Jill Finch

  • ♾️ World Autistic Pride Day ♾️

    (aka: Turns Out Being Autistic Isn’t All Bad) It’s perhaps a shame that the person who invented this chose a day in LGBTQIA+ Pride Month — this is a wholly separate thing. Many of us do have queer identities, but today, for us, is simply about celebrating our neurodivergent fabulousness. What do we have to

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  • The Story Sanctuary: A Prologue!

    At the start of Creative Health and Wellbeing Week, I’m so chuffed to write the kind of post that happens so rarely: one that truly begins with “Once upon a time…” My bid for Sanderstead Library has been confirmed as the winner. [Yay!] We now begin a slow, inclusive and discursive process of shaping the

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  • What Are We Doing On Here?

    Written for LinkedIn but sharing here too in solidarity and love for my trans family and friends. LinkedIn began with a clear mission: to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. For whose ends? We’re almost all masked on LinkedIn. Trust me — I’m neurodivergent, I know. Chasing the algorithm, curating

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  • When “Burnout” Isn’t the Whole Story: Supporting Young Adults through Overwhelm and the Messy Middle

    I’ve been sitting with something that’s coming up more and more in conversations with young people – especially those who are neurodivergent, sensitive, or feeling lost in the leap from adolescence into adulthood. They’re saying they’re burnt out. They’re wondering if they’re chronically ill. They’re withdrawing, overwhelmed, and full of “I can’ts”. And I believe

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  • Flipping the meeting: the cost of becoming enormous.

    A friend alerted me to a piece on LinkedIn by Dr Tunde Okewale that explored ‘Belonging, Power and Identity’ and how you carry the weight of belonging in rooms not built for you — read those amazing words here. Dr Okewale wrote: “Some spaces were never designed to hold your full self,” and these words

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  • Happy International Womens Day

    To all the parent/carer women and all the stay-at-home mums raising kids who need them around more than we typically believe kids need their mums nowadays. To all the women who’ve been to parties and had someone say, “So what do you do?” and then watched the mild recoil and micro-expressions of awkwardness when what

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  • Thoughts from Softer Centres

    Bea, my teen, and I co-facilitated two workshops for autistic kids and families in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre, inside an epic (and very pink) temporary structure called Wiggle Wonderland. We built dens. …which is the most simplistic summary of events. For those who like it long-form, more details are below! Kids like dens. They like lying

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  • A little more about me

    I just realised I’ve passed the 500 followers mark on Instagram. Whilst that’s not a remarkable milestone to most, it’s happened organically and represents significantly more people than I currently hang out with IRL. A good excuse to do an ‘about me’ for the recent arrivals. I am and do many things, but they all

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  • Existing on the internet: insult, inaccuracy and erasure

    Did you know I’m an expert in Dick Whittington? You can see info about my recent talk “Dick Whittington – the man, the myth (and the cat)” at Trinity Church, Mill Hill, here. It’s on the internet. So it’s true. Right? A Collective is developing a course offering for secondary schools, further education colleges, and

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  • The Story Sanctuary – proposal

    For those who don’t know, Croydon council made the difficult decision to close four libraries. As tough as that may have been, there’s now a beautiful (empty) building very near me that needs someone to love it and (ideally) do something amazing with it to benefit the community. As if I could resist… Here’s the

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