furniture, they can be taken away if they become problematic, but you can't take away the bricks of the building if you come for something that's a bit funky or if you've got green window frames or something like that. And then in... At an individual level, from a design point of view, in your own house or your own student accommodation or wherever it may be.

You don't have to live in a space that is typically accepted by the general population. If it makes more sense to you design wise to rearrange the house so that you use it in a way that suits your brain and your functioning, do that. You don't have to live in a house that the majority of the population finds logical. If it makes no sense for you to have your washing machine in your kitchen, put it in your bathroom instead. There's lots of things that you can do. You don't have to.

Design your own space in the same way that makes sense to other people. Because we know... Well, if you've got ADHD or AUDHD.

That sometimes if you put something down or you put something away, it actually leaves this dimension. Right? So you've got to figure out what works for you. Yeah. So that perfect example there is, like, open wardrobes without gossip. You can see everything. Then then you don't have the optic permanence issue.

Brilliant. And, Paul, what do you think is one element that's important to ADHD design, a UDHD?

Well, was thinking choice as well. And I think choice as as close to choice is so important. But I I I think other than choice, I think it's belonging. A lot of what I tend to do in s and d... SEND environments is is around sort of further education and and specialist further education as well. And I think, you know, choice is important, but, you know, people thrive when they feel that they belong. And a a lot of what we do is around employability and and and, you know, breaking down sort of stigmas with different parts of society and and and, you know, different SEND environments as well. So if we can create those environments where people feel that they can... They are participating.

And contributing to society, then I think that's... I think that can make a huge difference on looking at it from both ways. Absolutely. And I think, you know, just building on that, I think allowing people or enabling people within the designs we create or the buildings we deliver to be themselves, to come to work, to go to school, and be themselves because we hear a lot about masking. And I think, you know, this flexibility in design, which we'll come back to, and this intention in design is is so important. So if we go back, we just start specifically with ADHD. We often talk about SEND design, neurodivergent design, but neurodivergence isn't one experience, is it? Different brains can can respond.

To exactly the same environment in a very different way. So, Stephanie, during our conversations, we've talked about how much existing guidance is historically focused on autism and how that can lead us towards thinking primarily about hypersensitivity and reducing stimulation. And I know you've just touched on it. Can you talk a little bit more about the difference between hyposensitivity and hypersensitivity and perhaps, you know, what we're missing in design at the moment. Yep. So I always use the example of me being predominantly autistic.

I need silence to be able to get any work done. My brother who only has ADHD, he needs background noise and people around him to be able to concentrate. So if he was in a silent room, he can't get anything done, so he'll take his laptop to a cafe and sit with the background noise in the coffee shop to be able to focus and concentrate. If we design all environments based on completely muted things, what people that are hypersensitive to stimuli need, and instead... So we minimize the sense... The stimulation as much as possible, That can be negatively impacting on the people that are hypersensitive, and they need more stimulation. Now it's about thirty percent of neurodivergent people are hypersensitive, so they need more stimulation.

But if we do it the other way around, everything becomes crazy. So what... That that links into the piece of advice I've just given, which is that if we design spaces to be minimal generally on the primary surface, the things that are hard to change, but then add in additional stimuli through things that can be removable or in different areas. So if we have, like, a feature wall, think of a restaurant. If we have a feature wall, you just don't force everyone to stare at the feature wall for the entire course of the meal. If you have a feature wall on one side of the room and a blank wall on the other side of the room, it gives people different visual stimuli to look at. Again, people can then choose.

Where they want to sit, kind of work on on that. And that goes back to what Claire was just saying about flexibility and choice, doesn't it? Clare, do you think that we're in danger in neurodivergent design in schools that sometimes it gets translated into make everything quiet, make everything beige, make everything low stimulation?

Well, I I think it's exactly what Stephanie is saying. I mean, the difficulty is we're often designing for people with kind of co occurring diagnosis or overlapping that. So so the... So what we tend to do is have a starting point, which is quite simple. And exactly like Stephanie said, you're just... The users and the teachers, they're layering. I mean, we're... I'm talking specifically about schools here, but they're using the different things to layer it. So whether that's furniture, whether it's color, how they manage display, all of those things. So, yeah, I think I think we kind of start with... The starting point is always simple just because.

You know, that's that's that's that gives you that basis from which you can add to. And it obviously... You know, if you're talking about the things that can move in and out of the space, that can be varied to different users. It can be varied at different times of the day. And I think that is ultimately the difference, isn't it, with a classroom that we're dealing with... That neurodivergent people are using is that that that classroom does need to change, and it will change in a day. It will change in a week. It will be changing all the time about how it's set up to meet everyone's needs. But, yeah, we... It's it's really interesting because I was... When I was thinking about the question, I was thinking about the Reggio Emilia kind of.

You know, idea, that's kind of that pedagogy that comes out of Northern Italy where it's saying like the environment is the third teacher. But even that third teacher is about... That's just that's just the shell and we kind of add into that. And it... You know, we have to just design to the individual.

I think within the industry, we hear a lot and we talk a lot about changing cohorts and the capacity crisis. You know, we're seeing an increase in diagnosis. We're talk... You know, we hear a lot about, you know, stand alone provision and then, you know, more money being put into mainstream and we're integrating SEND within that. And I think what what we keep coming back to is this choice, this flexibility, this intentional design. But how do you how do you make a school, Claire, Paul, Stephanie, how how do you design it for these changing cohorts? Because as you said, it can change very quickly. Is that anything? If someone else is definitely under that.

Yeah. That's fine. So my argument is the same for every single building type. So I don't just design schools. I design every building there is. Yep. And it's the the things that you're gonna pay money for anyway as part of the standard design. If you put a little bit more consideration into those upfront, it can make things better for everybody. So if we think about schools, not everybody has a diagnosis. The waiting list for a diagnosis is so long that you're gonna have pupils in those classrooms that don't have a shiny piece of paper saying that this person needs additional support. If we design all classrooms and every space within that school to to some degree be neurodiversity friendly.

If that's the the color of the paint on the walls that we need to pay for anyway, the color of the flooring or the type of windows we have, if we can consider those things anyway, like a color choice or a pattern choice is such a simple thing, and it's not gonna cost anything additional because we have to include it in the building anyway. Yep. Running for those palettes early, using lower chroma, less stimulation surfaces, and things like that, that can already make a massive difference to the kids that are in those classrooms. Or something as simple as if we have a feature wall in a classroom, don't put it on the teaching wall behind the teacher. Because.

Somebody who is having difficulty paying attention and following the teacher around the room, if you've got like a a skin tone color behind the teacher, it's gonna be really difficult to follow them around. And then on top of that, we've got students with visual impairments and things like that. There's there's so many things to consider. If we have a feature wall on the the teaching wall, that's just more intense stimulation that's coming back at those kids for six hours a day in a classroom. It's really difficult to follow your teacher around the room. We normally have loads of, like, notice boards and and artwork and loads so much stuff every day on it. Focus.

So having a specific place for those things in the classroom, that's not anything that's gonna cost anything additional. You don't need special SEND funding to Yeah. Place that somewhere more suitable. Yeah. And it's... I mean, ultimately, this this isn't about neuroinclusive design. This is just about good design.

And it's just about having the time to do it properly. And, you know, we all know that everybody will benefit from this. It's not just about someone, you know, with additional needs that will benefit from it. You know, everybody will benefit from it, and it is really good design. And we shouldn't really call it neuroinclusive design because we should just be doing it all the time. This is a... Absolutely. This is what we talk about when we're talking about workplaces as well. Because when you when you focus on benefiting the minority, what you actually end up doing is benefiting the majority.

And I think it really resonates with, you know, directors, managers, business owners that if, you know, people can come and be themselves and they can enhance the performance, that has a business impact, but it also has a well-being impact. So if you're if you're making these changes for the people who are neurodiverse, be it ADHD, ADHD, ASD, whatever it may be, you'll find that the neurotypical employees are benefiting as well. Right? Paul, do you have anything to add to that?

I think... I mean, it's... Yeah. We keep coming back to this sort of choice, but there's a thing there's a thing about not just indoor space, but the outdoor space. And I think, you know, when we think about the things that we value, we learned a lot during COVID, didn't we, about about nature and, you know, just our exposure to outdoors and the impact that that can have on us as just human beings, you know, and any human being. And I just think that sort of outdoor space is is... And those outdoor spaces become so important in the in the scheme of things. And I I always I always question that... I I always feel quite sad when we do any.

Any education scheme. The landscape's always the last thing to be done, and and often, you know, there's often a money challenge when it comes down to it. But but it's one of the most important things in in any education environment. It's just that connection with nature and and and and none more so, I think, in, you know, in SEND environments as well. So that they should be ring fenced, things like this, and and proper time spent to them, relationship between the indoor and outdoor spaces, thinking about sort of one of, you know, individual spaces for for sort of regulation, but but but also group spaces where you learn about diversity and biodiversity as well.

Paul, as as learners get older and just moving on from schools a little bit towards further education, as we get older, we're increasingly ask asking people to understand and manage their own needs. There's a greater level of independence as people go through their education journey from school to FE, HE, into the workplace. Does the environment need to shift from we regulate this for you towards we give you the tools and the choices to regulate this yourself? And I'm gonna come to Claire straight afterwards and ask you, do you think this is what we're doing well in schools at the moment? Do you think we're we're we're teaching this and enabling people to learn.

To have the tools and self regulate through the designs and through the buildings we're creating and delivering?

I think as as as people get older and and they move from... I I think it's... You know, during school, it makes sense for there to be a bit more structure. And I think with a higher degree of structure, maybe a bit more predictability, bit more support. As they get older, actually, what you're trying to do is you're trying to, you're trying to get get people ready for life. You're trying to teach them life skills, and you're trying to sort of give them sort of that preparation for adulthood. You're trying to sort of get them sort of accustomed to it. You're you're... And and part of that is to try and get them accustomed to what they think their needs are and to try and help them make decisions.

So I think I think what that means for us is I think we we create different levels of support. Maybe there's a a gradated sort of series in support in the way that we design sort of our our our special educational needs sort of colleges. Yeah. And and then I think it's, again, coming back to the choice thing, which which which the other client mentioned right at the beginning is, it's around making these spaces legible and accessible. So, you know, every student will will will be coming to college. They might feel different every single day. Their meet... Needs might be different on a day by day basis, might be different on an hour by hour basis. But, actually, what we wanna do is we wanna make sure that they recognize.

You know, triggers and then they can recognize where they can go and and and find those sort of spaces sort of accessible. And I think I think we, you know, we... Essentially, what we're trying to do is we're trying to get to the point where the individual will know what they need because this is about getting them ready for life. And that's and that's the difference, I think, at college compared to less so at school, I would say.

Yeah. I mean, I completely agree with that. It's just about, you know, that the person understanding what makes them feel comfortable. And I think what what we'll find is, I mean, we spend an awful lot of time on this idea of what progression is, And that's really important. And if you went to any of our schools, would absolutely see progression. Yeah. And not least because most of our schools are all through school. So there's a young person who may have been there from four right through to 19. But what you'll find is the early years look very different to what our post 16 settings are like. And a lot of that is just, you know, in our early year settings, the quiet spaces will be in in the classroom.

And the, you know, there'll be retreat spaces and the personal care will be nearby and, you know, everything might be off the classroom. Whereas, as we get through the school, and we get into the post 16 settings, they might be off the circulation. And there might be fewer types of what I call the spaces between, the little spaces. Because the the children... The young people are starting to understand what they need, and they'll take themselves there, and they can recognize what they need. And that is what exactly what progression is like, and that is what we're trying to do is just support them in their next stage of life. So I think it's really important that it does look different. I think that's really, really important. And.

You know, it's it's just you understanding yourself and what you need.

Yeah. What I see a lot from the SEND schools that we deliver is the focus on way finding and helping people have a journey back to the classroom, making things easy. And I think that gives people tools as they as they progress through the education system. And that also, I think, helps establish, Paul, something you said, which is this sense of community, sense of belonging. Because we can't forget the parents. You know, there's people watching here who have ADHD themselves. There's people who are parents of people with ADHD. And I think making families.

Part of the schools. And I know that certainly, Claire, some of schools we've delivered together, it's it's about, you know, welcoming... Making sure everybody is involved and everybody has a stay and there's collaboration. And I think... Do you think we're getting better at collaboration and design and listening to people with lived experience?

I I think I think we're we're definitely getting better. I think there's there's certain procurement routes that support that more than others. But, I mean, ultimately, we... As as a practice, we do that all the time. And in fact, we've just started on the Bowgow School that we're talking about before. We're just about to start a whole branding way finding color exercise where the young people are the client for working with a graphic designer, but the young people will be the client telling them, telling the designers what they want. And I think that's, you know, that's really important that they have that, you know, say in their identity. And we're gonna bring some parents and some.

Some of the older alumni into that process as well, so that they can share their experiences at school. I think one of the things that we've been doing is we've been doing a lot of work on lighting. So acoustics is kind of really well research done. Yeah. Lighting is a real... Is a big area that needs an awful in lot of schools. And one of the things we found when we're doing research and how we would get kind of that tangible evidence, we said speak to the parents. The parents notice the difference straight away. You absolutely have to bring them into the process. If something's changed at school, it will immediately have ramifications at home, good and bad.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's and that's the other thing, actually, isn't it, Clare? It's that thing of, you know, we... I I mean, I... You know, we've we've talked about it before about that, understanding from, you know, the parents, the carers, understanding from the teachers. That's that's how we design. That's that's how we become better designers. So so we're always sort of looking to learn. And the thing with these with, you know, with these very specialist environments is is actually what we're trying to do is we're trying to mirror what happens at, say, school and what happens at home. So, actually, there's a true sort of learning sort of interoperability between sort of those two environments.

And, I I mean, I guess, really, puts... You know, there's a... So that that... Then there's a thing around technology and how technology can kinda help as well. And there... There's all sorts of layers. Most of it is an education led thing rather than design led thing. But but actually, some of those things will be implicated on the way that we actually design and make sure that we're... Yeah. Let's say on technology, making sure the technology is in place that we can actually support the, you know, the schools with, you know, this... With that kind of relationship.

I think if we build on that, if if we put aside, you know, the multimillion pound schools and education buildings that we look at, I want everybody watching this to finish this session, you know, and be able to think, okay. I can I can change one thing in my house or my work's Blake? Workplace or help my child change something. So it could be, could you each give me something that's... Everybody could change, say, in the child's bedroom, in the home office, in the kitchen, or in the hallway? Learn from your experience in SEND schools.

I would say ask the kids what they want. So my biggest issue with stakeholder engagement is people do it as this applies to every typology. They do it as a tick box exercise, and the actual process isn't inclusive in the first place. So when you've got housing, you normally just have... It's held at the last minute in person at a village hall. The only people that turn up are retired people that have got a lot to say, that don't have a job or childcare or anything like that or in schools. If you... Even if you get, like, a group of children to be part of stakeholder engagement.

And you ask them questions, it's probably the ones that the staff have handpicked as being the best behaved or the ones that are extroverted and can share their opinions. The child that's nonverbal or the child that can't sit still is not gonna be part of that group. The child that can't communicate... Like, if you if you give everyone a form to fill in or you ask them to do a drawing, but then you've got a kid who doesn't feel like they can't draw very well, they're not gonna participate, and then their feedback is not gonna be considered, especially when you've got people that are nonverbal trying to...

Just because they don't communicate the way that you want them to doesn't mean that they don't have opinions that they can share. So even if your child is diagnosed or ADHD, autism, whatever, this... They might communicate ideas differently or they might have a hard time putting it into words, but the... Ultimately, you just need to find a new way to communicate and get that out. It might be putting prompts down, like putting a load of colors in front of them or lots of images in front of them and just seeing which one they touch. That could be a way to record stakeholder engagement feedback. I find it hard with every typology when it's just not an inclusive process, and then you only get the feedback from the extroverted people.

But but but we've got to be...

We've not got to be scared to bring in people to support us with that because we we we can't always know exactly how to communicate with everybody. So that's that's exactly what's happening on BowBowls at the moment. We're trying to, you know, get all as many of the students involved as possible, but we are having to use different communication techniques. And that's just... But that that's... Sometimes we do need support to do that. And I think we've gotta be open about, you know, where our strengths and weaknesses are.

Yeah. And how do we make sure? Because as you say, I think we're getting better at getting people involved and getting their input. But how do we make sure that input is actually listened to and acted upon? Because that... It's almost worse to get people involved and then not do anything or not listen or not implement it.

How do we make sure that we do that? I would say provide multiple ways to collect information. So you've got... If if it's a school and you look... You're dealing with school aged children, you've got multiple ways. They can draw. They can put post it notes. They could just point at something. If you're dealing with adults and it's a different type of project altogether, don't schedule an in person meeting for a one hour window in the middle of a Wednesday when nobody can actually attend it. You can have that, sure, but also send out a email survey. Send out other things that people can respond to in their own time. Because if you give somebody with ADHD a timely place to be, realistically.

It's... We we know for many of us, it's it's very difficult to to do it. So you need multiple different ways to collect that information so that more voices are heard, but then also update people in the process, like, to say, with... This is this is what your feedback has told us so far. This is the direction it's going, and just keep giving them updates so they know that it's being incorporated. And even if their specific idea is not being incorporated, at least they can follow the process and understand why. So it's not like they go, well, I said, gave my opinions. Nobody knew anything about it. Never again.

And I... And we've seen that on some of the schools we've built as well. I'm thinking of a school, Blobson, in particular in Oxfordshire, where we... It wasn't just one or two sessions where we brought people in. We kept bringing people back. We gave them a sense of ownership. We included the community around. And and and it became, you know, a real community project. And the kids felt such ownership that, you know, they really protected the school. Even from people coming up, you know, who were new to the school, you know, they really taught them to look after the environment and then, you know, and get across that it's, this school's ours. You know, this is... This... It's for us.

And, you know, and it's just magical to see. Paul, do you think... Oh, sorry, Claire. I was just gonna say, I think that there is something as well about, you know, what the this whole conference is about.

It is this education, you know, this change of culture piece. Because quite often, you know, we're in a room of hairy contractors, if I might say that. And sometimes it's about education piece, about what they understand by what they're doing and what they're supporting and what, you know, they're working towards. And I think what we're finding in lots of these sessions that we're trying to have to kind of change this culture is people recognizing that they have ADHD or they have autism and they see in themselves.

All of these things that we're trying to tell them we want to do for the young people. They're seeing it in themselves. If I'd only had this when I was younger. So, there's definitely an education and a culture piece. And then obviously, when you bring people into that, the optimist in me says they're more likely to deliver it if they carry Yeah. Or.

And what I'm seeing, certainly from a contracting point of view, with that hat on, I'm seeing a lot more people within our own workforce whose children are impacted by neurodivergent or they are. And the investment in these projects and the approach is just so different. And it's just there's so much care in the delivery. And, you know, and that is very different from when... And I know it's many mean... Moons ago. When I was at school, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like that. And I think there's there's just so many things we are doing well now, and we're really moving towards that change. What do you... Actually, just staying on that, what do you think we, as an industry, are doing well.

Or what do you think we could... What do we need to do? What are we not doing brilliantly? Paul, I'm gonna go to you.

Yeah. I I I think there's a there's a thing around technical standards, which I think I've battled with for a while, which we... And it and it is this thing around, you know, all the different diagnosis. We, you know, we we design an SEND environment, and we we particularly when we're seeing now some of those environments going into mainstream provision, what we're doing is we're thinking, well, okay. Where, you know, where where that SEND unit is going, let's let's just do a higher specification, better acoustics, better daylight and so forth. But, actually, those those children, those students will be... Also be going into the mainstream setting as well, and and and there's often not that.

Commitment, that funding to kind of upgrade that because they're they're different... They're two different standards. Actually, I would argue that actually we shouldn't have two different standards. We should just have the highest standard because it kind of is better for every human being. You know? And I and I I I think we we gotta do a lot better at that. And and and I think when we when we design to those high standards at the outset, it doesn't actually cost much more. It's just we're we're hitting a better target, it's it's better longevity. You know? And it's it's better for everybody.

So, yeah, I I I think we... I think the industry itself could be doing a lot better, but that that touches on so many things around funding, around this Yeah. And all sorts of Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think there's a there's a fight within... You know, there's that sort of drive that, you know, many of us have in the industry. And I think, you know, to your point, Claire, just... That there's more care now in it. You know, I do... I I always remain positive that there's, you know, there's... You know, we are going in the right direction. I mean, I... You know, the... I know the white papers had had its critics this year, and and understandably so. But I I do think that... I think it's it's the best we've seen for a long time.

And it's definitely got... Gone in the right direction. And I I I do think that's a positive ahead of a lot more we can do. Don't, you know, don't don't get me wrong, but I I do think we're we're, you know, we are moving into.

We're moving in the right direction. Yeah. Do you think... And I won't say on the white paper because, you know, it's it's a very industry kind of elated bit. Too too too much to go through in in the time we were allotted. But do you think, seeing as we were invited here by ADHD UK, do you think we involve charities enough in those collaborative discussions? And how could we do that more, be it ADHD UK or NAS? What... Do we do we do it enough? How could we get them in more?

It's a really good question, isn't it? Yeah. Because generally, we don't. I mean, I think I think what we tend to do is, you know, particularly when we work with specialist environments, we, you know, we we listen to the teachers. They're the ones who who deal with the, you know, the cohort on a on a regular basis, and they tend to be the... You know, they're they're the experts in the room as it as it were. I think I think when we when we work with colleges, I mean, the one we've just done recently in Sutton, actually, there was a charity or color charities that got involved in that. But that was more to do with the fact that it was a a very unusual.

Arrangement of of different groups that were all coming together in one area. It was it was really unusual. And so charities naturally... Color charities naturally sort of came into that. But, yeah, I I think it's a it's a good shout just from a, you know, a a general perspective that actually the, yeah, we could be doing more in that, I think, and and bringing a a more, specific or or more, yeah, people with specific expertise along that journey with us. I think that could be really good. And I think that... And I get... You know, again, you know, come back to the, you know, the fact this conference is here today, you know, I've.

You know, you you...

I've just just... There's just a few nuggets I've picked up over the course of the afternoon. It's fabulous. It's kind of that's kind of what it is. We need that from people who've got that specialist experience.

But this is it. We never stop learning. Right? I think, actually, as an industry, we're pretty good because we know and we wanna keep learning and we wanna keep making a difference and, you know, get better. And I think, you know, we're known as an industry to be slow moving, but I think that's less and less true, especially in regards to SEND and neurodiversity. I think I think we're, you know, we're learning. We're really pushing forward. And that the more we can involve charities, the schools, the parents, the better. They'll listen and act upon it. I just wanna touch on one thing that's very relevant to probably a lot of people listening on the conference today. A lot of parents might be having children who are just going to university.

Or looking at universities for next year. So, you know, what... They're very different environments. What do you think, Stephanie, good neuroinclusive student accommodation looks like? And, you know, when you start looking at, you know, university environments, as you did through your dissertation, which is where the design guide started, what really struck you? What should parents think about when they're touring these universities and helping their kids choose? I think universities is a very different... Completely different ballgame to regular education. You can almost kind of wing your way through primary, secondary education. But when you get to university, the level.

.. The percentage of the population that are neurodivergent increases sharply because you've got academics that are studying something. Like, think about somebody who's got a very special interest. They're hyper focused on something. That becomes their PhD thesis. So the level of academics that are neurodivergent is so much higher. The level of students on a university campus... Well, there was a statistic a statistic that came out a couple of months ago that said fifty three percent of people between age 18 and 26 identified as neurodivergent. That's more than half. So that population across the university level is so much higher. So the universities.

Do... We we can learn a lot from them because they're competitive in trying to get students to come in and and learn. They do prioritize neurodiverse inclusive design more than other education types purely because they're they're they're in competition with each other. So in terms of universities, doing things like.

Having residential accommodation pretty close to the academic buildings and mixed in with each other means that if someone with ADHD has forgotten something back in their room, they can get back pretty easily rather than separating all the residential in one area and then all of the academic in another area, and then it's really difficult to get to and from. Or, like, in an actual student accommodation room, you've gotta fit so much stuff into a 12 meter squared space. And so things like your notice boards and things, it's the strategic positioning of them so that they're in eyesight. So, again, that object permanence is gone. You make the doors of your wardrobe slide back so you can have open.

Shelving if if that's more beneficial as an ADHD user, or you can close everything off if you were hypersensitive to stimulation, and that's actually not beneficial. Universities have to provide more independent learning, more third spaces, more of those quiet spaces and socialization spaces between the two as well for... To encourage independent learning. So they put so much more effort into designing those spaces really well, and I think that the DFE and the mainstream schools can learn a lot from it. I think generally within the industry, we use the part end, so the access.

And access and use of buildings as as a bare minimum standard. And a lot of designers just think about wheelchair users because we just think disability is wheelchair, but only three percent of disabled people are full time wheelchair users. And there's over nine hundred nine hundred non visible disabilities that we need to account for in design, and we could do a lot of that through neurodiverse inclusive design.

Improves things for all the other people as well. Like, it doesn't hinder things. So that sounds like some things that can be easily transferred to to all of us in our own homes.

Yep. Every building. This... So my original decision was on prisons because my logic was if I can make these neurodiverse inclusive principles work in a prison, there's no excuse to not use them in every other building type. And so there... There's so many things that we can do that can improve the space for 95% of people 95% of the time, and a lot of that boils down to the three things that are in PAS six four six three, which is calm, clarity, and choice or control. So if... Everything falls into one of those three categories. So calm, making... Minimizing sensory information, control, giving people control of the space. They can change the temperature of a of a workspace that they're in Yep. If they're in, like, a little.

Pod, booth, whatever, and clarity. So just making things really simple and legible to get around, to navigate your way around. Don't have a room shoved in there in the plan because that was the only place to put it, and it makes no sense whatsoever when people are trying to use the building. Everyone should be able to walk in the entrance of a building, find a help point reception or something like that, and find a toilet, for example. So everything falls into one of those three, and that can be applied to schools, higher education, every building type that there is.

And I guess what what we're talking about here is, you know, really reducing executive functions amongst us, isn't it? It's making life easier. That's the priority section.

Yeah. Everybody on this... You know, attending this conference. Or something as simple as a pet peeve of mine is when you've got a a door that's got a pull handle on both sides, it's guaranteed with... No... Whether you're neurodivergent or neurotypical, whichever way you try to open it is gonna be the wrong way, first of all. Make things more simple and have a push plate on the push side.

Yeah. I'm just...

Let's see that. Does anybody else... Before I call Henry back in, because I know there are some questions, I've been watching them come in during the day, is there anything else that you feel we might have missed that's really important to school design, further education, higher education, everyday life, workplaces? I... Claire, there... There's a lot of stuff coming through on mainstream and inclusive mainstream, and I can... I fully understand that because, you know, this has gotta be the starting point, hasn't it? And I think it's very much allied to that conversation that was on previous to us with Chris because it it... You know, we're doing a whole load of work at the moment with primaries and secondaries.

Across some local authorities. And, you know, we can go and look at physical space, and we can go and give them advice. But it's... It... There's the training piece there as well, and it ties into the whole issue around charities and who's giving this training and how we're, you know, supporting schools to manage. You you know, if I'm being brutally honest, the profiles is hugely increasing in complexity because we haven't got enough enough special school places. That's the fact of the matter. So what what the profiles that we're seeing in mainstream is is much more complex. So.

I think there's we're doing a lot of work at the moment on supporting schools with just, you know, basic design codes and simplifying environments that they can then layer up again. But equally, where there is some money and and you will be pleased to know that the government is putting some money into this, albeit I I recognize it's never gonna be enough. We are looking at kind of ideas like, you know, it's consistently comes back to this control and choice and these, what we call the spaces between. So just having those spaces away from the classroom that young people can, you know, enable them to regulate their own environment. And we're looking at this idea of kind of the base camp.

The outpost. So you've got the base camp, which is maybe somewhere which is a bit more, you know, set apart and has, you know, classrooms and some ancillary spaces. But then within the school itself, you might just have small kind of outpost where you've got, you know, a quieter space to go to. Maybe a little kind of five minute terrace. Maybe just some more dignified personal care type areas so that those are spread across the schools. So I think there's lots of interesting things coming into mainstream. And I think that that schools are really... Slowly but surely, they're really getting on board with it.

They want they want they want to learn and they want to hear what's out there. And as Stephanie said, there is a... You know, you could... There's lots of simple ways to do it. But I think there's also a thing which was talked about in the last session, which is really interesting, is this idea that it's across the board. It's not just the young people and the children, it's the teachers. So we have a big beef about things like staff rooms, dining area, you know, none of these things are supporting everybody in their school environment. You know, fact we're still designing huge canteen spaces is absolute madness.

You know, big staff rooms, again, absolute madness. There's got to be, again, choice within all of that. So they're not all difficult things to do, but.

And flexibility Yeah. For the for the changes... For changing cohort's future. Because another thing we talk about intentional design, we talk about flexibility, but we also need to talk about longevity as well and look into the future and making, you know, the buildings and the opportunities last as long as possible. Henry, can I call you back in? Because I know that there are some questions. If you could come back and just pick up some of the shorter ones because I... Well, we've got ten minutes. So.

I'm jealous of all your jobs just because I I love the built environment. It's... I've always really enjoyed that. I like, you know, that wonderful tangibility of what you do and and permanence. And I've really enjoyed some of the things you've you've talked about. When you talked earlier, around helping the minority helps the majority. We talk about that a lot in reasonable accommodations. And we've got a snazzy phrase. Our snazzy phrase is essential for some, good for everyone.

I love that. Thank you.

And we did because we're trying to like, too often particularly around ADHD and the loss of disability, seems sort of reducing the pie or fighting over pie rather than... When we talk about that, know, essential for some good for everyone, we're kind of saying like, you know, pie for all essentially. Like it's good for everyone.

It is good for everybody.

Without question. And I really enjoyed Stephanie talking about the feature and wanting to have the ability of choice. I know I... Like in my personal ADHD journey, this is not schools, this is pubs. I used to always sit facing everything with all the noise and the people and the movement and the screens like because like, I thought I enjoyed it but I found it so hard to constantly focus on my friends, to talk, to converse. And I realized what I actually needed to do was sit the other way and face the wall. And then I could actually talk to them and enjoy my evening. And it... But it it actually took a diagnosis to understand if we should do that. But like, in schools giving people that that variance.

That's interesting because I always like to face the wall in English. And I thought that was my ASD side, not the ADHD side, but maybe. Yeah. It might be like the...

You've you've worked out earlier than I did, but actually that's the one you prefer. The the... Yeah. The the more noisy one is the one it naturally gravitates to, then you've got to work it out. Now, so I want to... Taking like post like liberty. So I wanted to ask a question. We've had a really interesting experience with Merlin Entertainment who we didn't really know. Well, I knew who they were obviously, but like... Because they changed their policy around to how people could access their parks. They... At the start of this year and essentially said that people without... With autism ADHD wouldn't qualify and that obviously created a bit of fraud which we were a part.

And they've subsequently changed it and it's now... They've now got a system of virtual queuing which I think works very sensible and it's fair. It's just the same for everyone. And with some flexibility too, because actually sometimes when your time comes up, maybe you're not quite ready or your kid's not ready or there's some challenges going on. And you need to be able to come in at a slightly different time. The idea that it's... You know, so you're actually gonna wait longer. But the fixed time is the... Becomes a new problem. Yeah. So I've been very impressed by them. One of them... So I've... Two young children, we go to some of those parks and they have a quiet room. And I looked around and I saw a lot of teenagers.

I just thought, wow. That is very hard to manage. And I was like, how do you manage the need for a quiet room and teenagers being teenagers? And giving them... That's my question to you. So like, thought it'd not be an easy one to start.

I don't know how easy that is given that we could do our best to design a place but we can't control the people in it. I think, generally, when we talk about designing for belonging, that's another thing that's really, really hard for us to do because belonging comes from acceptance of the people around you. We can design to encourage that behavior and to encourage the right things, but we can't design things to make people not phobic of all the various groups of people. So we can design multiple quiet rooms. We can split them up. We can design them to be... To feel more intimate and more one on one to, like, increase the transit of people being quiet in there and not, yeah, being being teenagers.

But we we can't control people through design. We can do our best.

And I think it's done to individuals as well. You know, some people have earplugs and... But, you know, and giving them a space and choice within that space. Mhmm. But also that they have their own tools helps. It's, you know, it's a it's a combination, isn't it?

Well, thank you. One of the things that you're... Claire, your questions were were very good in the conversation. Saw some of these get ticked off as we as we went along. Okay. The... Yeah. That's the problem. So the... Let's start at the top. I think you touched on a little bit, but it'd be nice to know more. What's the cheapest change a school could make this term that would make a difference?

If you're ready to paint the walls anyway, choose choose a lower chrome or colors. That doesn't mean everything has to be gray and beige and white. In fact, we would strongly advise do not use brilliant white on any wall in any building where people are gonna be there for a long time. So schools, workplaces, no brilliant white. But... Simplified display.

Yeah. And I I I would say frilly frilly notice boards.

Yeah. Just section take in that frilly notice board. Yeah. We don't need everything in every inch of the corridor or every artwork display in the classroom where you've got so much color and so much stimulation on every single available surface of wall.

And I think I think that's interesting because, you know, that trans... Translates into marketing as well. When I'm looking at documents and we're designing something like magazine or whatever, people are very afraid of just clean space. Not white bright white clean space, but, you know, there's a real natural tendency to try and fill everything. And it's just... You shouldn't be doing that. It's like when I walk onto sites and I see a million posters. Yeah. You just wanna rip them down. There's too much information. You become blind to that level of information.

Yeah. I can I can I can absolutely agree? I can't... Certainly in schools, there there seems to be a sort of, you know, a desire to cover those those surfaces and and not think about the kid and trying or in many cases, 18,000 schools, you know. And so a lot of variety in there, lot of variety in the teachers and so being, you know, being a lot of difference.

I mean, it's worth saying that we've seen some really great initiatives in primary schools where the young people just have a choice of seating. So they can just choose what they want to sit on, whether they want to be on like a cushion that's got, you know, bits that they can, you know, fidget bits on it, or if they want a rocking chair, or if they want, you know, sit on the floor. I mean, we're just just simple things like that. They they... As Stephanie said, some of these things don't really cost a lot of money. It's just kind of having a... Just a bit of a design code around how... You know, just getting yourself maybe 10 things that you want to do before over the summer. Mean, I god, over the summer when no one should be working. But.

I think the past guidance, if people haven't seen that already, the one that Stephanie mentioned before, it's... That really is a huge eye opener as to what... And again, it shouldn't be a specialist guidance, should it? It should just be what good design is all the time. And I would really, really.

Encourage people to go and look at that. But the three things in that is calm, clarity, control. And every design decision that benefits neurodivergence is... Fits into one of those three categories. So like Claire said about taking down the... Or not... Or better organizing Sure. Walls. That's clarity. Making things clearer and simpler. Calm, reducing the stimulation, and control giving people a choice. They can sit on a cushion. They can sit on a a chair with arms, a chair with no arms, whatever.

Yeah. Maybe maybe we could send Henry and the team some of the information, some of those documents that people would make. I'd like that. And we can we can put it up on the Yeah. ADHD titans and potentially in ADHD UK. I'd send you some of the other, like I I worry about what I'm about to say, that you think you would wildly disagree. The latest version of the civil service guide on offices and office structures, I was genuinely actually quite impressed by. And I thought it was it wasn't wasn't... But like, you know, and I've seen some of the earlier iterations and there seemed to be very positive direction. But... And I think sharing that for.

Organizations that don't have say that depth of resources, they can see it as a big deal. Right. It's time to go. We're move on. I need to thank you all. We might have a new way to thank you. So just like, we've been working on this as as we go along. So let's see. But I need to see. Okay. Claire Claire, Stephanie, Paul, you have been genuinely fascinating and interesting. This session's been wonderful. And yes, thank you. Well, let's give it a go. Nothing might happen. There we go. Come with this. I love them, girl. Don't let me say we don't make a big effort.

Oh, it's like a feature wall. It's the exact.

Opposite of everything you've just talked about. But it's supposed to be a moment to celebrate. Because, obviously, otherwise, you turn off the mic and it always very interesting. Always want you to try and celebrate. Thank you so much. I've got to move on and say goodbye. So thank you very, very much indeed. Thanks for having us. My absolute pleasure. Right. We are moving on. And so thank you for joining us. Thank you for clarifying that, Stephanie. Paul, that was, I thought, a fascinating, very, very interesting session.