The JoeCast

Hello and welcome to the first ever episode of our shiny new podcast for University of Birmingham alumni, staff and students alike, The JoeCast.

We've got campus news, industry updates and nostalgia ready to share with you, as well as some fascinating research from our very own faculty members.

I'm Harry James, a current student here at the University of Birmingham studying film and creative writing and I am always looking to find the most interesting stories across campus and beyond.

In today's episode, I'm joined by two of our brilliant autism studies researchers, Dr
Barbara Sandland and Dr Rebecca Bartram, who we speak to about increasing our understanding of neurodivergence, as well as some incredible research they have been carrying out over the course of this year.

We are also joined by Tamara Greatrix, editor-in-chief of Redbrick, the University of Birmingham's student-run newspaper, to fill us in on the highlights of our brilliant student journalists in this term's print release.

Before we start our first episode, let me tell you how it works. Each episode is broken into 3 sections, industry insights, the featured interview, and community highlights.

Each one is engineered to satisfy the interests of you, dear listener. So don't be shy. Get in touch with future episode suggestions or general feedback for us in the comments section of whatever platform it is that you're listening to this on.

Detailing today's episode further, we speak about neurodivergence and research into autism spectrum disorder. As earlier this year, the government set out a 10 year plan for educational reform, including big plans to support children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Our experts Barbara and Rebecca will talk about what this might mean for autistic children and why their research with the QT robot could help.

Later on in the episode, we review a chat I had with one of our amazing alumni, Matt Harrison, who, after coming to Birmingham to continue his master's degree in education, returned to Melbourne where he co-founded a social enterprise called Next Level Collaboration, which teaches social skills to neurodivergent children through playing video games together.

Without further ado, let's begin.

Right, let's get started on our industry insights with some of the news that we've wanted to let you know about in the education sector.

Now, the UK government has set out new plans in their Every Child Achieving and Thriving report, wanting to change how autistic children are supported in mainstream classrooms. The report, published on the 23rd of February 2026, details how the Department for Education aims to improve efforts to offer the most inclusive education possible, highlighting those with special educational needs and disabilities, which I'll now be referring to as SEND, and economically disadvantaged children in particular.

The standout change to support children with SEND comes in the form of individual support plans, which detail the type of support a child with SEND needs daily in schools. These will be written up collaboratively by both parents and teachers and reviewed annually. The change aims to reduce the number of pupils with education, health and care plans, a figure which has more than doubled in the last 10 years. By 2035, only children who fall under the requirements of specialist support will be granted EHCPs.

Now, I just need to clarify that all children with SEND will be legally entitled to individual support plans, whereas children with the most complex needs, as written in the report, will also be entitled to an EHCP. This report is currently only a white paper. Nothing has been set in stone yet, and it is all merely proposed as what the government plans to do.

So, I'd just like to gather some immediate thoughts on that from Barbara and Becky. What do you think the benefits will be for autistic children if the government does end up using this approach?

I think there's a lot in the white paper, and it's really difficult to make too many judgements at this stage because we don't quite know where the government is going with it or what is going to come into play. There's lots of different people still inputting their advice into it.

I think the standout thing for me is the statement that individual support plans will be developed in collaboration with parents. This is really, really important. Our parents, and parents of children with SEN more generally, are not always embraced by the system. I think any movement towards better collaboration should absolutely be welcomed.

In addition to that, what's really positive about the emphasis in this paper and proposal is that support won't be locked into a diagnostic process. It will enable children whose needs are identified by both parents and teachers in settings to receive support, rather than being placed on a holding pattern until a diagnosis unlocks some sort of funding to access support.

So, I think it's embracing a balanced approach where needs are identified, but it also allows for building on the existing strengths of each individual child.

You mentioned before the podcast that your colleague, Professor Karen Goldberg, did a lot of work putting together this report.

She was the chair of the neurodivergent task and finish group for the DfE, and the results that came out of that work were published at the same time as this paper. This paper very much echoes and builds on the findings from that report. She's currently involved in further work with the DfE to develop the inclusion strategy that is going to underpin these proposed changes.

I wanted to point out that one of the aims set out in the government white paper is to make sure that all school staff receive SEND training, to make neurodivergent-friendly teaching a standard across all mainstream educational institutions. I wanted to ask how realistic this will be and whether there are any challenges that you can see cropping up in the future.

First and foremost, with big changes, the first challenges generally tend to come around funding and time allocation, and these are going to be really essential to make that happen.

The challenge is getting everybody up to the same level. Everyone in the teaching profession, in schools and in settings, is going to come at this from different starting points.

I think it's completely realistic. Schools currently undergo mandatory annual training for things like safeguarding, so there is no reason why SEND update training shouldn't be as mandatory as that for all children in all settings and schools.

Amazing. Whilst the change is set to impact educational institutions all the way up to colleges—that's preschool, primary school, secondary school, and also sixth forms and colleges—your current research project, which we'll be talking about in a little moment, focuses on preschool development in particular, if I'm right.

I want to ask why that age is so important.

The preschool, or early years, is an age phase that covers birth to five. Those early years of school are known as the foundation stage, and they have a separate curriculum, or guidance, that looks at child development.

It's really important that we understand that it's called the foundation stage because that is where the foundations for learning and life skills are laid and developed. It's also a critical time for the development of learning, and so it has a huge impact on lifelong learning for individuals. It's a really critical time for children.

What's really exciting for me, as an early years teacher and specialist, about the white paper is that it clearly states the importance of this age phase, which is perhaps an acknowledgement that's been missing.

What it says is: “Children's early years are a critical foundation for lifelong learning. For far too long, the early years have been regarded as lower in status, treated as an optional add-on rather than an integral part of the education system.”

When we look at good special educational needs teaching practices, they use early years teaching techniques. So, for the government to acknowledge the importance and the skills of the workforce working in this age phase, and what they have to offer, is a really welcome change to the lens that we're moving forward from.

Yeah, and it's always amazing to hear that someone working at the University of Birmingham had such an impact on creating this white paper for the government and ultimately, and hopefully, positively impacting the future for autistic children and children with special needs.

Here's some of the University of Birmingham's best student journalism with the Redbrick Roundup.

Okay, so the Redbrick Roundup is a little taster of what we've been researching this term, what we've been interested in. Redbrick is turning 90 this year. We were established in 1936 and it's a fully student-run newspaper, with over 150 members last year.

Personally, being part of Redbrick has opened so many doors. You get so much real-world professional experience and speak to loads of people who you otherwise wouldn't be able to speak to.

We've got loads of goals this year. We're going to create a better community in Redbrick, start up a football team, introduce some student journalism and push for more investigations and interviews. We've recently released a freshers' print, letting new students see what we're all about.

There are a few different articles that I want to talk about. I've got one about 90 years of Redbrick, which is going to be on the front page of this print. So a little bit about that one.

Redbrick has basically been documenting student life since 1936. Sorry, that was a bit difficult to do in my head. It has been really important as a historical record of what's been important to students over the last century. In the 1970s it provided a platform for queer students and allies and included a report on harassment and discrimination, which I think is quite interesting.

I've got a few alumni that I included in the article as well, which were BBC journalists Roland Burke and Lizo Mazimba, along with the Sunday Times journalist Rio Stora.

Student journalism is really important for upholding democracy at universities, and it carries out fact-based autonomous reporting. It holds institutions to account while providing students with lots of different viewpoints and lots of different ways to learn about things, so it makes a well-informed, critically thinking student population.

But unfortunately, Redbrick is suffering a lot of financial instability at the moment, so we've had to work a lot harder to keep the paper running. We've made a lot of changes recently: we've slashed print costs, we've introduced more sections like puzzle pages and agony aunt and a new business section, so I feel like we're on the up again, definitely getting somewhere with it.

I suppose for anyone listening, if you've worked with Redbrick in the past or you enjoyed any of their articles, feel free to support them. I may be a little biased as someone that is involved in Redbrick myself. Please support Redbrick because it is not just an important paper for the uni, but it's such an important society and a great way for people to get involved with the university community.

We've had a lot of people writing about Digbeth. That's been a main thing recently, measuring the impact on the community and allowing students to talk about how they feel about it.

So what is actually happening in Digbeth right now? Glad you asked. There's a £1.75 billion Midlands Rail Hub project which is intending to widen the Bordesley Viaduct. It would allow six additional trains per hour into Birmingham Moor Street and it is essential to carry it out – they've made that pretty clear, they need to do it. But it's not really essential to demolish everything underneath it while they do it.

I've been reading a lot about it and about what people have suggested. There's a similar sort of thing in London where there's a massive market at London Bridge and they built over it, so people have suggested maybe they could do that. But the ultimate message is that if they do go ahead and demolish all of these venues around Lower Trinity Street, they'd be erasing a lot of cultural and creative hubs.

I spoke to a lot of students – a lot of people in Redbrick have written about this – but personally, for me, I spoke to a lot of students and the venues that were going to be losing their businesses. They said it was a really important third space where students can socialise and build communities. The businesses’ main message was that if the plans go ahead, they'll either be shut down straight away or it'll be so impactful that there's no point being open because no one will be able to get to them because of the roadworks.

Trying to preserve that at all costs is so important. It's a community to students and everyone I interviewed said the same thing: there's nowhere they felt more safe than in Digbeth and at nights like Boogie Tuesday. It's very different to what you'll find on Broad Street or at the university. So it's really important to preserve that, and I think Redbrick wanted to be a part of that.

Right, thank you very much, Tamara, and happy birthday to Redbrick.

Now, Birmingham is one of the world's top research universities, and we're going to hear from Barbara and Becky about their ongoing study in collaboration with LuxAI and the Luxembourg Institute of Health on a humanoid robot known as the QT robot.

Barbara, Becky, welcome to the podcast. Before we get stuck into some of the research with the QT robot, I just wanted to get to know you both a little bit more.

So, Barbara, your profile says you worked as a secondary school teacher before you returned to higher education, as well as being a SEND coordinator?

That's correct, yeah.

Did you see any issues within our education system for neurodivergent children?

No, that's the type of question we could talk for hours about. I'm going to assume you haven't got hours, so I'm going to try and keep my answer short. But I want to start with recognition that, having worked as a teacher for many years, it's really important to recognise that teachers are working incredibly hard and all of them have the best intentions for the children they're teaching.

I think when we talk about ways to improve the education system, sometimes teachers unfairly get the blame. So, I just want to lay that foundation: teachers are amazing.

However, there are a lot of challenges, especially for children that don't fit the model that our education system wants our children to work in: sitting still, learning, repeating structure. Many children don't flourish in that environment, but I think it's especially relevant for our neurodivergent children.

It's not just about learning in the classroom; it's also about the school environments we need to think about. We need to think about the policies, the sensory experience, the culture and the community. There's so much more than just focusing on what happens in the classroom.

I have a little bit of a personal desire, should we say, that I'd really like to see schools teaching natural human diversity, which is what neurodiversity is all about, really—the fact that there is no normal. It just doesn't exist. I think we need to embrace that really early on and embed it in our teaching.

That mindset needs to impact everybody, not just the children. It needs to impact the teachers, the parents, senior leadership, the dinner ladies—everybody.

From the child's perspective, I think self-understanding and belonging are foundational to learning, and we've got to get that right first before we think about anything else.

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

And Becky, you had a very different start to your career because, for the first six years in particular, you were a jeweller?

That's correct.

My journey into where I find myself now, working as what is classified as an academic, has been quite an interesting one. I should probably explain that by going a little bit back to the beginning.

I was diagnosed as dyslexic when I was eight. As a result of that, I was very privileged in that I was able to go to a special school for children with learning disabilities, which focused on where I could be successful, which was creatively.

I was able to do arts, textiles, jewellery and ceramics as part of my GCSE curriculum, which led me down an arts path. I studied at Central Saint Martins and did my jewellery degree there, and then worked as a jeweller for six years in London.

Alongside that, my skills in textiles and fashion meant that I was able to work with the National Youth Theatre and pursue lots of other creative outlets. Through that, I developed a passion for working with children and young people.

In fact, the transition from working as a jeweller into education sort of made sense. I decided to retrain and do a PGCE when I was 28 or 29, I think, and I discovered early years. That's where the curriculum really allowed me to use and embrace my creativity. The curriculum allowed for that creativity and the passion that I had to enable children to see their self-worth.

I was able to leave school with high self-confidence and the belief that I could do whatever I wanted to do because of the successes I'd experienced. I became very aware that this wasn't the experience of lots of people coming out of schools, and so that gave me a real drive to be part of something that could change that.

My creativity allowed me to approach the curriculum with flexibility and an open mind, and early years was the platform for me to do that.

Amazing. Now, Barbara and Becky, your ongoing work under the university's Autism Centre for Education and Research has caught our attention at the Jodcast. Barbara, could you please give us an overview of the research that you and Becky have been leading?

I can try my best. We have a QT robot. They say it's a socially assistive robot. It's come from its maker in Luxembourg.

LuxAI and the Luxembourg Institute of Health contacted us at the university and said, in summary, “We know you're excellent; come on board.” And we did.

They have given us 69 robots to send out to families in the West Midlands area who have a child between the ages of two and a half and four years and nine months. That sounds overly specific, but there are reasons for it. The children either have an autism diagnosis, or we can confirm that there are autistic characteristics present.

The families get to use the robot at home for 10 months. During that 10-month period, we've gathered data on the parent and child experience, and we've measured the child's development at the beginning, middle and end, so we can see how their cognition, language and social skills are developing over that time period.

Becky, could you give the audience a rough idea of what the QT robot looks like? I'm sure they'll see it in some of the promotional images and on the thumbnail of this episode. It probably has a very cute little face. After that, could you explain how it works and what features it has to help autistic children develop all of those skills?

The robot, as you say, will probably be illustrated somewhere, but it's about the size of an average two-year-old. It stands on a solid base.

Solid base, thank you.

So, it's stable. It doesn't walk. It has a screen face in its head. It can move its head and has a face.

The robot comes with two tablets: an educator tablet, which is for the parent, and a learner tablet, which is for the child. The parent fills in a questionnaire when they log into the robot apps, and that allocates a curriculum level for that specific child.

The parent can then, with the child, choose activities that are divided into the areas of social skills, language and cognition to work on with their child at home.

The robot doesn't have a camera or a microphone. One of the roles that the parent plays when working with the robot and the child is that they are the robot's eyes and ears. They are known as the robot's assistant.

The robot might refer to “my assistant” if it's asking the child to copy something and the child isn't following it. The parent then marks on their tablet whether the child was successful in one of those activities.

Alternatively, the robot might ask the child to find a yellow square. The parent indicates this by touching it on their tablet, and the robot will automatically know that. It will then celebrate with a big, happy face and lift its arms up. Those are all very consistent celebrations that the child can expect to happen.

So, that's roughly how it works, I'd say.

I'm just going to clarify because I think you just said that the robot touches the screen, but I'm pretty sure it's not the robot that touches the screen.

Thank you, Barbara. Yes, not the robot touching the screen—the child touches the screen.

One of the things you mentioned there was how collaborative it is between the parent and the robot itself. One of the key points in the research outlined on the University of Birmingham website is exploring how it impacts the confidence of parents of autistic children.

What kind of feedback have you received so far, and what have you seen in general in terms of the help that it's giving these parents?

Our initial analysis—we're at the halfway point now—is showing us that parents are reporting that their knowledge of their child is definitely increasing, but their confidence may be taking a little bit longer. That's something we're still looking at.

We've had a lot of parents tell us that they've been surprised by how much their child knows and can do, which they weren't previously aware of, as a result of their participation. So, we're learning more all the time.

Yes, what we're looking at there with the parents is what we're calling self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the combination of knowledge and confidence. So, do they feel they've got enough knowledge, and do they feel confident enough to support their child?

Barbara, you were saying earlier that parents are sometimes conflated with teachers in terms of not being able to give the right care to their children. Would you agree that primary caregivers of autistic children can sometimes be overlooked when we're researching autistic children? If so, how much focus has been applied to the parents in research such as this?

Yes, I think the primary caregiver is often quite hidden in the way we think about experiences.

One of the things that we're using within this research is what's called a theory of change framework. It really challenges researchers to recognise that there is context to everything we look at.

If you're looking at the child using the QT robot, you can't look at that in isolation because there's a whole life going on around it. Obviously, parents are a really key part of that context.

We need to look at the knowledge and confidence of the parent because that's going to impact the way they use the robot. We need to think about whether the parent works full-time and whether they're caregivers to other people as well. We need to think about what is going on, because that tells us so much about the child's experiences and where their strengths are.

Some of our parents are so resilient, and that's important to learn.

One parent said to me that, just using QT, “It's not about the outcome; it's the journey.” She was getting so much from the journey. I had to go back to her and say that was really profound. I loved what she said.

I think we can learn so much from parents in research and in education. I go back to what I said before: within the education system, we need to listen to parents more because there's such a wealth of knowledge that it's so important for us to learn from.

Absolutely. Tamara, I think you've got some questions as well.

Yeah, I was interested in how the robot can adapt to each child's individual needs.

At the outset, when the parent sets the robot up with their child, they fill in a questionnaire about what their child can do and the levels at which they can perform certain tasks. That then places them on an individualised curriculum that's pre-programmed into the robot, and they work through that. So, that's quite individualised.

Equally, the parent and child can choose which activities they want to do within the available curriculum, so there's a lot of choice for each individual child.

The robot also has a live-control function. You can program it by typing in what you want it to say. That's been really helpful for some of our families.

We've got one family where the child has recently transitioned into reception, which means full-time education in England. To help with that transition, one mum emailed us to say that QT will now say in the morning, “QT's off to school, and he'll see you later.” That helps the child with the transition into their school day.

So, you can make it very personal.

That's very interesting. I was wondering whether it can help children who are non-verbal in any way.

A lot of the children in our study are non-verbal—probably more than we'd anticipated, to be fair. It has definitely helped some of the children who have suddenly started talking when they weren't talking before.

The activities don't necessarily require speaking. They can involve identifying sounds, and children can indicate that they've understood without having to be verbal, through the tablets. There's all that receptive language processing that they can demonstrate through the tablets and their engagement.

We're mindful that a lot of children also engage in echolalia, which is repeating what you've heard, or scripted speech. Some of our non-verbal children have progressed in their speech, but when you listen to it, what you're really hearing is exactly what QT has said.

There is a developmental process: we start using words and then work out how to use them functionally. Even if a child has started with language, we can still see development where they've moved from, “I can label something; I can say that is a cup,” to, “I want the cup,” which is much more functional development.

So, wherever they've started in their language journey, there is an element of development. I think language is the one area where our data at the moment is showing the biggest impact.

There was a family yesterday whose child is non-verbal, and the mum was saying that her child had really made progress with understanding the words for colours. That had transferred beyond the activities with the robot. They could identify blue and yellow, but equally, when they were colouring in or drawing, if she asked, “Can you pass me the blue crayon?” they could find it and pass it to her.

So, that understanding of language had been learned, but also embedded in a way that they could use it functionally beyond the activities, in their everyday life. That's really foundational skill learning.

Because we're speaking about some of the outcomes you've seen from the research so far, I think you mentioned in the Old Joe magazine an anecdote about a non-verbal boy responding for the first time to a hello from the robot by saying hello back.

It was one of my first home visits. When you're first doing any sort of research, the initial setups are a little bit nerve-wracking. You've got to make sure you tick all the boxes and do everything the way you should be doing it.

I was going through the process, making sure I'd got everything set up. We turned the robot on and showed the parents where the live controls were and everything. There are always preset things in there.

We got the parent to press the button, and QT said, “Hello, my name's QT Robot.” The child just turned around and went, “Hello.”

The parent—both Mum and Dad were in the room—and Mum welled up. Dad was absolutely amazed. They both looked at me and said, “He's never, ever said the word hello before in any context. Never said it.”

Because it was such an early experience, it has still stuck with me. It was a really emotional experience, and I think it's one of those experiences that will probably always stay with me.

It's such a powerful moment, and it really shows the impact that this research can have on families that really need it. I want both of you to answer what may have been the most rewarding moment of your career thus far.

We both found this really, really hard when we were thinking about what we could possibly say, because you can look back over potentially long periods in which we've been doing different things and come up with lots of different moments.

I think the things that stand out for me, and that I can track through my many different roles, are the moments when a family opens up to you and comes to you because they trust you.

We've had quite a few parents within this research contact us, not for research-based reasons, but because they've gone through a difficult time and trust that we'll understand, sympathise and help.

I think it's those moments that are really impactful for me because, even in a really small way, I'm having a positive impact on somebody's life.

I really struggled to pick one, and I'm not even sure that I could ever pick one moment. But if I generalise the most rewarding parts of my career to date—20 years in education—I think, for me professionally, they're all linked with being with children in schools.

It's that moment, that learning moment or experience, that I've been able to be part of with a child. But it's very much their moment, and you're just there for the ride.

For example, a child might realise independently that they have five fingers. They haven't got to count them all, and they come to you completely blown away by this new knowledge that's appeared. You've been doing counting with five fingers for perhaps a term and a half, and then suddenly all of that is gone: “Did you know I've got five fingers?”

“Yes, I did.”

“That's amazing.”

Those kinds of little learning moments, and being able to be part of them, are really special.

This has been such an incredibly important study, and it is making a real difference for children with special needs and their families. Speaking of the neurodivergent community, we've had an amazing chat with one of our graduates from the University of Birmingham about his own work in providing a safe space for neurodivergent children and young adults to come together and learn social and professional skills, coming up after the break.

ight, we're back. What better way to start than by looking at some of your stories shaped in the heart of Birmingham?

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Matt Harrison, a Melbourne-based alumnus of the University of Birmingham, who, after completing his Master's in Education here, completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne and subsequently co-founded Next Level Collaboration, a neurodivergent-led social enterprise that helps build social confidence in neurodivergent children.

Here's what we chatted about.

Well, hello, Matt. Welcome to the podcast—and the first episode, in fact. I'm delighted to have you here today.

I just wanted to give you a little bit of time to break the ice and give some background on who you are, when you were at the University of Birmingham and what you do now.

Yeah, hello. My name is Matthew Harrison. I'm an associate professor in the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Education.

I was at the University of Birmingham in 2013, which feels like a lifetime ago. I was an exchange student, actually. I was doing my Master's of Education.

My background is as a teacher, and I had the opportunity to go to the University of Birmingham, which does amazing work in autism and inclusion. Birmingham was ahead of the curve at the time in terms of neuro-affirming education and support.

That experience really shaped a lot of my work. What I do now is, as a teacher, I wanted to look at how we can help young people who are autistic, have other forms of neurodivergence or have other neurotypes to feel safe, be happy and make friends.

I'm neurodivergent myself, so I really see the importance of that. I run a social enterprise with my co-founder, Jess Rawlings. We run games-based social capacity-building programmes, although I don't love that term, focused on teaching collaboration skills in a neuro-affirming way.

More importantly, I think, we help young people build friendships, self-advocate and simply be themselves in these groups.

We started this programme working with eight- to fifteen-year-olds. We got to the point where we realised that, when they turned 16, we could employ these young people, pay them a fair wage and have them run the programmes. They can give us feedback, help us lead the programmes and, in some cases, co-adapt or co-design them.

Birmingham played a really important role in shaping my desire to do this work.

What was it specifically about Birmingham that pushed you further into the role you're in now?

I think it was the passion of some of the staff for autistic rights in particular. It was a time in my life when I'd been teaching for probably five or six years. After working for a while, I became really interested in how I could become a better teacher and what kind of shift was needed in the education system.

When you were teaching for those four or five years, were there any issues that you saw, especially around special educational needs?

Yeah, I definitely saw issues around social inclusion. I was really interested in those children who perhaps sat by themselves at lunchtime and often really wanted to have friends, but didn't want to—or didn't feel they should have to—subscribe to neurotypical norms by inherently changing who they are.

It's the idea that we can help people have the start to their working lives that I would argue everyone should have and has a right to have, but it's just not the reality at the moment.

What you've spoken about was probably a core driver in what you and your co-founder and CEO, Jess Rawlings, wanted to achieve. What motivated you to establish Next Level Collaboration as a social enterprise?

We just wanted change, I think. Jess and I have a funny story about how we met. It was 2020, before the lockdowns. Her boss at the time at the university said, “Hey, there's a guy who's got a Super Nintendo in his office.”

Jess explained that she was both a speech pathologist by training and autistic. We compared notes about things we'd seen and heard in terms of supporting young people. I talked about my research, and then I went away for a few days and thought, “Do you know what? She's got some gaps in both her professional and personal experience.”

I pitched the idea to her, and that was seven years ago. We've been able to travel around the world doing this, which is amazing. It's a real privilege.

Absolutely. Moving on a little bit, I wanted to ask what makes video games such a powerful tool, especially for people who might struggle with communication.

I think there are three things that are really important in the way we use gaming and why we use gaming.

The first is the strength of interest for a lot of children—not just neurodivergent children, but neurotypical children too. Gaming is a cultural force. People connect around something they have in common. Young people often have a strong interest in gaming, a shared language around it and a lot of knowledge.

Valuing that and showing that their interests have worth and value is really important. They can work together to solve problems. You can tell them a theory, but they need to practise it, and that's what the games do. They provide a meaningful context in which to practise skills.

The third part is that games give them something they can talk about and be proud of with other children in their school communities or other communities they're part of.

That's such an integral part of human life. We're social creatures, so what you're doing by offering that space is phenomenal.

I think it's really interesting because there's a misconception—and some really good research around this—that autistic people don't want friends. I don't think that's true. I think friendship can simply look different.

The biggest shift in autism research, making it more responsive to priorities and improving understanding of the autistic communities researchers work with, comes from having autistic researchers lead that research.

The spaces that you have as part of Next Level Collaboration improve not just the social skills of younger children, but also the professional skills of the neurodivergent staff you've employed. How do they do that?

There are two parts to that: the physical spaces and the cultural spaces.

The physical spaces complement other environments by being flexible and customisable. This includes allowing the lighting to be changed and thinking about odours and smells. My colleagues, Dr Sarah Templey and Dr Jess Reeden, have done some great work around this in higher education. They have a wealth of knowledge about the built environment and how it impacts people.

The other part is the cultural space, where people feel safe enough to ask for what they need.

I also want to think about the indirect impact on parents and the feedback they've given.

Some of our young people only leave the house to come to our programmes because they experience school-related stress and challenges with school attendance. For them to come here, you see that parents are so happy and relieved.

A lot of the parents at our lab programme, where they physically come together, have started spending time together. They've built a community around it because being an advocate for your child all the time is exhausting.

Having that connection is so important. We've also connected with our parents, and we've got a really close-knit community, which I think is a privilege to have.

I wanted to give you a platform to offer some advice to employers, particularly when interviewing neurodivergent staff.

I'd say there are three key things.

First, share the interview process and questions in advance.

Second, involve candidates in deciding the layout and setup of the physical space, and consider having neurodivergent people represented on the interview panel. Identity really matters: if you can see it, you can be it. That also helps create a sense of safety.

The third thing we've started doing here, which is really important, is providing video tours. When someone's arriving for an interview, they're going to be nervous—everyone is. So, using your phone, record a video tour showing where everything is. Show them where they can wait and where they can use the bathroom before the interview, so they can watch it in advance and have the predictability and sense of safety that brings.

Those are three things I'd do as part of the interview process. By putting supports in place for everyone, everybody benefits from them, regardless of neurotype.

I'm going to give you some time now to speak about your co-founder and CEO, Jess Rawlings, because she is such a big part of what Next Level Collaboration is. I want you to give her some credit, essentially.

Jess Rawlings is one of those annoying people who is good at so many things, while also being very humble and nice. She's someone who has had such an impressive career. The way she carries herself is that of an impressive leader.

As our leader and CEO at Next Level, Jess is so good at balancing the needs of everyone around her. She cares deeply while also having a really clear strategic vision.

I know there are a lot of exceptional autistic leaders out there, and I think it's time for them to have their time in the sun—or to receive their flowers, as you say.

Absolutely. And the final question, the one you've probably been waiting for the most: what is your favourite video game?

Harry, I have a tie, so I'm sorry—this is cheating. I'm going to choose an old game and a new game.

My favourite old game is Donkey Kong Country 2 on the Super Nintendo because I've got fond memories of playing it as a child.

My favourite new game is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It's a relatively new game, but it's so well designed. Nintendo is a hit factory when it comes to what they can do.

Of course. Okay, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and chatting to us about Next Level Collaboration.

Back in the studio, I'm sure we'll have more conversations about some of the things you've brought up, and perhaps whether we can hope to see some of this replicated not just in Birmingham, but across the UK.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure, Harry. Thank you very much.

I think I'm going to extend that final question I asked Matt to everybody here.

So what is everyone's favourite video game?

I can start first if that would help, because mine would be Mario Kart DS. I found a DS in a drawer. It happened to be my grandparents', probably the one games console they've ever had. And I must have played it for hours and hours and hours for years. I think when I was about eight years old I completely finished the game and got a special reward. I was very confused and didn't really know what was going on, but that is the standout game in my mind.

Tamara?

I've got two and I really can't pick between them. I think Animal Crossing, but it has to be the New Leaf version on the DS, specifically that one. Or Sims 4. I love Sims 4.

Both of those are my favourites, yeah.

Barbara?

Respect to Tears of the Kingdom. That is a good game, but I think for me you can't beat Super Mario Bros.

The original, or is there a specific one?

I have a student who tells me this is a controversial choice, but I like the one on the Wii U.

We got to be a penguin and I can't think what it's called now, but it was the Wii U version.

The 3D World, I think.

Becky?

Well, I think mine goes back quite a long way. Now it's my boys who are the gamers. But when I was playing, it was probably, God, it went from Game Boy and Tetris. I was slightly addicted to that when I was younger. But I also really enjoyed Sonic the Hedgehog.

Then I spent a lot of time on Wipeout, which everyone here might be too young for. It's a sort of spaceship racing game. I got quite into that for quite a long time.

There's some amazing research that came out not that long ago which says that games like Sonic were really foundational in teaching us resilience because you died all the time. When you died, you went back to the beginning and had to start again.

There was no respawning. There was no carrying on from the point at which you died. You went back and had to do the whole thing again.

The research suggests that because that's not in games nowadays, it's having a real impact on resilience.

That's interesting.

And it also made you stop because you're like, "I can't do it again."

Whereas now you're just like, "Well, I'll just respawn and carry on ad infinitum."

Yeah.

Please do get in touch in the comments and tell us what your favourite video games are and why.

But speaking more about Next Level Collaboration, I wanted to ask both Becky and Barbara about the similarities we can see between QTrobot and Next Level Collaboration.

Firstly, are there any general thoughts you have about what Matt's doing here?

I think he speaks, rightly, about friendships and relationships. When he's talking about the importance of friendships in schools and settings for young people, that really resonated with the work we're doing with QT and those early relationships that are so critically important for young children's social and emotional development.

That comes from those early familial relationships before school and in the home.

I think QT is supporting those relationships and giving a platform and a structure through the activities and a focus on engagement.

It can be with the child and parent, and it's been with children and siblings. That's been really positive for a lot of our families.

Yeah, and I think the way Matt talks about using technology mirrors QT. It's not a replacement. He's not giving a child a computer game and saying, "Go away and play computer games, that will solve your problem," any more than we're giving them a robot and saying, "Have a robot, that will solve your problems."

It's about making the most of the technology we've got to bridge social relationships while still prioritising human-to-human contact.

I thought it was really interesting, some of the answers he gave about interviewing somebody who may be neurodivergent for a job. The answers he gave in terms of letting them know what to expect.

I think a lot of people can relate to that. When you go for a job interview, it is very scary.

I'd rather know where I'm going and what kind of questions they're going to ask me because he's right, it's not supposed to be a test of knowledge. It's supposed to gauge your character.

Some of the answers he gave can be applied not just to neurodivergent people but to everybody because, as has been inferred from the discussion we've had today, it's not about putting people into boxes. It's more about letting everybody mingle together.

This is a bit of a strange metaphor that I'm building in my head, but yeah, letting everyone work out their individual differences together and come up with a common solution that works for everyone.

Yeah, there's a principle called Universal Design for Learning and it really sprang to my mind when Matt was talking because it is that idea that if you identify those strategies that are just going to work for everybody, then if you do it for everybody you're not having to do that extra bit.

Quite often you're reducing your workload because you're not having to think, "Oh, I need to do something extra for that person" or "They need that, so I'll have to do this."

Offer it to everybody.

Nobody's disadvantaged then.

Nobody's having to ask.

Because actually, as a neurodivergent individual, it takes a lot of courage to ask for support. There's a real vulnerability in it.

So if we offer it out to everybody, everybody gets the benefit of it.

That's where it becomes genuinely and authentically inclusive.

Yeah.

I think something he said in the conversation, which we did have to cut out, was that it's about thinking about things that are vital for some but helpful for all.

So it's about implementing those, not just in education but in all areas of business and the working world.

We can definitely innovate in that area.

And Tamara, I believe you got into contact with the Guild of Students and specifically the Disabled Students Officer. I just wanted to ask what kind of adjustments have been made, or might be made, for neurodivergent students on campus?

Yeah, so I spoke to Olivia Summer. She hasn't officially started her position yet, but she's been in contact with the Guild and has decided what her plans are for the year.

She told me that her plans are to expand the reasonable adjustment accommodations already offered and hold some drop-in brainstorming and feedback sessions about accessibility within the university so she can gauge what improvements need to be made and what she can change.

Her main concern was the excessive noise levels in commonly used quiet study spaces. She mentioned Harding Library and the Main Library, and I can testify that some work needs to be done in the Main Library.

She said that improvements would be very impactful for neurodivergent students, but also for any student at the university because it's hard to focus with excessive noise going on.

It's hard to read, do work, and filter out external sensory input while competing with constant loud noise.

She mentioned that it's quite overstimulating and overwhelming, so she thought that was a really good place to start.

It is ultimately your voices and your work which make this podcast and the alumni community so special.

Please do get involved by sending in your stories to us here at the Joecast by emailing us at the alumni office.

We are always looking for inspiring people creating an amazing impact after their time at the University of Birmingham.

So please do get in touch because who knows, maybe you'll even feature on the next episode.

That's all from us on the Joecast for our first ever episode.

A massive thank you to my co-host Tamara, my guests Dr Barbara Sandland and Dr Rebecca Bartram, Matt Harrison, and of course a big thank you to you for listening.

Until next time, I'm Harry James, and that was the Joecast.