Am I Included? Understanding autistic people’s inclusion in faith communities

Hello everyone! We are Rebekah Sims and Leanne McNeill, two members of teaching staff from the University of Strathclyde.

We are doing a research project called ‘Am I Included?’, which explores autistic people’s inclusion in faith communities. Both of us care deeply about making faith spaces more inclusive.

What we are doing: We are working with a range of faith communities to explore their inclusive practices. Ps & Gs Church is one of them. We’ve been invited to come to your worship services on Sunday 1st November. We are excited to be there.

We’ll be wearing black shirts and Strathclyde name tags. Feel free to come talk to us! We are happy to answer questions and we like getting to know people.

Why are we there: We will observe several activities, focusing on those leading activities and looking at the spaces provided. We will look for signs of inclusion, and we will look for areas where things could be made more inclusive.

Our plan for Sunday 1st November:

• We will observe the initial part of the 10am service.

• Then, we’ll join two of the children’s groups.

• In the children’s groups, we will also be looking at how the leaders do different activities in inclusive ways. We will look at how the spaces are set up.

• We will then observe the 12pm service.

• We will be at coffee hour, and we’d love to talk to you.

• We will take notes, but we are not taking any photographs or recordings.

• No one who worships or participates in activities at Ps & Gs will be named or personally identified in our notes.

What will we do with the information that we gather:

• We will use the information to help us understand inclusive practices in churches.

• Along with information we gather at other faith communities, we will write articles or other academic publications about inclusive practices.

• We will share a report with Ps & Gs Church staff to help them understand how their inclusive practices are working and what else they could do.

We want everyone to be able to worship and experience fellowship in comfortable and meaningful ways. The information we gather at Ps & Gs will help faith communities be inclusive places, especially for neurodivergent people.

This project is sponsored by The Centre of Autism, Research and Education @ Strathclyde. We have received ethic approval for this project from, Strathclyde Institute Ethics Committee. This means that our department has checked to make sure we are doing the project in a way that protects the people and communities who participate.

If you have any questions about this project and our presence on Sunday 1st November, please email leanne.mcneill@strath.ac.uk or rebekah.sims@strath.ac.uk. You can also ask Dave or Aurelie, and they can help you find us.