Trade union neurodiversity course: sign up!
The General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) has launched its training programme for 2023/24, and for the first time, it includes a trade union neurodiversity course.
Red in the Spectrum’s Janine Booth has written and will deliver the course, which is running twice – in January and July 2025 – at GFTU’s spacious and well-equipped training facility at Quorn Grange hotel in Leicestershire.
Trade union neurodiversity course
The course’s title, Bargaining and Organising for Neurodiversity, reflects the focus of this trade union neurodiversity course on the role of unions in achieving changes at work that benefit neurodivergent workers.
This is not a course simply about ‘awareness’, or just about different neurodivergent conditions. It is an opportunity for trade union representatives and officials to develop skills in identifying beneficial workplace changes, demanding them and winning them!
Trade union neurodiversity course description
This is a brand-new course in this year’s programme. In this two-day in-person course for union reps and activists, we will learn the meaning of the term ‘neurodiversity’ and related terms such as neurodiverse, neurodivergent, neurotypical.
This course will enable participants to be confident in identifying and understanding six neurodivergent conditions, understand aspects of neurodiversity and neurodivergent experience, eg., spectrum, social judgements and understand the social model of disability and apply it to neurodivergence.
This course will give practical advice, support, and strategies to help participants identify barriers that workplaces and working conditions present to neurodivergent workers and measures to remove or reduce them, identify workplace changes that will benefit neurodivergent workers and understand the role of the trade union representative in bargaining, campaigning, and representing for change.
This course will be tutored by Janine Booth, Britain’s leading trainer of trade unionists about neurodiversity. After over 25 years of being actively involved in RMT, Janine now runs Red in the Spectrum, providing training and support. She is neurodivergent (autistic / ADHD / dyslexic-type specific learning difficulties), so brings lived experience of the issues that the training covers.
Sign up for this trade union neurodiversity course
The GFTU Education Trust provides courses for trade unionists, from new members to seasoned officials.
If you are a member of a union that is affiliated to GFTU, the trade union neurodiversity course is free, and you can register here.
If you are a member of a union that is not affiliated to GFTU, the fee is £200, and you will need to contact your union for authorisation to attend.
