Specialisterne

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At first I was afraid

.. I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live, without Specialisterne by my side
But then I spent so many nights, thinking how they did me wrong
And I grew strong, and I learned how to get along
and so they're back .. from outer space ( etc. etc. ) lol.

Yes, I'm afraid I was one of the 5 genuine survivors to reach to that lovely place called 'redundacy' from the original 12 trainees which walked through the doors of number 8 Mandela place, way back on 14th Nov 2010. As soon as I went in it was like 'WTF - what do I .. er, I mean .. 'what do we have to do to pay for this then? ..'

And from that day the pressure was on.

That's interesting what the manager from Specialisterne Ireland said, I wasn't aware of such reasons being given for what went wrong, other than what Gerry Higgins said a week after Doomsday when us 5 and some of the managers went into the office for the last time for a debrief, which was essentially that early management ( no admission whether he had had any input of course ) decisions had been wrong, and that we should have engaged with dedicated client/partners much earlier than after the 5 month training period, D'UH!!

I think that very early on, and I mean before even the office was launched is when the worst decisions where made.

It's not so much that they ignored local economic factors, that's one way of saying it, it was more that they were completely unaware and unprepared for it, but had made spending decisions that no real savvy business man or entreprenuer would have done giving the genuine qualified economic indicators you can pay a fiver to get a forecast on.

In short we all walked into a most beautiful yet deadly trap, that probably no one would have done if we'd all known the facts about what market research and business feasibility had or hadn't been done, whatever the case may be lol.

As far as the SP Scotland management was concerned, absolutley none of them had any real experience in managing or supporting people with ASD in a business startup environment, or indeed in any employment environment, and in fact their learning curve was actually greater than most of ours, as most of us actually had sufficient IT skills and previous experience to begin working for clients much earlier, instead of literally wasting several months of rather pointless non related training which was not aligned to any existing requirements of real clients, management would genuinely not have been able to manage that organisation even if we'd all been neurotypical, and in fact I would maintain that most neurotypical people would have walked out if the'd had to experience the claustrophobic patronisation and constant changes to tasks and environment.

Yes I believe that Specialisterne Ireland have been briefed in some salient business strategy gained from clambering over the skulls of the fallen, ( I know, I'm being a bit spitefully cruel aren't I ? - but I'm only childishly joking --) in like, some terminator landscape of business, but I doubt that they really know about how stressful and distressing the experience was on a personal level for most of us, but they probably have the benefit of better quality management as well as the partnership with SAP and it's influence and know how, and of course some pretty cool people with a genuine commitment to autism. But I play 'I will survive every night, to help cry myself to sleep, well, once I've taken my prosac that is, lol.

Yes, I'm entirely joking there, don't worry, that's not exactly accurate, cos in fact I sometimes play 'The Smiths' as well, lol.

In fact 3 people were 'dumped' during a 'probabtionary' period, and one resigned over 'issues' , all of which was totally unnecessary, except for possibly some decision to 'prune', which I'm afraid must have come from the very top, so I'm reluctant to apportion blame to others, as I'm afraid I wasn't party to management discussions and meetings, indeed none of us were.

I was not aware of any Specialisterne Survivors Group, maybe due to being so popular, I wasn't invited, lol. But I think most likely that it would have been some of those people who had already left, as they obviously were'nt working there within several months of the closure.


Anyway, they're back, ( well sort of - wot! no arnold? ) Specialisterne UK was created in Jan 2013, with the directors, Thorkil Sonne, Stein Thygeson, and Tom Brundage, and they've had an office in Glasgow since Dec 2012, but have moved recently to a new one in Bath Street, they have two female managers from the original Specialisterne Scotland, ( nice ladies, willing to learn and move on of course ) and at least three of us are working on contracts on a self employed basis, such as data entry and software testing, and I've spoken to Tom Brundage and been to the office regarding taking on contract work whenit becomes available, and the outlook for them with new top management and the opportunity to learn from the continuing success of other Specialisterne offices such as Specialisterne Ireland looks promising, Yay! the tide is turning, lol.

But don't be too quick to bother to sharpen your mice and dust your keyboards just yet, they are several years away from gaining the same investment platform, but slow progress is of course progress.


I'm afraid that there's far more to learn from Specialisterne Scotland, but much of it may never be heard, lost in the mists of time, all the same ..

I have survived, and so has the Specialisterne opportunity for people in the UK. ( I know this all sounds a bit promotional, but only my opinion and from my experience.

Welcome to Wrong Planet, dontASPme.

Thanks for the firsthand infomation and update on the Specialisterne UK presence in Glasgow. Great post!

Thanks geedee, sorry we've not being able to meet and chat much in our neck of the woods of late, family business -lol- as usual. But always interested in whats going on like yourself, anyway there were some questions that I thought I could answer that might be interesting to others, theres not quite so much information about 'our' side of the story of specialisterne scotland, a well intentioned, but very expensive testing/ experiment which was probably necessary in Specialisternes History, and which probably did have useful results, but can I say to everyone out there who's interested in Specialisterne, don't forget the people! losing focus on the care and support of 'people' over business needs is not surely what it's all about, we are people with fragile lifes, emotions and needs, as well as having useful marketable abilities, don't forget that!.

Some type of consistent independant support, whether embedded or at least accomodated by employers should be statutory, the reputation of Specialisterne in scotland especially amongst the Autism community has been negitively affected big time, I see it all the time, all over the place, it needs to change, I'm a stalwart supporter of Thorkills vision and we can all play a part in helping to accomplish it, as I'm sure he meant it to be shared by everyone, I did actually meet him in our works kitchen, but only discussed how prevalent coffee perculators were in the West of Scotland, my fault, lol.

Cheers.
dontASPme

Well I didn't survive until the redundancy and close of Specialisterne Scotland. The SP Surviver group was really a joke name we came up with as we had got together to support and laugh about our experience at Specialisterne Scotland. I think many of the people who had been "Terminated" by Specialisterne Scotland had been distressed and as with most Aspies we were having problems letting go of the experience. It made it easer for people to talk about it and compare notes on how crazy/patronising and disorganised the whole thing was.

I myself wasn't exacly "Termnated" , I was told I was having my contract changed to an Associate (Contractor) and that I would recieve notification of ending one contract and the new contract soon after that. The termination letter appeared but the new contract never did. This was about the same time Specialisterne Scotland quietly changed their mission statement from "Employing people on the spectum" to "Supporting people on the spectrum into work".

I agree very much with dontASPme. The management was very bad from day one. I think the planning of Specialisterne was to do software testing and the training in the assessment period was set up for this. However at some point it was decided by management to do web design. I think many of the contracts that had set up for software testing had fallen through. The training we recieved on web design was not really suitable or indepth enough to allows us to offer any kind of quality web design services. We were using wordpress and there was absolutly no wordpress codex training just html, css and a fleeting glimps of javascript and php. None of the Management had any really knowledge of web design, including the IT Trainer

When it came to us starting to "Work" after the assessment period the general manager seemed to dissappear and we were all constantly being asked to do things we were not trained for or qualified to do. This caused alot of stress, frustration and sometimes conflict with in the office, which then seemed to be blamed on us "Just having Autism". This combined with the fact that some of the people we had trained with suddenly got promoted to project managers and were made responsible for managing the web projects we were working on. The actual management team seemed to dissapear and hide in a side office or just not be there. I think the whole problem really was there was no direction or support from their director Gerry Higgins or the General Manager and the management team seemed to be asked to do things that they weren't qualified to do either.

If this wasn't crazy enough the major demolition work then started on the building next door. This wasn't some light drilling, this was Heavy equipment on the same floor bringing down the whole building in the adjoining building. The whole place was vibrating and the noise and drilling went on all day. The quiet room wasn't fit for purpose and there was no where to go to get away from it. The major demolition work went on for many months, all we were told is that Gerry Higgins was dealling with it. When this was brought up after Specialisterne Scotland closed Mr Higgins used the excuse that the building was chosen by people on the spectrum and every one in the office had to put up with it.

This was one of my major problems with Specialisterne Scotland and Mr Higgins as he seemd to completely ignore the fact that we had Aspergers and The Dandelion Model set up by Specialisterne Denmark. In fact we were often had the same issues if not moreso than we would being employed in a NT office, especially with HR and reasons we wouldn't have our contracts extended to full time. HR had no understanding of Aspergers or Autism and it was often used against us by HR. I completely support The Dandelion Model however it was totally thrown out the window when it came to Specialisterne Scotland.

Specialisterne Scotland is now back and is being run by the Specialist People Foundation rather than CEIS. It is starting small with just 3 AS people working there just now. I believe this is a better way to build up the business and I think the 3 people working there are happy with how it is run now. The Specialist People Foundation will use the Dandelion Model at its core hopefully and they are bringing in real business now.

I do hope them all the best and hope the other offices can learn from the mistakes that Specialisterne Scotland made.
1. Stick to the Dandelion Model
2. Have a management team in place that is qualified for the work they are trying to do and have a general manager who is actively involved with the running of the business and accountable
3. Don't just have hot air for what people with AS need but acually apply it, work with it and communicate with your AS staff rather than not tell them anything and keep repeating "I'd love to talk about it but i'm not allowed to". Then release press statements which all employees know is total rubbish
4. Be honest about what is going on within the company, rather than stop your employees talking about it for fear of losing their job.
5. Have a feasible business plan rather than depend on "Getting funding to support people with autism into work".

Gosh, I'd forgotten all about my comments about SP, still haven't learned my lesson regarding posting stuff when you're worst for wear, and a bit drunk lol, have a feeling Gerry Higgins wont be readily giving me a good reference now, or on his xmas card list, I'm pretty sure if any autism people had any involvement in choosing that building, it would be because they thought all the proper legal stuff and business planning was being done before hand, the whole building actually noticeably moved several times during the demolition.

Well, my opinion has been done now, and I feel much better for it, probably provided some closure I guess, time for me to move on and find something else to moan about eh?

No idea who you are digital Melody, a complete mystery -lol- glad to find out you weren't 'dumped' or terminated, no one tells me anything.

Cheers
dontASPme

Hi dontASPme,

I think Mr Higgins will NEVER read this post and your being a bit aspie there because even if you did use your real name he still wouldn't have a clue who you are or what skills you have . However if you would like to be on his christmas card list just send a Scottish Govenment Christmas Card to :-

Mr Gerry Higgins
CEiS
Moorpark Court
5 Dava Street
Glasgow G51 2JA

I bet they will send you a bog standard CEIS christmas card back signed by his PA on behalf of himself lol. Best wishes Mr Gerry Higgins.

If you do want a good reference I would ask Laura for one because either way CEIS will not give anyone who worked there a good reference anyway because they never believed that people with ASC had any ability to work in the work environment anyway. They just saw us as a bunch of unemployable people they could get lots of funding for to help "support into work".
_______________________________
To quote from the press release from the heraldscotland: -
"The decision to close the business comes after three months of intense negotiations to try to transfer the business to another company in the sector, but these were ultimately fruitless.

Mr Higgins said employees of the company had been kept informed throughout. He said: "We are working closely with the employees to help them find suitable alternative employment." (Aye right Rhubarb, Rhubarb)

The Big Lottery Fund's grant was for the training of people with autism in key skills and over the last two years 22 people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and other disabilities have benefited from training.

A spokeswoman said: "BIG's funding was to support the training of people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and other disabilities and to get them ready for work. In this aspect of the project there is no doubt that the 22 trainees who joined the programme have benefited significantly.

"The barriers for this group in now entering employment have been significantly reduced. Not only do they have an internationally recognised qualification but they also have a greater understanding of the work environment."
___________________________
This actually underlines my first point that they never really understood the Dandilion Model in the first place in that we already had key skills that they never really found out about or used to contract out our services or treated us like induviduals.

Here is a brief summary of the Dandilion Model:
1. Specialisterne Dandelion Management model The core values of the Dandelion model is to regard every individual as unique and create a working environment that embraces individual differences and accommodates individual needs.

2. The Dandelion Most people associate the Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) with an annoying weed, but for people with specialist knowledge, the Dandelion is recognised as one of the most valuable herbs with its healing effect and nourishing nature when planted at places where it is welcome and people can benefit from its many positive properties. The value of the Dandelion depends on the eye that sees and the underlying knowledge. By understanding the plant and ensuring the right environment for it, you can gain access to its benefits.

3. Management Model The Dandelion line of thought forms the basis for a management model that focuses on transforming the often negative perception of people’s personal features into a positive expression that is attractive to the business sector. If you take the negative expressions and place them in a new and positive context, you can identify valuable competences. If a person is:
Pedantic = likely also to be detail-oriented
Sceptical = likely to be good at identifying errors
A loner = likely to be good at individual assignments
Pessimistic = likely to be good at understanding risk assessments
Undiplomatic = likely to be good at being an honest sparring partner.

* Very Annoyed = likely to have been employed by Specialisterne Scotland and CEIS who completely misunderstood the model and hopes to educated people on why it fundamental to running a specialisterne office and employing people with ASC hee hee.

4. Dandelion communication Appreciative communication Continual honest and constructive feedback Concrete and constructive proposals for improvements Support and guidance in recognizing challenges Humor and fun- it’s important to contribute to a smile Active listening Clearly stating what is wanted and expected Patient and inclusive Emphasize the importance of engagement and responsibility Help creating an overview and organize Celebrate successes Turn negativism and shortcomings into strengths.
_______________________________________________________________________________
DontASPme I think your very very good at web design and would be great at Information Architecture. Keep up the amazing work.

I would also like to add to the list of lessons learned from Specialisterne Scotland.

6. Premises - Don't use an open plan office - If you have the chance choose a rabbit warren that in not in the center of the city. a) because people with ASC have problems traveling in busy rush hour traffic. b) you can set up separate enviroments for each person or people and reduce sensory problems and interuptions also set up training areas.

Check out and planning proposals on the premises for the next year or five because if you have major demolition works going on it will seriously effect the well being and the ability to work of your ASC employees. i.e. number 1 of the Specialisterne model. Just make sure you think about the needs of ASC people and have plan B's in place if something goes wrong.

End of pulverise Specialisterne Scotland. Rebuild, Rebuild lol.

No seriously the Dandilion Model is one of the best strategies I have seen for letting people with Autistc Spectum Conditions (ASC) get a chance to work and utilise their very specialized skills in the labour market today. I think when applied properly and contracted out properly Specialisterne can and will work.

Chin Chin DigitalMelody whoever I am.

D'OH!! ! , I thought you were meant to get a notification when someone replied to your comment, that's just me back looking at this page DigitalMelody (Whoever you are!).

I'm sure that Specialisterne UK have now been in existence longer than Specialisterne Scotland were, and are still doing well getting the odd social entreprenuer awards here and there, and massively increasing their networking and contacts, while still undertaking small contract work to a high quality, further proving the viability of the Specialisterne Vision.

I'm not involved so far, as they haven't found any work for me yet, but I keep in touch, and due to their website notice for people with demonstrable skill in ASP.NET C#, I've been styding that platform solidly for the past several months with some success, and should be able to benefit from that by even applying for work on my own, well, it's a theory anyway.

I'm definately proud of the Guys up at SPUK Glasgow, albeit a bit envious, but i realise that it's not actually for everyone, perhaps not even me. I did contact Gerry Higgins, as you suggested, although not for my entry into their Christmas Card list, but for permssion to use references, and was told that he would be glad to provide them, so I've got a good 'Job application Kit' going with references (including Laura of course) and CV with work history (although empty for the last two years), and interview skills gained from having to apply for countless jobs while on the work programme, so the prospect for me is from 'okay' to 'great' depending on how I'm feeling.

Hey, have a great xmas Digitalmelody person, and a happy new ear

I thought I'd post an update after all that I've commented on regarding Specialisterne Scotland, I've been successfully employed at a call centre since January 2015, and I've focussed my attention to getting the Microsoft Certified Solution Developer Qualification as well as becoming intensely interested in game development using Unity3D so my options are looking up, building a freelance design business is actually feasible now that I have "a day job" to cover financial security and pay the bills etc, lol. I've had literally no involvement with Specialisterne UK at all, and I'm not even bothered, it is possible for people with Autism to get work on their own, they just need to become focussed and get a plan together. I still hope for SPUK to do well, but personally I'm not really going to recommend them, if someone else knows what they are doing and how they are helping, fine.

After looking back on what I said about Specialisterne Scotland, I can't think of anything I would change, Digitalmelody went into so much more than I was going to say, but I do think that not researching building construction plans of a building you are going to rent for 5 years, is ridiculous, and I wonder if anyone was held accountable (or whether they actually knew about it, and got a nice wee cheap deal), I would forgive everything else if only that were to happen.

Hi there SocOfAutism,

I'm glad someone read my wee update, I felt that I should provide some closure for any readers of this particular thread, in case me and digitalmelody's stories had given them traumatic experiences and sleepless nights, lol.

Although I did make a joke of it, there was a genuine need for people who had been through the Specialisterne Scotland experience to obtain closure, and I think that the fact that people met and called themselves the "survivors" says a lot about the intensity of their feelings and indeed of the severity of their experience, which sort of makes us as normal as anybody else, doesn't it.

Those are some interesting questions you have there, I've met Thorkil Sonne, and others from Specialisterne Denmark, and they are genuinely dedicated in creating sustainable employment opportunities for people on the spectrum, and the specialisterne model does appear to be working, it didn't work in Glasgow, and I'm not qualified to say why, I do feel strongly that business planning wasn't really done properly, and I'm not even talking about benefitting from hindsight, it was obvious even when I joined that even the basics of a business startup planning hadn't been followed and that things had been rushed a bit, I put it down to politics, where things get done out of sync to the real world due to political expediences instead of basing decisions on knowledge and strategies about market forces which genuine successful entrepreneurs will testify, but also Specialisterne Denmark did want to open globally, and they did need somewhere to start, and there was an economic downturn, although, even though that's more reason to downsize the project or even delay it etc etc..


The biggest problem for me was that I felt that we were genuinely treated differently than a company of neurotypicals would have been, now I work in an organisation where I'm sure there are people on the spectrum, but where the jobs are well defined, and people are not expected to be perfect, but need development and support, the main thing is that we all like doing what we do, and we all know whats expected of us and we're giving support to achieve it, where I work there are 63% women, and 32 % of people have moved on within a year of employment, but there is a core of people who stay because they feel comfortable and fulfilled like me, of course I want to have my own business, but I'm going to be better placed to develop that when I've experienced and been developed in a proper professionally run business, something which the Specialisterne Model with the Dandelion Model actually supports, but which was totally absent at Specialisterne Scotland.

I'm not saying that I won't contribute to your research, as I've contributed to other research before, but I'm not sure how my own perspective might actually help, any more than what I've already said, the opportunity for which I am eternally grateful to WrongPlanet.

Thank you for that very thorough reply.

Forgive my limited understanding. I have worked in IT management myself, but on a very small scale. When I read this "Dandelion Model" on the Specialisterne site what I come away with is franchises, like McDonald's. If McDonald's had a corporate strategy to hire autistic people and to promote positive understanding of autism to it's customers. Some McDonald's are awesome with fresh food and happy employees, and some are gross and terrible. Could that be a dumbed down simile?

My overarching point that I'm trying to make in my paper is that autistic people working together is too common to be written about, which is why it hasn't been noticed or academically studied. It's not special. I would go farther and say that it's a little offensive to act like it's a new phenomenon. I'm digging so far in your situation to make sure that I'm not missing something.

Yeah, I'm not too sure that there is a major scoop on the topic of autistics working together, as you'll definately see that at autism resource centres and allotments etc, I find myself not that curious after being there and not noticing anything particularly unusual or particularly problematic, however, why most of them don't have a job, and yet when they get together on IT projects and actually produce commercially viable software despite being largely unemployed for years before, now that's a story worth telling or a phenomena worth exploring, hehe.

I see where you're coming from with respect to the franchise analogy, interested partners pay a management fee to the Specialisterne Foundation and receive consultancy on how to follow the Specialisterne management model (although this usually will need to be an adaption from the original Denmark model due to business/legal and cultural differences), however as a 'for profit' company the resulting branch I believe keeps all of it's profit to manage the business, the purpose is to create employment at market rates for people on the autistic spectrum, hopefully a million one day, as Thorkil Sonne has said himself.

It's worth noting that the dandelion model isn't exactly the Specialisterne Management Model (of which I have absolutely no knowledge of, insofar as if it were explained to us, then I must have been off that day, and during the day to day running of Specialisterne Scotland we were kept strictly out of management meetings, decisions and all the other stuff they hid from us, just in case they were held responsible for us going into apoplectic shock that the world wasn't the same as in Noddy land).

The dandelion model however is more of a parable where people on the autistic spectrum, like the humble dandelion, have special attributes which makes them useful after all to the community, much like the way the dandelion is typically considered a weed, and is 'weeded out', but turns out to actually have genuinely useful properties, such as in medicine etc (which of course doesn't mean that it still wouldn't be 'weeded out' - lol).

Well I'm afraid, it wouldn't inspire me to explore people with autism, I'd be looking at how motivated, reliable, talented etc etc they were, when considering what positions to put them in, or what opportunities would be most appropriate for them to be developed and contribute to a business, and the only thing stopping business owners from thinking in that open minded and pragmatic way is the prejudice and unwarranted fear of 'risk', which I'm hoping that all the Specialisterne branches can make a case against using their success as an example.

Of course part of the management model is to support individuals into employment positions where they can undertake 'specialist' tasks for organisations better suited to people on the spectrum with their particular 'attention to detail' strengths. In practice I don't think anyone is that mono-skilled, or one dimensional in thinking style, that they can't learn to cover a broader set of skills, including acquiring competence in interpersonal communication skills for the work place, taking part in teams, supervising others and making management decisions based on skill and experience, there's an element of 'rain man' in this "specialist worker" idea, and perhaps we should I think just acknowledge that people on the spectrum can perform practically any job, giving appropriate development opportunities, encouraging their abilities and motivation and above all, 'given a bloody chance!!' - (don't worry, I won't be stepping out on the ledge yet - lol)

They're in the same phase where I live, I've talked to the state funding rep and I still can't line up a meeting with him, despite offering to drive all morning or just do one online. If they end up scouting me I'll be pretty recalcitrant, I find the idea of teleporting me eleven years backwards to benchmark my skills with Lego NXT robotics extremely patronizing. Like they're trying to co-opt me! I studied technology for over a decade before Specialisterne existed, have AS and I'm happy to help them.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

My clients/bosses usually don't notice anything different about me save for the fact I'm a hacker. I've got nothing against robotics or legos in their own right, my quarrel is with underwater basket weaving. If they were to use NXT properly, it would be as an office perk to help everyone think on their toes. I'm sure the percentage of NTs who know anything about robotics is much lower anyway. My idea of a plaything is a Fedora Netbook, it can deal with a whole lot more than Mindstorms.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos