More information...

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The project will run for roughly 5 months beginning early March after the  team is selected. 

 

It will be designed with flexibility and access at the forefront (I myself, the project lead, have ADHD and am chronically ill), and there will be a strong focus on building relationships as a team.

For example, at least once a month we’ll do a non-work team activity, like a movie & takeout night together (it will always be paid for by the grant budget and you will be paid for the hours you are in attendance as usual, as I believe this is part of the work - as inspired by another research team who credited these kinds of sessions with being the number one tool for improving their work!) I feel this non-work bonding is an important part of making working together fulfilling and exciting, and more comfortable offering care because we actually know each other! In turn it's easier to work through things together: instead of getting stuck on  something that maybe would feel easy to fall behind on, because of the building of trust and a culture where you can ask for support, you're able to ask for someone to help in whatever way feels appropriate to you.  I really hope everyone  in it loves being a part of this team, and we'll be doing all we can to facilitate the building of relationships in the team, as well as hopefully making space where it feels possible to do it for yourself. 

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Access needs  will be key priority in our team and will also be discussed in whatever ways people feel comfortable, so we can ensure everyone gets the best support they can. Accessibility will be an ongoing central consideration regarding how we work so don't worry if you don't tell us all your access needs at the start, you can raise access needs at any time and we will always treat them as a top priority. Access needs may be physical, mental, emotional, or somewhere amongst the blurry lines of the three, and we don't take any particular kind of access need as more significant than any other. 

 

A significant amount of the work will be self-led, but we will regularly meet for short (online) meetings for check ins, with longer/more frequent meetings at key milestones in the project. There may also be potential for you to do a lot of your work in a pair (or co-working sessions) if that is what you prefer. We're looking for people who are happy navigating self-led work (with support!) and who also enjoy working as part of a team; moving between self-directed and collaborative work. 

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Every team member will have allocated PA support hours for more specific 1-to-1 support. The intention of budgeting for all team members to have access to a Personal Assistant is informed by living in disabled / neurodiverse community: all of us have different sticking-points which would require massive energy from us but would be easy for someone else to do. E.g.have you ever found it's easier to clean a friend's kitchen than your own? Or to write an email for someone else in  1 minute when you've spent 1 month feeling sick over feeling unable to reply to a significant  email sent to you? This is an effort to redistribute labour in ways that maximise our comfort, ease of access, and effectiveness at meeting targets, by letting everyone do more of what they’re best at. And as we go we’ll figure out what works for us as a team!

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We are recruiting to form a research team of 4-6 people (one of whom will be me), and then we will also be recruiting a PA who will be involved in various ways supporting the research team. The team liaison role has already been filled and will be taking on a mixture of a bit of a “secretary role” (attending team meetings to take notes) and also supportive role, where if you’re having any tension or difficulty with anyone on the team and you're finding it hard to talk, the team liaison is on hand to support with that, with the benefit of being one step removed from the main research team (although of course all these lines are fluid). They are an skilled mediator and meeting facilitator so will likely often take on those roles where appropriate, but everyone will also be encouraged to try facilitating meetings and taking on various leadership roles if they wish to!

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This will hopefully be a project where not only do you bring a lot of exciting skills, but you also get to practise some different ones and learn new approaches along the way. We are also hoping to foster an environment where everyone feels truly valued and celebrated for their skills, especially those that might often go overlooked: for example, there's no qualification awarded for having to be your own doctor and teach yourself to read medical literature! So holding a space for people to build their confidence in their knowledge is in many ways just as important as the research itself. We're so often told that our knowledge doesn't count and this project seeks to explicitly counter that.

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On that note: Black/Indigenous/People of Colour are particularly encouraged to apply for roles, as we recognise how BIPOC (especially those who are multiply marginalised: i.e. trans BIPOC) are all too often made the subjects of research without ever being given any power to dictate what they want to see researched or how they want that research carried out, and are severely underrepresented amongst those carrying out the research.  We also recognise that BIPOC will have had unique experiences with medical professionals that need to be part of our key considerations in our work if it is to be truly valuable to our community. 

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