From neurodiversity awareness to action
Meet Annette Foster
Annette Foster, an Autistic and ADHD creative researcher, was drawn to Kent as a PhD student by her interest in the novel arts-based approaches that were attracting academic and media attention as new ways of understanding autistic people differently. These approaches recognise that creative practice can open up new ways of exploring communication, identity and lived experience, particularly for communities whose perspectives have often been marginalised in traditional research.
Under the supervision of Professor Nicola Shaughnessy, now Professor of Performance and Co-Director of Kent’s Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries (iCCi), Annette grasped every opportunity to explore these further.
Imagining Autism
This pioneering project led by Professor Shaugnessy saw facilitators play, improvise and co-create fantasy environments with 7-11 year-old autistic children as a means to explore and better understand diverse forms of communication, interaction, and creative expression.
The workshops, which 'imagined' forests, underwater worlds and space journeys, encouraged collaborative storytelling and imaginative exploration. The outcomes demonstrated how creative arts practices can foster connection, wellbeing and mutual understanding.
Autism reimagined at the Beacon School
Interviews with the iA team
Autistic girls, identities and creativity
Playing A/Part
Insights from Imagining Autism highlighted that Autistic girls and gender-diverse young people often experience autism differently, frequently describing experiences of invisibility, masking and social pressure.
To explore these experiences further, Professor Shaughnessy developed Playing A/Part, an interdisciplinary research project combining drama, media arts, music and psychology to explore the identities and lived experiences of Autistic girls aged 11-16 through creative and participatory approaches.
The research team have collaborated with the University of Surrey and Limpsfield Grange School for Autistic Girls to develop online resources with neurodivergent young people that reflect the creative workshops delivered in schools. They are being used by neurodivergent young people to facilitate similar workshops at school or home, helping centre neurodivergent voices and lived experience within the learning process.
Making play
Creativity and play can also provide powerful ways for people to reflect on their own experiences and perspectives. That’s why Dr Ambrose Gillick and Dr Dieter Declerq have developed MAPL (Make Play).
Together they invented an innovative kit of clips and connectors that allow participants to “make play” (MAPL) by transforming everyday materials and spaces into imaginative environments. Through workshops in community, educational and organisational settings they have also developed facilitation principles that support collaborative exploration and spontaneous creativity.
MAPL workshops invite participants to build structures, invent stories and reimagine environments collaboratively. The approach has also been used with medical students at Kent and Medway Medical School, encouraging future clinicians to reflect on different perspectives within healthcare environments and consider how physical and social spaces shape patient experience.
These strands of creative and interdisciplinary research are now coming together in a developing collaboration that aims to help medical lecturers and clinicians better understand neurodivergent students and patients.
The CLINIC project brings together Dr Gillick's MAPL methodology, Professor Shaugnessy's interdisciplinary approach and Annette's neurodivergent participatory and lived-experience expertise.
The collaboration aims to work with neurodivergent medical students and educators to co-design tools that help medical lecturers and clinicians identify practical reasonable adjustments that could improve both medical education and healthcare experiences. It will also develop creative tools and training approaches that support more inclusive practices within medical education and healthcare settings.
The Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries is also collaborating with the researchers and arts professionals involved to develop best practice for access and inclusion in the creative industries.
Advancing autistic support for students
During her PhD, Annette explored the lived experiences of late-diagnosed Autistic women, trans and non-binary people through participatory research, performance and visual art. This interdisciplinary research involved facilitating creative workshops with Autistic university students and exploring sensory and embodied ways of expressing Autistic experience through visual and performance art.
This informed a series of embodied autieethnography and participatory performance works which she premiered at the Autism Arts Festival at Kent in 2017 and 2019.
Alongside her research and creative practice, Annette has also developed programmes that support neurodivergent students at the University of Kent.
So You're Autistic?
Annette co-founded and facilitates “So You’re Autistic?” (SYA?), a small-group learning and peer-support programme originally developed for Autistic students and now expanded to include Autistic, ADHD and AuDHD students.
The programme supports students exploring their neurodivergent identities to better understand their experiences, celebrate strengths and develop strategies for wellbeing and connect with others who share similar perspectives. SYA? usually runs once or twice each academic year as an eight-week programme for Kent students.
Kent Autistic and ADHD Social Group
Annette also facilitates the University of Kent Autistic and ADHD Social Group (UoKA), a peer-led community space where Autistic, ADHD and AuDHD students can meet others, share experiences and build supportive connections. UoKA runs weekly on Tuesdays from 4–6pm during term time.
Discover
The Tizard Centre
The Tizard Centre works to enhance the health, care and education systems surrounding those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
