Adult ADHD Workshop

Join us for an interactive and inspiring morning where you will learn more about your particular ‘brand’ of ADHD, and co-create tips & tools perfectly suited to you. Our facilitators will provide information and activities for you to work through in small groups. You will leave the workshop armed with new ways of tackling common challenges. The morning will end with a panel and feedback session. 

Session 1: Perfectly, Imperfect Me – Lou Brown

Lou will discuss how fostering a healthy dose of self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-compassion is vital for thriving with ADHD. These traits not only assist adults with ADHD to embrace their unique strengths and develop personalised strategies to manage their challenges, they are also protective in nature in that they can assist adults with ADHD to feel good about themselves. For example, they can increase an adult with ADHD’s capacity to reduce self-criticism; decrease feelings of vulnerability and shame; improve emotional reactivity; and provide a means from which adults with ADHD can comfort themselves should they stumble. Lou will then lead participants through a series of exercises aimed at developing or enhancing these personally empowering traits in adults with ADHD.

Lou Brown is an ADHD Coach, Educator & Advocate. She is also the author of ADHD in Primary School: a comprehensive guide to understanding and supporting students with ADHD in the classroom and the website Thriving with ADHD. Prior to becoming a coach, Lou worked as a Registered Nurse for over 17 years. She held several senior nursing positions, the last being Clinical Nurse Specialist Wound Care and Stomal Therapy specialist. Lou left her nursing career behind when she and her son were diagnosed with ADHD and set about on a new career path determined to make a difference in the lives of those with ADHD.

Lou is actively involved in ADHD advocacy and is a lived experience speaker. Additionally, Lou runs education sessions and workshops for parents, adults and teachers and regularly helps facilitate the ADHD WA Adult Support Group. Her first book for children with ADHD, Some Kids, is due out in February 2019.

Session 2: Taming Time – Kim Dixon

Time in physics is defined by its measurement; keeping track of time in our daily lives is a cognitive executive function. Managing time is a recognised challenge for People with ADHD. This session aims to give some insight into the reasons for this time management complexity, explore your relationship with time and provide some alternatives to manage time better. People with ADHD are known for their multitude of interests, boundless enthusiasm and spontaneity. They are often also notorious for being chaotic and late. Failures to meet agreed timelines can produce unintended consequences that have a ripple effect across relationships in professional and personal life. and ultimately impact self-confidence, creating stressors that exacerbate the cycle.This session will generate strategies for managing commitments, prioritising effort, looking at time triggers differently, identifying time black holes and time calculation myths and putting strategies in place to keep focused on the things that matter to you. All of this will be conducted through the lens of ADHD.

Kim is a time urgent, delivery focused individual fascinated by the inherent exuberance and creativity of ADHD. Educated in Literature and Law (BA LLB) and more recently Psychology, Kim is currently completing specialist ADHD Coach training.With over 15 years of experience in management consulting, project management and mothering she has worked with multiple personalities, and learning styles across a wide range of industries, to get projects and initiatives delivered.

A passion for empowering people to achieve their best, in team and individual situations, has identified the importance of a healthy relationship with time. Time is the great lever and constant to be managed in the pursuit of individual success and to which no single approach can be universally applied. Kim’s multidisciplinary experience provides a broad base from which to speak about the real-world implications of a complicated relationship with time management and options for taking back control.

Session 3: Self Care is not an optional extra – Toni Griffin

When living with ADHD it is easy to get caught up in keeping up with your brain and the world around you. It’s easy to forget that self-care is an important part of maintaining energy, good mental wellbeing and avoiding burnout. Everyday tasks can become overwhelming, relationships and family life suffer and ADHD symptoms more apparent when we don’t value the need to take time for to look after ourselves and our needs. A good self-care routine can help to reduce stresses and strains of daily life while learning to respect and value yourself, empowering you to take control of your own journey. This session will explore the importance of making time for self-care, the benefits of self-care and ways you can fit self-care into your daily routine. We will work together to explore what self-care means for you, different ways to engage in self-care routines and how this will support your daily life. We will share the obstacles we have encountered to maintaining self-care and how we can overcome them. Together we will support each other to identify our own self-care needs and make a plan to include self-care into our daily lives, because self-care is not an indulgence it should be a priority and is necessary for survival.

Toni is part of our admin team at ADHD WA. She is a trained teacher and has worked in primary and early years education before taking some time to support her own child who has ADHD. In her roles in the education industry she has supported teachers and other educators with practical strategies and approaches to support and empower all learners and their individual needs. Toni is passionate about raising awareness of ADHD, reducing stigma and encouraging others to become the drivers in their own journeys to overcome barriers and limitations and live life to its fullest.