About KCL Neurodiversity & Mental Health Society
KCL Neurodiversity and Mental Health Society provides a space for students with lived experience of neurodivergent and/or mental health conditions at KCL.
The society launched in November 2021, and since then have engaged over 200 members and formed a community on Discord, where we chat, share tips, and get to know other students who may have similar daily experiences to our own.
We also have a channel for our pets, have film nights, and spaces for different marginalised groups. The society is run by a committee, all of whom have lived experiences of their own.
The committee is diverse, including postgraduate research students, parents, carers, mature students, distance learners, international students, forced migrants, and various other groups often less represented by student societies.
Through the collective effort of several different committee members, we have been able to accomplish some gratifying work over the last year. We successfully applied for a grant for ‘equipment’ that could help make being on campus less stressful (e.g. fidget cubes, dyslexia reading aids, noise-canceling headphones, badges requesting not to be touched, etc), which will be placed in 6 locations across the KCL campuses. We have launched events, ranging from Careers events to more casual coffee meets. We have also delivered training on understanding neurodivergence to different departments and staff teams at KCL. Over the summer of 2022, we ran a campaign to improve representation of disabled students at universities across the UK for young people going to university for the first time.
Join us at www.tinyurl.com/NDMHSignUp, where you’ll find the link to our Discord server.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who can join your society?
A: Any King’s student can join, but we have some servers on our Discord that are only open to people with lived experience of neurodivergence and/or ongoing mental health conditions.
By neurodivergence we mean people with specific learning difficulties, ADHD, ASD/C, sensory processing conditions, Tourette’s, epilepsy, brain injury, long covid, and any other conditions that can affect executive functioning or your processing of information. You do not need to have a formal diagnosis, self-identification is valid in our view.
Q: Why do you have a form to join your society? This seems counterintuitive.
A: We’re very sorry for having a form for joining our society. We agree with you. Unfortunately we have to collect certain details so we can follow the King’s safeguarding procedure. We had to persuade a few folks that our society is truly the safe space it is, and that we are able to act in case anyone ever discloses a safeguarding risk. The form is as short as we could make it and if you need it in another format or prefer to give the information in some other way, just let us know. Please believe us that we are not the form-filling type, either.
Q: Can I join your committee?
A: Please send Syeda an email and we’ll let you know if there are any roles available. Our elections will be in April in general, but as we have quite a flexible committee of people with their own ongoing lived experience, we sometimes have openings and shared roles.
Q: Can you give us some training about neurodiversity / mental health?
A: Yes. Get in touch!
Q: Do you collaborate with other student societies?
A: Yes, at KCL and beyond. We can advise you on how to make your society more inclusive or accessible, or we can collaborate on a joint project. Let us know your ideas!
Get in touch!
Please email: [email protected]@gmail.com