In community and non-profit spaces, especially those led by disabled, neurodivergent, and queer people, there is a quiet pattern many of us recognise but rarely name.
People arrive curious.
They are welcomed generously.
They are introduced to language, culture, networks, and people they had not previously encountered.
They are supported, transported, introduced, vouched for, and held with care.
And then, once they are established, they disappear.
This is not about growth.
It’s about extraction.
Community Is Not a Training Ground for Individual Advancement
Grassroots, lived-experience-led spaces are not neutral environments. They are built through unpaid labour, emotional risk, cultural translation, and deep relational work. They exist because systems failed us, not because they are convenient incubators for careers.
From a disability justice perspective, community spaces are not just “supportive settings”. They are survival infrastructures. They emerge where institutions have excluded, medicalised, pathologised, or ignored people altogether.
When someone enters these spaces primarily to:
-
gain contacts
-
build credibility
-
access supervision, placements, or professional legitimacy
-
absorb language without accountability
-
borrow proximity to marginalised communities
and then leaves without reciprocity, reflection, or repair, harm occurs even if no harm was “intended”.
Intent does not cancel impact.
This mirrors a broader extractive logic that exists far beyond individuals: a system that encourages people to take what they need from community in order to advance, without asking who pays the cost once they leave.
Neuro-Affirming Spaces Require Reflection, Not Just Vocabulary
Neuro-affirming practice is not something you inherit by proximity, credentials, or a single course or unit of study. It is not a badge you earn or a language set you memorise.
Neuro-affirming practice asks something quieter and harder.
It requires:
-
the capacity to reflect on disagreement
-
willingness to sit with discomfort
-
accountability when values clash
-
humility when lived experience challenges professional authority
-
recognition of invisible labour
Without these, what remains is performance, not practice.
Using the language of affirmation without the ethics of relationship risks turning neurodivergent culture into a branding exercise rather than a commitment.
The Labour You Don’t See Is Still Labour
Community work often involves:
-
setting up spaces
-
carrying physical and emotional loads
-
holding responsibility while others observe
-
doing the invisible organising that makes events and organisations function
This labour is rarely listed on resumes. It is not always funded. It is often carried by disabled, neurodivergent, and queer people whose capacity is already constrained by systems not designed for them.
When others benefit from this labour without contributing to it, acknowledging it, or staying accountable to it, the very hierarchies community spaces exist to dismantle are quietly reproduced.
Community ethics asks us to notice not just who is present, but who is holding the weight.
Conflict Is Not Failure. Avoidance Is.
Disagreement is inevitable when values are real. What matters is what happens next.
Neuro-affirming spaces value:
-
repair over disappearance
-
dialogue over withdrawal
-
accountability over silence
-
boundaries over compliance
-
respect for choice in communication style
Benefiting from collective labour and then disengaging without reflection is not neutrality. It is a choice that shifts the cost onto those who feel it deepest.
From a disability justice lens, accountability is not punishment. It is how trust is sustained.
Credentials Do Not Replace Accountability
Formal education has value. Professional training matters. Knowledge grows when it is shared.
But credentials do not erase the need for relational ethics.
Community-led spaces are not obligated to defer to titles, degrees, or institutional authority, particularly when those credentials are used to override lived experience rather than learn from it.
Expertise that does not revisit itself is not expertise.
It is rigidity dressed as confidence.
Neuro-affirming practice asks professionals to remain porous, not protected.
This Is Bigger Than Individuals: A Structural Pattern
These dynamics do not arise in a vacuum.
We live in systems shaped by extractive capitalism, where:
-
relationships are treated as resources
-
speed is rewarded over care
-
upward mobility is prioritised over sideways accountability
-
success is measured individually, while labour is shared
Community spaces often absorb the costs of these systems, while institutions benefit from their outputs.
Naming this pattern helps us move away from personal blame and toward shared responsibility.
For Funders, Professionals, and Institutions
If you fund, partner with, employ, or credential people who move through community spaces, this reflection is for you too.
Consider:
-
How is community labour recognised, compensated, or protected?
-
Who is expected to be endlessly generous, and who is allowed to disengage cleanly?
-
What accountability exists when community knowledge is taken but relationships are not sustained?
-
Are lived-experience-led organisations resourced, or even merely referenced?
If community spaces are good enough to train professionals, they are good enough to be respected, resourced, and listened to.
Sustainability is not just about outputs.
It is about how people are treated along the way.
We Name This Because We Care
This reflection is not about blame or gatekeeping. It is about sustainability.
Grassroots organisations burn out when generosity is treated as infinite and accountability as optional. Naming these patterns is how we protect the people who make community possible in the first place.
We believe:
-
community is relational, not transactional
-
growth should not come at others’ expense
-
alignment is shown through action, not affiliation
-
neuro-affirming practice begins with how we treat one another, listen to each other’s stories, respect each other’s boundaries, and trust each other’s truths
If you enter community spaces, come prepared to be present, reflect, and remain accountable, even when paths diverge.
Because community is not a ladder.
It is a living system. 🌱
