Applications are open on a rolling basis.

APPLY HERE.

In your application, you will be asked to briefly outline how you meet the following criteria:

• Valid student placement within a relevant undergraduate or postgraduate university OR college program in the UK (e.g., creative therapies, sociology, community development).

• Recent DBS check with certificate ready to submit. (We do not have the capacity to pay for your DBS check.)

• Personal lived experience with neurodivergence, including but not limited to mental illness, mental distress, madness, trauma, addiction, disordered eating, psychosis, altered states, suicidality, and/or similar. Clinical diagnosis not required.

• Demonstrable alignment with NEUROMANCERS’ values of abolition, autonomy, and access.

• Robust understanding of and ability to articulate a commitment to consent-led and person-centred practice.

If you are unsure as to whether you meet the criteria, please reach out.

About

When completing a student placement with NEUROMANCERS, you’ll be part of a community of care workers committed to autonomous mental health care.

NEUROMANCERS is not a therapeutic service or organisation - our usual work is rooted in peer support and disability justice principles, and favours non-clinical mental health care options.

However, we recognise the importance and value of therapeutic spaces, and know this is something largely inaccessible and unaffordable. We also know that the mainstream clinical mental health care landscape does not always value care work and often asks workers to compromise their values by having inflexible procedures and approaches.

Our strategic goal in hosting student placements are to:

• help root the next generation of therapists and similar in radical, community-led principles

• offer a uniquely affirming and access-forward opportunity for marginalised and neurodivergent+ mental health workers/students

• improve access to therapeutic support for neurodivergent+ people

Expectations

Student placements are for a minimum of one full year. The hours and timings of your placement can be flexible to the need of your university or college course. These student placements are unpaid and voluntary.

During your placement, you’ll train in NEUROMANCERS’ original and first-of-its kind Peer Solidarity Curriculum to develop specialised knowledge in neurodivergent-affirming practice.

Following this, you’ll engage in a minimum of two types of support:

• ongoing 1:1 support

• ongoing group facilitation

• emergency/one-off 1:1 support

The types of support you engage in during your student placement are subject to availability and suitability.

You may also be allowed to pitch and design your own unique therapeutic offering!

Your student placement will include:

• holding therapeutic relationships

• managing inbox, calendar, note-taking and deadlines

• practising safeguarding

• attending supervision consultations

• reflecting on your experience

• evaluating the impact of your work