Our values

Collaboration

The WANDA project is being developed in partnership with lived experience experts. Lived experience experts are people who can contribute unique knowledge to the research process. They can be research participants or members of communities that are affected by the research. For this study, lived experience experts are those who are pregnant or have been pregnant in the past, and/or are neurodivergent, and/or have experienced depression or anxiety. Some have research experience (as participants or researchers themselves), while some do not. Lived experience experts are full and equal members of the WANDA team.

Transparency

We will always aim to be transparent about what research we are doing, why we are dong it, how we are doing it, and what the findings are. The lived experience experts that are part of the team will have access to all study documents. We will regularly post updates on this website.

Diversity and Inclusivity

We recognise the diversity of our communities and want to ensure that diverse perspectives are integrated in our work. For our survey, we will regularly monitor recruitment progress to ensure that our sample adequately reflects the diversity of the wider community. For the work done within our team, we will ensure that we allow everyone to communicate in their preferred mode. For example, some team members may prefer to contribute to the study only via written communication (e.g., emails, collaborative google docs), while others may prefer to participate in focus group discussions. Lived experience experts taking part in focus group discussions will be given the option to keep their cameras off or on, and to participate in whatever way they prefer (e.g., speaking or typing). If preferred, they will be given the opportunity to have a one-to-one meeting instead of meeting in a group setting. We will aim to provide any materials that will be discussed in meetings in advance, with as much notice as possible.

Respect

We will always aim to use respectful and inclusive language, that is in line with community preferences.

For example, we will use words such as

"pregnant person" or "birthing person" alongside "pregnant woman" (unless we are talking specifically about women)
"partner" or "spouse" instead of "husband/wife" or "girlfriend/boyfriend"
"condition" instead of "disorder" or "disease"
"having high/low support needs" instead of "being high/low functioning"
"co-occurring conditions" instead of "co-morbid conditions"
"psychiatric conditions" or "neurodevelopmental conditions" instead of "psychopathology"
"increased likelihood (of autism)" instead of "increased risk (of autism)"
"areas of interest" instead of "special interests"
When talking about autism, we will use identity-first language (e.g., "autistic person"), instead of person-first language (e.g., "person with autism")

We understand that people have different preferences (e.g., someone may prefer referring to themselves using person-first language). In these cases, when interacting with people, we will ensure to use whatever language they prefer.

We welcome feedback from the public on this document (or any other aspects of this website). This website will be updated periodically. Comments or suggestions can be sent to alexandra.lautarescu@kcl.ac.uk