Darrin, welcome. Like, it's been a year since we did this last time. So I was like, so the big like, well, time's playing. Like, the big question. So how's your year been?

Hi, Henry, and thanks for having us back. How has the year been for ADHD in New Zealand? Well, it's we've had some big accomplishments. And because of those, we have a resource issue as, I guess, many not for profits do at the moment. The highlight for us is is we worked with the at the the Australian ADHD Professionals Association, and we bought two world leading experts over to New Zealand in March, and they ran a lecture series. More importantly, they have the latest guidelines for how to treat, assess, and assist those with ADHD. It's a amazing piece of work which took them years. So we brought them over, and the outcome of it after they talked to government, all of the ministries that were relevant, as well as all the medical colleges.

Is there's an agreement to start the process to adapting the Australian, guidelines, which for New Zealand is a huge step. Huge, huge step. And it might take us a couple of years, but that means in Australasia with aligned practices.

Yeah. And it's we've talked about this before. So the the Australian ones are based on the British ones, but significantly more detailed and built up. They've been you've done work to then evolve them again. And I think at some point, our hope is to take them back again to help evolve The UK ones because NICE car lines are now a little old. But in, say, Scotland, there are no guidelines. So they Yep. They had some guidelines, and then they decided they were too old. So they banned those, and now they have none. So, like, the the importance of these things cannot be, you know, underestimated.

Yeah. Agree. I mean, the in New Zealand, on the Ministry of Health, all they have on their website is a link to the World Health Organization's definition of ADHD, which is just it's just not helpful. It's more on the hopeless category. So this is a big step. This is a really big step. And the fact that we don't have to spend four, five years creating them and can just build on the Australian guidelines is is enormous.

That's great. That's great work. Yeah. And what what else has been going on?

There's probably two other key things we've looked at for this year. The first, a bit of a governance review, and what we've done is realized we wanna make sure that we represent our community. So we've lived we've set up a lived experience, group, and they will have two seats on our board once their review has finished. And the amazing thing for us was just one ad about what we want to do, for 10 positions. I think we got nearly 36 applications, and they're amazing. So this is gonna be our connection. It gives us a sounding board. We're able to better represent our community, which is spread throughout New Zealand. The second step, and it hasn't gone as fast as we've like, is we've set up a combined research body with Auckland University.

One aspect of, ADHD in New Zealand is that, most of the research is done overseas. So we don't have a a Tarawa, New Zealand view of ADHD, And it's really important that we start to get that. So we've got Auckland University School of Medicine population studies. We're gonna be able to create that. And, actually, the other thing I'll add is one thing is is we get asked to help with research all the time and, which is great, masters and PhD thesis. And sometimes they cover the same topics. So the idea of this research body is also to connect the dots and get researchers, talking to each other as well. So that's sort of the the key highlights for the year. I have to admit, a low light is.

Getting the guidelines through working through the bureaucracy that's our health sector has cost us a lot of money. This is not funded, so we have to drive that work ourselves. And so, we're well and truly into reserves and making cutbacks, but sometimes, when it's important, it's time to focus.

What what was the how have you had to so people understand. Because people Ah. Lobbying for change and making a difference, like, it's it's hard. It's Yeah. Takes a lot of effort. Like, you you have to sort of share how the sort of where you've had to spend resource and to.

There there's a saying in New Zealand that I learned. If you wanna get social change, you need 500 cups of coffee. So when we started on this journey to get the change we needed three years ago, we started recording the cups of coffee. And coffee number 282, that's when we actually had the minister of health saying, okay. I see what you're doing. We need to talk about this. Now we're up to about coffee number 410. And in some ways, we've made a lot of progress, and in some ways, we haven't. We just need to still keep having those conversations and meetings. We need to keep making sure that it's at top of mind and progressing it. And, unfortunately, our Ministry of Health, which is known as won't.

Fund the work, though they agreed to the guidelines. They agreed to the work being done as long as they don't have to pay for it, which is disappointing. So we've had to step up and fund it ourselves. We've had a CEO slash program manager drive it, and this is where it's become enormously expensive. The good news is is we are making progress, so it hasn't stopped. The not so good news is that some of the things we used to do, we've had to make cutbacks or cut back on hours on most of our team, which sounds like we've a huge team. We really only have two half time FTE and a contractor. So we've had to cut hours, and we have to cut back in the chat everywhere. And.

I keep saying we've got three months of money left before we're no more, or I think we're up to about four months now. So we're making progress.

Yeah. The time you know, I love that analogy of 500 coffees. I actually particularly love the fact you've actually recorded them. And obviously, what you're talking about is that the coffee is a meeting. It's sitting down with someone having a coffee and talking with them. And that changed taking lot of time to to make happen. And the the the effort is enormous, and you've you've done extraordinary strides in using it. Yeah. Thanks.

I think the key to it is we've done regular surveys. We're about to start our fourth and fifth surveys and to actually able to go to government in these bodies and say things like, current waiting time to see a specialist is nine months. Depression is an issue for fifty to sixty percent of our members. And most people, when they're trying to see a specialist, tooth a third, sorry, just look to give up. And in those situations, when you've got those facts, even if it's just a survey, not a scientific based research program, is enough to hopefully, you know, get us in the door.

That's like, I that's a question we've not looked at, actually, look to give up. Like, we have a huge issue at the moment. There's a pilot happening in the York area, which is significantly stopping people going and getting an assessment. So they have to do a thing called the Do It Profiler. And initially, when launched, you had to meet three criteria, one of three criteria, one of which was you risk of taking your own life, risk harm to others, or you're in family court, risk having your family broken up. And so there's been some erosion, but it's still ninety percent of people get removed. And that point around people giving up, like they're in trouble, they're struggling, and you're asking them to jump this hurdle.

I don't think that's a question we've pushed on actually. It's we should. I think it's a good it's really and that's actually a really good example. So something else has been happening over this period. So one of the aims of the global conference is to bring together the charities, charities across the world for us to essentially, in the nicest possible way, steal each other's best ideas and talk through Exactly. Darrin and I have been meeting every month and talking through. I'm just about now going to steal that idea. I think that's something we should be doing. And we've not been doing any of surveys. I think we should. I think it's a really great idea. And then on the flip side, I think you've been taking our so we've got a workplace.

We've got a pack for someone with ADHD to give to their boss. That was something you learned about. We're like, I would like that. So you got we sent you the original documents in editable form, which I'm and I believe you're now now using it, which is Yeah. Wonderful thing. And I think this is the most important thing. Technology enables.

The power of ADHD to be turned on, enables us to connect. Because it's really interesting across the world, these different ADHD community bodies are at different stages, but they all have the same problem. So if we all power each other on, you know you know, watch out. Is what I can say to government. Yeah.

I see. And some of the challenges also in the populations, the challenge of late diagnosis, challenge of of women and girls diagnosis, challenge of inattentive not being picked up, challenge of what what's a good workplace adjustment, what can be done, should be done. All of those things are are things we all we all share. So Yeah. Totally.

Totally. And it's just small ideas. I mean, the workplace idea or the work that you did there is really, really simple. So I have to admit, in my real life, I work, and and I've set up a neurodiversity group of about 25 people, half of which are ADHD, and that's the material we're using. And it's changing FMG, the company I work for, and it's, again, simple things.

Yeah. That's wonderful. That's awesome. That is absolutely fantastic to hear. Yeah. It is fantastic. It is a big part of what this is our aim. And, Darrin, you and I, right, we did a lot of work. Look, the second one's hard work. The first one was out like I just feel sorry. The second one is outrageously hard work. The first one is just outrageous plus outrageous plus outrageous. It was just extraordinary. We had and so it's been wonderful watching our group grow. Right? And I think connections through directly through you. We now have ADHD Australia involved. We have ADHD Hong Kong called Unlocking ADHD, ADHD Hong Kong. Yeah. And in more our side of of the world, ADHD Europe. And, I mean, that's.

That was that was our original plan. They keep building up, and that's so that's been great to see.

Look, I don't don't wanna take too much credit, Henry. It's your vision and your passion that has driven this conference, and it's gonna become bigger and bigger. And I I only wish we could be more involved this year, but it's amazing. Simply amazing. It's a nice work. Yeah. Well, we've been building this together.

Yeah. I'm talking about, so here we are. So last year, in terms of pre registrations, I think we're about 3,000. This year, it's over 5,000. We're at over 90 countries. Last year, it was about just over 50. Brilliant. That's just brilliant. And I think officially, over half the half the global countries, I think it's about someone will correct me on that. Like, don't do it. Okay. I'm not saying broadly around. What's the plan for next year? That's When like, because obviously, it's pretty tough right now. So I don't it's hard to look forward.

What's your hope? The the plan for next year, first of all, we wanna be a fully enabled participant in this conference. And, you know, I think having to watch where your money goes has enabled us to be more focused and has enabled our community to stand up and say, do you guys need some help? Why didn't you ask? So it it's not uncommon now that we get random donations of $45,000 a month. So we're becoming a bit more financial stable. Now, of course, when someone contacts you and says, can you please give us your bank account number because we're gonna donate $5,000? We generally say, yeah. Sure. Right. We've seen this before.

And there was a situation where it took six weeks and involved someone solicited to actually contact us to say this donation is real. But we are we are starting to get the money in, and I'm hoping it will continue to grow. Now what that is going to empower is probably three or four different things. The first is the continuing the work of getting the guidelines and getting the assessment issues solved. And there's gonna be a dramatic change, hopefully, announced next year, which will open up other medical professionals and their ability to diagnose and manage ADHD.

And What's the situation now? Who can So currently, only psychiatrists.

Can diagnose and prescribe medication, and psychologists are able to diagnose and pediatricians for children. So Okay. We're looking to build medical communities which can involve the GPs. And it they'll be fully trained, and the idea is is those who really need the help can go to the specialist. There's a big breakthrough. So, hopefully, next year, we'll get that agreed. All of the colleges and the Ministry of Health and to Wharra Ora agree in principle, which is gotta work through the detail. The second area we're continuing to work on is education. So this year, one of our highlights, which I should have mentioned, is we've launched training modules for primary and secondary schools. They're on our website, adhd.org.nz. They are free.

And I just wanna shout out to the Southern Trust for funding that. Look. It is in a New Zealand education regime, but I think there's a lot of tools in that that could help. As part of our work, we did a lot of design thinking research in terms of talking what teachers in the classroom actually need as well as parents and students. So it's very practical. Fantastic. That's very very important. Yeah. And, you know, there's another lesson we learned through this year is we started working with other neurodiverse organizations, and is the neurodiversity education coalition, which involves dyslexia, learning difficulties New Zealand, as well as autism New Zealand, and working together powers us. And what I would encourage ADHD.

Not for profits to do is look for allies. Because at the moment or go back a couple of years, everyone was knocking on government store. And when you get together, you can be quite empowering, and the government is more likely to listen.

Yeah. Then the final thing is Just running some issues here where we've had the, you know, some comments.

Uh-huh. It's you know, sometimes I wonder why we can put neurodiversity community as a competitor sport. That's what it feels like sometimes. And really, we've all got the same aims and ambitions. So I'm not saying that it's easy to do, but but it's yeah.

But that sounds like a great education resource. And that's definitely also something we're keen on. Definitely, I'm gonna be talking to you and asking asking about it. I think that you're talking about the GPs, so being able to diagnose, it's a really interesting point. We have huge issues here with where we it's an audit like, it's a very interesting question. So at the moment, we have it was psychiatrists can diagnose and prescribe psychologists diagnose. You then have specialist prescribers, which can be a specialist nurse, can be a specialist pharmacy pharmacist. Yep. And it is an oddity actually like, the GPs can't, like, in in our in our group. It's something for us to seriously think about.

And it it turns out in the peculiarities of the New Zealand health sector is about ten years ago, the Ministry of Health set up a trial with GPs and nurse special nurses work together under the supervision of a psychiatrist to diagnose and support those of ADHD. And it turns out that trial's been going for ten years and has been highly successful and has been forgotten about. It was only supposed to go for two years and as it's as it worked, they just continued with it and effectively the health system forgot about it. So as we move towards it, we do have some experience in it, which is, I think, is amazing.

That is amazing. Also, it's like, yeah, amazing to have a forgotten trial. It's it's Yeah.

It's the healthiest bureaucracy for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I interrupted you, and I and now I may have ADHD derailed you. So, like, you had three things you were talking about. Look.

The while those the first two things, education and health, I've talked about, we're constantly looking to connect and provide outlets for our community. So in Wellington, for example, we run a legal slash Minecraft group, which is highly successful. And in Auckland, we run basketball, which is we ran it we've run it for seven to eight years, and it's only just starting to get noticed. And what that is is for all neurodiversity children, and it's shows you how important sport is. And if you're in a safe environment, how successful everything can be. And what is really interesting for us is people told us we couldn't do it because ADHD children and autism children can have emotional outbursts.

And they can run away and things like that. So in seven years, we haven't had a single issue. And so we hopefully, we've confirmed a new sponsor. So we currently have 40 children on our program. We're looking to roll that out nationwide, and that would be huge. For reasons we don't understand, University of Texas sent some researchers over to they've heard about the program, and they came over to see what actually happened. And which was highly successful, but it's helped to get the, I guess, the news about what we've achieved with the program out. Now the the kind of odd thing for us where each program, we run two one hour sessions with 20 kids, and they sent about 30 researchers.

Over. So I'm expecting two. Obviously, they have much bigger budgets in university over there than here. So we're expecting two two researchers, and they they had two a busload of researchers turn up. But that's helped get the news out. And underpinning that is we've been involved in a podcast as well, which had a whole section on basketball. So we're hoping to be able to expand. And what it shows, it doesn't have to be basketball. It just has to be activities. And if kids feel safe, they feel like they can belong and they're accepted, then their parents can relax. And then the next thing you know, everyone's successful. The highlight for me, I we've actually moved cities, me and my wife, so we used to go and we we ran it, is when.

A parent goes, oh, what do I do? And I was and then we say, well, you can just go out for coffee if you like. We're fine. And it's their big moment when they realize that nothing's a problem. Yeah. So we're hoping to roll out more of those.

And what do you, like, what do you think is the reason why it works? Like.

It's acceptance and belonging. You know? So if if if your ADHD brain says you don't wanna line up and you wanna go off and shoot some hoops somewhere else, that's fine. That's no big deal. But in effect, the structure and predictability of each, course so we change activities every five minutes, and they're most amazing coaches you've ever found means that the kids actually are quite happy to line up, and they're quite happy to learn skills. And we've got children who would spend the first month just sitting in a corner refusing to do anything, and there's one particular boy two years later, he's representing a school in basketball just because we took the time. So sports really important. Activities.

Are really important. And if you feel that you're accepted and you feel that you belong, that we you're with your tribe, it's just brilliant.

That does sound that actually sounds sounds beautiful. Right. Yeah. Hello. I can see that, like, what jumps out at me is that the, yeah, the likelihood that one of you talked about, like, you're you're in your tribe, like so you don't need to mask. The kid doesn't need to mask, not trying to use all this energy trying to look and conform. And also not having the sword of Damocles that if you do fail to conform, you're not gonna get in a huge amount of trouble. There's gonna be big problems for you and for the parents often, which I you talked about parents being able to relax. And so that combination.

Of, like, not having to use your energy on masking, not having to have that fear of that sort of damage is coming down. Yeah. And you know, that discipline being pushed down on something potentially not a big deal. And Yeah. Yeah. But it's very difficult for you. I can see that being huge.

Yeah. It's been brilliant.

That does that sounds wonderful. Well, that's great. Right. Like, is always the thing that Now gets I didn't because we were working so closely together. We did handovers and stuff, I didn't get to really do an interview with you. And I've always have. I have a favorite question, which you've kindly said that I can succumb to. Yeah. Okay. So as a part of, like, as part of your ADHD, like, as a result of your ADHD ADHD, what has made you happiest? What and what has made you saddest? And if we can do Yeah. Saddest first and then happiest, so we end on a high note.

Sad is is when you know you don't belong, and you can't put your finger on it at the time. It's when you can't keep up, when your mind is drifting, you have this energy that you you need to get rid of, and you're sitting there in your suit because I've worked in the corporate world, and you're just like, I don't belong here. Yeah. And it's good that the way post COVID in New Zealand, there's no more suits and you can be yourself. But that's when I'm at the saddest, and you just know that. When I'm at the happiest, it's actually when I'm with my iwi or tribe. And actually, that was basketball. Because to see the joy in the kids' faces to be able to coach basketball, to be able to.

Be with the parents and tell them, oh, everything's gonna be fine. What's your problem? Nothing is nothing is a problem. Your child is amazing. That those are the moments that matter. And as I mentioned, we've moved from Auckland to Wellington and after seven years of running basketball, giving up our Sundays to do that. That is the thing we miss the most. But that's a happy space when you're with your iwi, your tribe, and you can just see the joy and feel accepted. Yeah.

That's wonderful. You've been wonderful. It's been wonderful catching up. It's been wonderful to sort of get an update on the work you've been doing over the last year, the challenges of it. It's like, I can I can absolutely empathize? I can certainly challenge your funding is is something else, which reminds me to say, do donate, everyone, everyone who's watching. Yes. Go to globaladhd.com and donate. If you want to donate directly to ADHD New Zealand, go Google ADHD New Zealand and donate directly to them. They're particularly keen on checks of between 4,000 5,000. Excellent. Love it. I have no doubt anything is a huge advantage. That's it. Wonderful. See, thank you very much for doing this. Good luck, Greg. Too. May there be many more.

And, yeah, see you on the flip side. Thank you. Alright. All the best, everyone. Bye bye.