The pandemic has had a significant impact across everybody’s social lives this year, and so returning to normality might be something we’re not feeling very confident about! We have seen a breadth of impacts on peoples’ mental health and social confidence. But did you know that social confidence in Autistic people and those with high levels of autistic traits, are at greater risk of low mood, and mental health issues? There can be barriers to their social participation and engagement with society which can impact on their wellbeing. Find out more in our Borrow A Researcher session, where there will be plenty opportunity to ask questions!

Dr Mary Stewart and the Social Interaction, Mental Health, and Wellbeing (SIMHW) lab work with autistic people and people with lived experience of mental ill-health, their careers, service providers and clinicians. They identify priorities from the autistic community and autistic people which most affect their mental health, well-being, and social participation.

Borrow A Researcher is an event series generated from the Engaging Libraries Lothian Lugs project, in collaboration with Heriot Watt University. We are delighted Heriot Watt University have continued the Borrow A Researcher event series as part of Falkirk Science Festival, designed to share research across schools, libraries, education centres and much more! It is a programme that allows us to ‘borrow' a researcher for a session.