The Divergence Department

Kerri arrives sceptical, Luisa brings receipts. Together they go behind the scenes of coaching sessions and get honest about its limits: it can help you survive a broken system, but it should never be the excuse for not fixing one. Along the way, they find out why you don’t need a tidy goal to begin, why the perfect system doesn’t exist and why a human coach beats an AI that just nods along.

Two major UK reports on neurodivergence came out a week apart this October. Within days, one of them was attached to a BBC headline it doesn’t actually support. Kerri has a question she can’t let go of: how much evidence does it take before something changes? Luisa, coming from Germany, where there’s hardly any data to argue with, is a little jealous anyway. Then they get to the question most orga...

Kerri and Luisa are celebrating one whole year of friendship, and you're invited to the party. Some people just feel like home the moment you meet them. In this episode, Kerri and Luisa look back on the year since their friendship clicked into place (spoiler: it took about five minutes) and what it means when someone feels like kin. Along the way, they laugh about the glorious chaos of editing...

Kerri went away and did the reading, and it turns out she'd been calling three different things by one name. Distraction, mind wandering, incubation — one of them comes from outside you, two of them come from inside, and only one of them is what workplaces actually punish you for. A year to the day since the first message that started all this, we take the tangent that ended the last episode and f...

Ever lock into a task for hours without noticing the time, then can't focus for five minutes the next day? In this episode, Luisa and Kerri unpack the differences between flow and focus, and why they so often get confused for one another. They trace where the idea of flow actually comes from, then get personal about what hyperfocus feels like with ADHD versus flow for an autistic brain, and wh...

Someone tells you to rest, and your brain goes: rest from what , exactly? In this episode, Kerri and Luisa pull apart the tangled, oddly loaded idea of "relaxation" and why the version other people mean is so rarely the one that actually works for them. Luisa unpacks why a packed, activity-filled holiday can feel more restorative than doing nothing. Kerri admits her idea of a good time barely rese...

In this episode, we sit down with Andrea Strohmayr , neuroarchitecture expert, to unpack how the spaces we live and work in quietly shape our brains, our moods, and our ability to function like actual humans. Spoiler: modernism has a lot to answer for. We dig into what "neuroinclusive" design actually means, why your open-plan office might be sabotaging everyone's focus, and how some...

What does a lanyard have to do with rethinking how we build workplaces? Everything, actually. This episode, Kerri and Luisa dig into what really happens when accessibility gets left to individual goodwill instead of built into the system, sparked by a real incident that reignited debate over the sunflower lanyard. They trace where the scheme came from, why it's so often misunderstood, and how...

Ever notice how one offhand comment from a boss or an unexpected full stop in a message from a friend can spiral into hours of replaying? That reaction has a name: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, an intense emotional response to perceived criticism that shows up especially often, though not exclusively, for neurodivergent people. In this episode, Luisa and Kerri dig into what RSD actually is and wh...

The other week we got into childhood memory: how we form it, what we hold onto, and what we're genuinely not sure about. This week, we're following the thread into adulthood. If you never had the chance to just be yourself, to practice knowing what you need, how do you ask for it in a workplace? And what happens when organisations are built on the assumption that people will speak up, when...

Kerri and Luisa dig into how ADHD and autism shape the way we form, store, and retrieve memories and why some of us remember the exact texture of a carpet from 1994 but not what we had for breakfast, why so many childhood memories arrive as feelings or sensations rather than scenes, and what it means to look back at your childhood and suddenly understand it differently. They get into the way maski...

In this episode, Luisa and Kerri make a very compelling case for bringing more joy, play, and shameless enthusiasm into your everyday life. Yes, even at work. Turns out, adulting doesn't have to mean becoming terminally serious. They dive into why embracing your inner child (the curious, giggly, easily-distracted-by-dandelions one) can actually make you more creative, more empathetic, and way...

This week we sat down with the best of intentions: recommend a book each. Simple, right? Reader, it was not simple. Picking just one book turned out to be its own whole thing, and what followed was less a polished recommendation list and more a live, unfiltered demonstration of what it's actually like inside our brains when faced with too many options and not enough certainty. We spiralled, we...

Is professionalism actually about doing great work or just playing the part? In this episode, Luisa and Kerri get into the messy reality behind workplace “norms,” from dress codes and hierarchy to the subtle pressure to mask who you really are. They unpack where these ideas came from, who they benefit, and why they might be holding us back especially when it comes to neurodiversity. If the future...

We all adjust who we are depending on the situation… but when does that stop being social awareness and start becoming something else? In this episode, we take a deep dive into neurodivergent masking — what it is, why we do it and what it actually costs. Using recent comments from Uta Frith as a starting point, we unpack how masking has been (mis)understood in autism research, how it can act as a...

We read the Neurodiversity Index Report 2026 so you don’t have to… but also, we think you really probably should! In this episode, we dig into the UK’s latest Neurodiversity Index — a report designed to measure how neurodivergent people are actually experiencing work, and how organisations are showing up when it comes to inclusion. It looks at everything from awareness and workplace practices to t...

In this episode, Luisa and Kerri unpack the reality of navigating parties, networking and connection as neurodivergent people. From surprise plans to post-COVID shifts and the pressure to “show up” a certain way. We explore creative, low-pressure ways to gather (yes, including PowerPoint and pizza parties ), how to make networking actually human, and why shared purpose matters more than small talk...

What if you weren’t “bad at school”… school was just bad at you? In this episode, we’re joined by our intern Charlotte to gently interrogate the systems we were told just needed a bit more effort. From classrooms to boardrooms, we explore what actually makes learning and working hard for neurodivergent people and why it’s rarely about intelligence, motivation or “trying harder.” We chat teacher-st...

Think autistic people lack empathy ? Spoiler: that’s a myth, one baked into decades of research. In this episode, Luisa and Kerri dig into the science (and the research that got it wrong), unpacking how early studies misread social differences as deficits. Enter the Double Empathy Problem: a game-changing idea showing that communication isn’t one-sided. Misunderstanding happens both ways and recog...

Join Kerri and Luisa on their escapades through Berlin, where finally meeting in person turns into a delightful mix of laughs and unexpected discoveries. Along the way, they dive into the accidentally neuroinclusive moments and the art of clear communication — all while sharing stories, insights, and some exciting updates straight from the city that inspired it all. Whether you’re neurodivergent,...

In this episode, Luisa and Kerri pull apart the stories we’ve been told about productivity and ask who they really serve. Through a neurodivergent lens, they explore how work becomes tied to identity, why invisible labour goes unnoticed, and how the pressure to perform can slowly lead to burnout — even when we’re “doing everything right.” This episode is an invitation to loosen your grip on produc...

Who decides the pace we’re all expected to live by — and what happens when yours doesn’t fit? In this episode, Luisa and Kerri explore pacing through a neurodivergent lens, unpacking the unspoken norms that shape how we work, rest, celebrate and show up in everyday life. From Christmas routines and New Year expectations to workplace assumptions and energy limits, they question why one pace is trea...

In this episode of The Divergence Department, Kerri and Luisa take a wander through the hobby graveyard, you know those once-beloved interests we picked up, poured ourselves into, and quietly let go of. We chat about how hobbies connect to neurodivergence and identity, why capitalism keeps whispering “you should monetize that” , and who even gets to decide what counts as a hobby anyway. Along the...

In our very first episode, we - Luisa (ADHD) and Kerri (Autistic)- pull back the curtain on who we are, how we met and why we created The Divergence Department . We share the stories of how each of us discovered we were neurodivergent, what those realisations meant for our lives and how they shaped our journey into becoming neuroinclusion consultants. From misunderstandings and missed signs to “ah...