Advocacy and Developing Affirming Relationships

This chapter examines the role of advocacy and affirming workplace relationships in supporting neurodivergent social workers. It explores how managerial attitudes, organisational cultures, and relational practices shape whether neurodivergent practitioners feel safe to disclose, request support, and sustain their practice. Drawing on critical disability theory, attachment theory, and research on psychological safety, the chapter analyses how neurodivergence is often constructed as organisational risk, and how this framing contributes to masking, burnout, and attrition. The chapter reframes risk through an inclusive lens, positioning difference as relational and contextual rather than individual deficit. It highlights the importance of managers acting as secure bases, offering consistency, attunement, and responsive support. Through research evidence and lived experience examples, the chapter demonstrates how advocacy, reasonable adjustments, and inclusive leadership practices can move support from discretionary goodwill to ethical and structural responsibility. Readers will gain insight into how affirming relationships enhance trust, wellbeing, and professional effectiveness, and how advocacy within social work organisations is central to enacting the profession&s;s commitments to equity, dignity, and social justice.