And in fact, that’s the simple price of continued cultural relevance. If someone wants to maintain power in culture, all that’s required is a sincere and honest engagement with those who are granting that power through their attention and support. All it takes is a little bit of curiousity and some basic human decency, and any of us who are blessed with the good fortune to have a platform will get to keep it, and hopefully to use it to make things a little better for others.
The price of relevance is fluency
We are neurodivergent and disabled consultants specializing in neurodiversity, disability, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We can help you and your organization become equity literate digital sociologists in touch with the communities you serve. We do this while fulfilling our mission to “pay neurodivergent and disabled creators and amplify them to our clients and throughout society.”
We help businesses and organizations increase their knowledge and practice of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) by analyzing company practices and coaching leaders to dismantle ableism in their spaces. According to the Harvard Business Review, “There are more than one billion people worldwide – around 15% of the population – living with a disability. As workers, they can ease talent shortages and add to the organizational diversity that drives better decision-making and innovation.” Neurodiversity-friendly forms of collaboration hold the potential to transform pathologically competitive and toxic teams and cultures into highly collaborative teams and larger cultural units that work together easier and with more success.
Our additional services include digital and physical accessibility audits, sensitivity reads, and other offerings that focus on increasing DEI in the workplace. Client services are how we live our mission to employ neurodivergent and disabled people as well as how we raise capital for grantmaking.
“The price of relevance is fluency.” Are you fluent? We are minority bodyminds with our own ways of being and right to be our authentic selves at work, school, and play. Understand our wiring, and know our rights.
Understand our wiring, and know our rights.
We, Stimpunks
So no matter what you set out to do—whether on your own, as a member of an organization, or as its director—you need to understand how you and other people are wired.
Understand the power that comes from knowing how you and others are wired.
Principles: Life and Work
Know your rights
The Clash
These are your rights
The diversity racket is this: thinking that this is an intellectual exercise in being magnanimous, not a matter of survival.
The Diversity Racket. Diversity in STEM (science, technology… | by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Medium
Respect due to learning with an arsenal of permanent pillars Piercing through the surface of artificial services Life Commits by Swamburger
Our Services
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging coaching
- Digital sociology coaching
- Productivity coaching (specializing in the Apple ecosystem)
- Research coaching (specializing in the Apple ecosystem)
- Website building (specializing in the WordPress ecosystem)
- Sensitivity reads
- Digital and physical accessibility audits
- Neurodiversity at work
- Neurodiversity at school
- Flow patrol
- Accessible communication practices
- Distributed methodologies and culture
- Designing for real life
- Designing for neurological pluralism
- Designing for the edges
- Establishing Employee Resource Groups
- Fostering belonging
- Connecting with subcultures
- Creating serendipity
- Research
Neurodiversity friendly forms of collaboration hold the potential to transform pathologically competitive and toxic teams and cultures into highly collaborative teams and larger cultural units that work together more like an organism rather than like a group of fighters in an arena.
Autistic forms of communication within a neurodiverse team and within a psychologically safe environment actually impart a collaborative advantage to the entire team.
Organising for neurodivergent collaboration | Autistic Collaboration
Our services are offered remotely and accessibly using the practices of distributed work. If you are in the Austin, Texas area, we can do physical accessibility audits. Consultations: US$125/hr
Our fees help fund our mission.
The speed of change outside an organization now favors the leader who explores, monitors the periphery, and extends the field of vision for the entire organization.
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation
See the world through someone else’s eyes for a little while.
Tressie McMillan Cottom
Public Services
This is a public service announcement… with guitar!
— Know Your Rights
You have the right to food money Providing of course you Don't mind a little Investigation, humiliation And if you cross your fingers Rehabilitation Know your rights These are your rights -- Know Your Rights by The Clash
Disability systems rely on artificial economies of scarcity. Programs are underfunded, so caregivers, teachers, social workers, and disabled people themselves are all pushed to project their needs as necessary and virtuous.
I Shouldn’t Have to Dehumanize My Son to Get Him Support
All of our services above are free to public education and other underfunded organizations offering public services. We’ll help you reduce the humiliation of rehabilitation.
In addition:
- Peer respite and warm lines (meatspace and distributed; no meatspace vacancies, at the moment)
- Direct support and mutual aid of neurodivergent and disabled people
Know Your Rights, These Are Your Rights
We can help you know your rights and advocate for yourself. Here are some general resources and US-specific resources.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 – Car Autism Roadmap – https://www.carautismroadmap.org/the-americans-with-disabilities-act-of-1990-ada/
- Job Accommodation Network – https://askjan.org/
- Inclusive Schools Network – https://inclusiveschools.org/
- Wrightslaw Special Education Law and Advocacy – https://www.wrightslaw.com/
- Olmstead Self-Assessment – https://www.olmsteadrights.org/self-helptools/assessment/
- How to Make a Supported Decision-Making Agreement – ACLU – https://www.aclu.org/other/how-make-supported-decision-making-agreement
- National Disability Rights Network – https://www.ndrn.org/about/ndrn-member-agencies/
- Information on the ADA – https://www.ada.gov/
- International Disability Alliance – http://www.internationaldisabilityalliance.org/
- International Disability Rights – Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund – https://dredf.org/legal-advocacy/international-disability-rights/
Via: Resources – Welcome to the Autistic Community
We have worked together for many years, and we made the disability rights movement. The disability rights movement is when disabled people fight back against ableism. We work to change society to be better for disabled people, and fight for our rights as people with disabilities.
Self-advocacy isn’t just speaking up for yourself. It can also mean speaking up for your whole community. The self-advocacy movement is when we all speak up together. The self-advocacy movement is part of the disability rights movement, where people with intellectual and developmental disabilities fight for our rights.
We still have a long way to go, since disabled people still get treated unfairly. We can’t always choose where we live or what help we get. We don’t always have the right to vote. We might not get to choose how we want to spend our money, or have control over who cares for us. But we are still fighting for our rights.
Welcome to the Autistic Community
A motto of the self-advocacy movement is “Nothing About Us, Without Us!”. Lots of people talk about us without letting us talk. We should always be part of the conversation, and be in charge of our lives.
Welcome to the Autistic Community
- Pacific Alliance on Disability Self-Advocacy (PADSA) Resources
- Welcome to the Autistic Community
- Accessing Home and Community-Based Services: A Guide for Self Advocates
- The Right to Make Choices: International Laws and Decision-Making by People with Disabilities (Easy Read and Families versions)
- Getting and Advocating for Community-Based Housing
- Voting Resources
- AutismAndHealth.org: Primary Care Resources for Adults on the Autism Spectrum and their Primary Care Providers
- SARTAC: Self Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center
- Everybody Communicates: Toolkit for Accessing Communication Assessments, Funding and Accommodations
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network seeks to advance the principles of the disability rights movement with regard to autism. ASAN believes that the goal of autism advocacy should be a world in which autistic people enjoy equal access, rights, and opportunities. We work to empower autistic people across the world to take control of our own lives and the future of our common community, and seek to organize the autistic community to ensure our voices are heard in the national conversation about us. Nothing About Us, Without Us!
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
People with disabilities need to make policies ourselves.
SHARING YOUR STORY FOR A POLITICAL PURPOSE
We should get to use our stories to help change the world.
Nothing about us, without us!
In a perfect world, we would all be guided by the presumption of competence, not just in regard to disability but in all human interaction. But we do not live in a perfect world. In the real world, no matter what skills I acquire—be they social, emotional, physical, or educational—there will be a sizable number of people who will presume me to be incompetent. Brace me for it. Make sure I know my rights. Let me know over and over again that I am so much more than the box some small-minded person wishes to fit me into. Practice with me the interactive tools I need to stand up in the face of those who do not believe in me.
Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network. Sincerely, Your Autistic Child (p. 6). Beacon Press.
Revolution rock Yeah so, get that cheese grater going Against the grains Wearin' me down Pressure increase Everybody! --Revolution Rock by The Clash
We’re Gonna Get Past
The work we do at Stimpunks can be wildly painful. When we’re stressed out, we turn to our friends Swamburger and Scarlet Monk to help us get past.
Open arms with open doors
It’s why I’m here to open yoursI got a moment in time
The greatest opening lineYou’re gonna get past
Moment by Swamburger and Scarlet Monk of Mugs and Pockets
You’re gonna get past
You’re gonna get past
A safe place to rest and rebuild in between moments of stress is essential for autonomic nervous system balance.
The Vagus Nerve & Chronic Illness — Trauma Geek
But no, take me home Take me home where I belong I got no other place to go No, take me home Take me home where I belong I got no other place to go No, take me home Take me home where I belong I can't take it anymore But I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall --Runaway by AURORA
Crying, give me some love, give me some love and hold me Give me some love and hold me tight Oh, give me some love, give me some love and hold me Give me some love and hold me tight --I Went Too Far by AURORA
We’re gonna get past, together.
Peer-run warm lines – staffed by people who have lived mental health experience – have been shown to reduce loneliness and participants’ use of mental health crisis services. Additionally, a review of several studies found that digital forms of peer support improve the lives of people with serious mental illness by “enhancing participants’ functioning, reducing symptoms and improving program utilization.”
Warm line gives peer mental health support – NC Health News
This isn't over Hey hey hey Hey hey hey Hey hey hey This isn't over --River by Jupiter Mountain
Keep On Livin’
We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.
I would like to honour all the autistic people who survive the care system somehow.
Ann Memmott PGC🌈 on Twitter
All those who survive extreme ‘therapy’.
All those who are brought to their knees, reading hellish descriptions of their loved people.
And all who did not survive this onslaught.
Turn the Pain into Power
⛑📚 Our Pillars 🗂🧰
📓 Learning Space
Stimpunks Learning Space offers community and space for passion-based, human-centered learning with purpose. Our learners collaborate on distributed, multiage, cross-disciplinary teams with a neurodiverse array of creatives doing work that impacts community. Via equity, access, empathy, and inclusivity, we create anti-ableist space for the neurodivergent and disabled people most ill-served by “empty pedagogy, behaviorism, and the rejection of equity“.
🧐 Open Research
Our emancipatory research efforts focus on the sweet spot of digital sociology, neurodiversity studies, disability studies, and syncretism, in the open. We improve the scientific
experience for the disabled and the
neurodivergent by restoring the humanities. We bring voice into empirical constructs and translate voice into academic comprehension.
⛑️ Mutual Aid
Staying alive is a lot of work for a disabled person in an ableist society. We provide real help against the onslaught through mutual aid. We believe that direct support to individuals is the most effective approach to alleviating the barriers and challenges that prevent neurodivergent and disabled people from thriving.
🧰 Creator Grants
We pay creators to create. We buy space to breathe and make. Creativity is a vital force that drives positive change in society. We provide financial support to creators across various fields, including art, advocacy, research, and beyond. We aim to enable creators to fully immerse themselves in their work. We recognize the importance of investing in the creative process and the impact it can have on communities and individuals.
⏭ First Pillar: Mutual Aid
The story continues with, “⛑ Mutual Aid: Real Help Against the Onslaught”
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