A fresh year has begun and the second year of our re-imagined OTARC! I hope you were all able to have at least a little down time over the holiday period.

At OTARC, the hallways are buzzing again. This time, the office re-shuffle is in full swing! Creating neurodiversity-affirming workspaces is an idea gaining traction in the broader community and at OTARC, we aim to practice what we preach. This includes attention to smaller details such as dimmable lighting, provision of headphones for staff in shared office spaces and fidget toys at meetings. But it is also some of the bigger things like understanding our own and other’s preferred working and communication styles and advocating for space planning that accounts for neurodiversity. Credit is due to our Centre Manager, Doug Scobie, for steering this process. As you’ll see in this month’s newsletter, OTARC has been on the forefront of research to understand what leads to employment success for Autistic people. We hope to enact findings from this research in our day-to-day practice.

Translating research to practice is a key strategic objective in the re-imagined OTARC. This will be a focus in 2024. We have seen increasing demand for training, services and other programs that translate our research findings into practical solutions for teachers, practitioners, families and service providers. To meet this need, we have created two new positions – Director, Community Programs, and Teaching and Research Fellow. Recruitment for the former is underway, and Dr Melissa Gilbert has accepted the latter role. Dr Gilbert’s first project for 2024 is working with staff in the School of Education at La Trobe University to develop an online short course on neurodiversity-affirming teaching practices.

Another key strategic objective for OTARC is to foster Autistic scholarship. The outstanding response to our first OTARC PhD Scholarship for Autistic Scholars proves that there is no shortage of interesting and important topics for study. The scholarship applications close on March 1 and we look forward to introducing our successful scholarship recipient.