November 1, 2024
October marked Diversabilities Appreciation Month! And here at Aledade, our Diversabilities Employee Resource Group (ERG) – a community for all individuals impacted by disabilities and/or neurodiversity – led celebratory events, giveaways and more all month long. Meet a few of our amazing ERG members below.
Mat Kendall, President and Co-Founder of Aledade and Executive Sponsor of the Diversabilities ERG
I love all of our Aledade ERGs, but this one is near and dear to my heart. I’m dyslexic, and it’s fundamentally shaped who I am and who I have been throughout my whole life. But as I’ve learned, and as this ERG so perfectly embodies, just because you’re different doesn’t mean you can’t be strong. And we’re all here to support one another, recognize strength in inclusion and ultimately persevere.
My day-to-day, for example, is a whole series of coping mechanisms I’ve developed over my life – and they range from completely absurd to super useful. I live in constant fear of messing up people’s names (like an “a” at the end of a name can throw me off), but I tend to remember the first letter – so I’ll use nicknames and some hacks to help me get by. I also walk around everywhere with a notebook on me because I have to write things down to fully understand and process what I’m hearing. It helps me stay focused and engaged and ultimately helps me collect my thoughts. Additionally, whenever I present, I have to do so in “bullet points.” It’s how I make my mind focus on one thing at a time and structure my ideas in a way I can communicate with others.
And with bigger things, I have learned to love and appreciate editors – and it’s a godsend that here at Aledade, I’m surrounded by people who are patient with me, correct my typos (so I don’t, as a real-life example, forget the “l” in the word “public”) and help me organize the swirl of ideas in my head into a vision that can be communicated with words and pictures.
And the biggest thing of all – I’ve learned to give myself a lot of grace, and to also extend that grace to others.
Putting my President hat on, I love how our ERGs have so much energy, allow each and every one of us to bring our whole selves to work and truly hit on all of our core values – truly feeling inclusion and belonging, being in service to one another, being accountable to one another, being curious about one another and ultimately gathering evidence to better support one another. We’re all multifaceted, we all have multiple identities and intersectionalities…and the best way to advance the great work we do at Aledade is to ensure our employees – our most valuable resources – are able to feel whole and connected and accepted and energized. That’s truly Aledade-y.
Haley Rodge, Operations Coordinator, CACP Documentation Team
I joined the Diversabilities ERG because I wanted to be in a community where I was surrounded by individuals who may have the same abilities I do, so I don’t feel alone with my own struggles. Some days are better than others when it comes to my mental health, and I currently struggle with depression, anxiety, ADHD and PTSD – so my brain works differently than others. But because of these diversabilities, I offer a different outlook on things which brings a fresh perspective and a new way of thinking that may have not been thought about before.
During high-stress days, I often feel like I can’t move or that I’m stuck – which feels like having a brick wall in front of me hindering me from continuing with the day as planned. My body and jaw tense up and it can take me a while to calm down and relax. When this happens, I try to slow down and take a deep breath. I’ll usually go for a walk with my golden retriever Murphy, do some breathing exercises or go to a pilates class after work. I have also learned to better communicate with my supervisor on those not-so-good days, and this has helped me tremendously. I am blessed to have amazing support from my supervisor who checks in on my well-being and is accommodating to my needs.
Bringing my whole self to work means that all of the puzzle pieces that make me and who I am are accepted – and I am fortunate to have the accommodations and acceptance of my personal puzzle pieces from Aledade. And celebrating Diversabilities Appreciation Month here presents an extra special opportunity to celebrate and highlight our different abilities that once were (or still are) stigmatized or looked down upon or what have you. We take this opportunity to learn and grow to be more open-minded in our outlook on the world we live in. And by educating others on all of the different abilities, we can help those who may be silently struggling and show them they are not alone.
Kirk Fjeldheim, Chief Information Security Officer
I joined the Diversabilities ERG here at Aledade because I have a developmentally disabled and neurodiverse child, and there aren’t a lot of forums and places where I can go to find support and/or a community where my situation is truly understood.
My 5-year-old son Alex has an ultra-rare rare genetic disorder called MAN1B1-CDG – and he’s one of only 35 people in the world who currently has that diagnosis. He looks like a typically developing kid, but he is affected by his disorder and on the autism spectrum, and his disorder causes issues with speech and growth in addition to immunodeficiencies. A typical day with Alex includes speech, play, behavior and physical therapies. He is also regularly seen by a host of other specialists, and we have to actively check him for any kind of bacterial infection, which can quickly become life-threatening to him within days.
He is also very inquisitive and has fixation tendencies. He loves locks and, on more than one occasion, has unlocked every door in our house in the middle of the night. And, alternatively, he has put padlocks on every door and hidden the keys in a matter of minutes. Other fixations include all kinds of water and liquids – so hoses, carpet cleaners, colored liquid inside of toys, syrup – and power outlets. So if you’re preoccupied for even the shortest amount of time, any one of these things can peak his interest and create a scary situation.
Now that he’s 5, he goes to school for part of the day (my wife drops him off and picks him up) and we have a nanny to watch him in the afternoons until I’m off work and can spend time with him and put him to sleep at night. He is a really great kid and, in so many ways, is a completely typical boy – he likes to horse around and wrestle and play…beat up on his sister…play with the dog. He’s loving, he’s cute, he’s amazing. Though with his fixation problem and health issues and the need for us to constantly check for bacterial infections, or stress about a cold or flu turning deadly, we’re always dealing with worry in the back of our minds.
Other Aledade employees get to meet Alex when he walks in during a meeting, but otherwise I try to not bring my home life into a work context unless something specific comes up. But my experience has definitely made me more cognizant and aware of others who have special needs or have family members with special needs.
To me, Diversabilities Appreciation Month means raising awareness among those who are not involved. There’s often a fear, and we need a heart shift…we need people to pay attention and be inclusive and show love and care. It can be incredibly tough and isolating to either be an individual with a disability or a parent of a child with a disability – and a little understanding can go a long way.
Scott Danielson, Digital Communications Manager
I joined Aledade about six months ago, and during my new hire introduction on our weekly staff meeting, I mentioned that I was diagnosed with ADHD and general anxiety disorder. Very quickly on that call, I received a Slack message from our Diversabilities ERG lead encouraging me to join, and I’ve loved being part of it ever since.
In my day-to-day, I have a lot of self-enforced structure. I’m the first one up in my household, so I take my dogs out and get them fed so I can then get ready for work and not have anything else to think about. From there, I schedule out the hours in my day so I can be productive – otherwise, I have a tendency to shift focus or get caught up in various conversations and time will just evaporate.
For me, I’m all about being forthright about how my ADHD and anxiety can impact me as both a person and an employee within a work environment – that way, when I experience sensory overload or need to rely on a coping mechanism, it’s easy to explain since the context is already there. And people at Aledade have been very understanding. Additionally, working in a remote environment where I have so much control over my surroundings – particularly noise – has been huge for me. It gives me the space I need to build and structure and adjust my day as needed, especially since I’m often processing many different things all at once.
I think Diversabilities Appreciation month is about promoting awareness about how different things affect you – and it’s also about celebrating what differences in brain chemistry can mean for individuals, whether that’s celebrating extreme examples or simply the idiosyncrasies of it all. We all just want to get through the day. We all want to be successful. But we all operate a little differently, and that’s okay – it’s important to embrace that.