This Croydon cafe is building a welcoming space for neurodivergent communities

For neurodivergent people across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, the Side by Side Collective has helped them realise their strengths and rediscover their confidence in work spaces and social situations.

Social worker Robyn Killey launched the organisation a little over a year ago after hearing from children on the autism spectrum that they didn’t have anywhere to go where they felt accepted in the community.

What started as The Local Umbrella Cafe on Croydon’s Main Street has since grown to include an employment program for neurodivergent people, a community hub and an after-school program.

Robyn said she was proud of how far the organisation has come and hoped they could continue to grow to provide support for more neurodivergent individuals and communities in other areas.

“We started really small and it’s grown into something that’s much bigger than I thought it would be,” she told the Eastern Melburnian.

“I love having a space that is open to anyone in the community but has that particular focus on making people feel safe and like they belong.

“One of the big things for me is working on what we do and how we do it well in order for it to be replicable.”

Robyn said she also hoped the group’s work could also help in terms of community education to open the doors for more neurodivergent individuals to find work in their fields of interest.

“I think there can be a misconception about people who are neurodivergent that either there’s a lot of use of the labels of high-functioning and low-functioning and not really a good understanding of what it actually looks like to be neurodivergent,” she said.

“We’re very much about looking at that particular person and how we can meet their needs.

“The reason that people who are autistic particularly find it difficult to find jobs is because if they do disclose they’re autistic, people have in the back of their mind a bunch of assumptions about what that’s going to look like in the workplace.”