Right. We've started a bit late, so I shouldn't over talk too much. I'm going to bring in Sarah and Daley to talk about what they're doing and bring them in. Hello, Daley. Hello, Sarah. Sarah, I think, needs to turn on her camera. I'm a bit worried about Oh, lord. So I can I can see you? I can't see her. I'm gonna bring her on so she can just, like we can't see you. We just see a big s. I know. But I've no idea why. I'm pressing on my thingy, and it's saying camera access denied. So you might just have my voice. Can you bear that? Oh, it's a shame we don't even see your face. Why. I've got severe dyspraxia, and this is a nightmare for me.

I've tried it on my iPad, tried it on my phone. Can't get it can't get it to work. Oh, no. I know. I'm so sorry. I know. Okay. Look. You're gonna we.

Will have you as you're you're like it's like you're an ethereal presence. You're a sort of round circle. I'm it's this severely dyspraxic, and this is this is the sort of issues I have. I've tried everything, iPad, iPhone, and I cannot get the camera to work. I have no idea why. It just says camera permission denied. Hey. We're here, Sarah. That's the most important thing. I'm Yeah. I can do the talking, and you can look at the lovely Daley. He's much more beautiful than me anyway. So I was very scared when you were muted, Henry, because I thought that was my technical issue. So I was panicking my pants off going, oh my god. And it was fine. But, yes, here we are. Yeah. Yes. Indeedy.

Well, I I have stop by just introducing ADHD Liberty really from from the the the the darkness here. ADHD Liberty is a charity, and what we are primarily concerned with is the amount of ADHD in the criminal justice system. I'm an ex prison counselor. Daley is an current police man police officer. He will tell you more about himself in a minute. But the charity itself, what we are massively concerned about is the amount of ADHD in the criminal justice system, and we are doing a lot about that, which we will tell you about as we go. So I'll allow you Daley to introduce himself next.

Hello. Hey, Daley.

Good evening. Good morning. Good afternoon. This is the first time I've ever spoken to a global audience, and I'm very excited about it. Yes. So, yeah, my name's Daley Jones. I am a serving detective councilor in the Metropolitan Police Service. I have got combined ADHD, and I've also got dyspraxia. I was diagnosed with ADHD back in April 2021. That made a lot of sense to all the things I'd struggled with in my life, in academic life and within work. It didn't make sense of everything though and that's why my my next diagnosis of dyspraxia certainly added to that, so around my physical struggles that I have being a six foot five police officer and trying to navigate the wonderful world of the criminal justice system. I.

Set up and run a police ADHD support group called the ADHD Alliance, and we do a lot of work around the welfare for police officers and police staff. But it's impossible for me to do my job within policing and not and not see the incredible amounts of neurodivergent people we meet on a daily basis and incredibly large amounts of ADHD and undiagnosed ADHD as well. So I'm very, very passionate about trying to improve things for people with ADHD and neurodiversity.

In their interactions with the criminal justice system. So that's a little bit about me. I I take medication for my ADHD. I tell Carl Vance. So like a lot of the people on here, I've had a wonderful few weeks struggling to get hold of my, medication, which has sent my anxiety through the roof. So I'm there with you people. Yes. That is me. Hello.

We're going to have the Are we on slide two yet?

Because I can't see. No. I oh, you can't okay.

You can't see either. I will I will tell you which side we're on. We haven't we haven't listed the slides up yet. Something I did wanna say because you mentioned about medication, is that we have the CEO of ADHD three sixty coming on later tonight, actually. And he's going to be talking specifically about that. He's going talk about what it's like in the eye of the storm of Panorama, as they were the third ones in it and what's happened since. And they're going to be talking about this medication crisis. And if you look at the government advice, the government advice is for every GP to call every person with ADHD medication, which I.

Have you had a call? I have not. I do. And it's not like they're not a bit run off their feet anyway. And then there's ways to talk to the specialist medical team for which we will wait months for, or years. And the idea that they have lots of capacity is also ridiculous. So it's an absolute yeah. And they are a very large provider, so they have a lot of people in that situation. So it's a huge thing. Right. Slide two If we can go on to slide two, that would be amazing. Okay. Slide two is up. There we are. Lovely.

So I'll just do my bit, and then Daley can do here just so you know who I am. So I was originally a a counselor, coach, and CBT therapist, and I run the biggest team of ADHD diagnosed counselors in the country that's just coming up a 100 of us now, which is head stuff. Most people have heard of us. And I'm also the CEO of ADHD Liberty, which is the charity that we're here talking about tonight. And several years ago, I decided to write books because I realized that I was working one to one with people and having great effect on keeping people out of prison, but I wanted to keep more out of prison. So I wrote my first book coming up three years ago now, which is called How Not to Murder Your ADHD Kid.

Instead, learn how to be your child's own ADHD coach. That went really well, and so many parents were giving that book to teachers to explain their children's brains to the teachers saying, look, my kid is not just a naughty little brat. Actually, this is how his brain works. And if you interact with him this way, you'll get the best out of him. So the second book for teachers came out a year ago. And my third one is literally imminent any second now, and that's on how to parent ADHD teenagers because that's different to parenting ADHD kids. So all my books are very much about understanding ADHD brains, the positives, and how much you can achieve.

And the third one is due out, as I say, probably any minute now, October, November. So that's me, and I'll let Daley introduce himself. I've already done that, Sarah. I didn't really need the slide. I just did it. I just did it.

So there you go. Now I've had Yeah. Okay.

Well, what we thought we'd do now is the what we thought we'd try and do with this presentation is something slightly different, and that is explain that offenders are no different to us. Often, a lot of people think that offenders are a different species and they're nothing to do with us and they're crime, you know, destined and that we're all very, very different and we're very, very not. And this is what we're trying to prove with this presentation. So we thought we'd show our backgrounds and how we got to where we are, me and Daley, and and then how other people get to different places within the criminal justice system often.

So when I was born, I was born into a white working class family. Next slide, please. Yeah. Sorry. Next slide, please. Yeah. I can't see it, though. Jump. I was like, I'm blinded. I've done this before. This this is good for good for neurodiver neurodiversity, isn't it? I'm acting like I've I've got no eyesight. So I was born into a white working class family, very working class, lived in a caravan for ten years. My school report said lacked focus and attention. I was always the clown of the class and was always told I would achieve so much more if only I concentrated. But I had a strong mother, a very strong mother. So she made sure that I went into school, she made sure I did my homework, she made sure I didn't skip school once.

She also made sure I went to college at 16, back in the days when you didn't have to, but I did go to college. And then she said, you're not working around here. You're going to work in London, and she sent me off to work in London. And, really, she put me on the path to working in offices. Sales was it ended up being very good at sales, and I was very successful. And I set up my own business when I was 25, and I've been self employed ever since, reasonably successfully with properties and businesses and charities and all sorts of things. So I had a very strong mother who, if I hadn't had that very strong mother, I possibly would have gone down another another route.

And then at 48, when I was fed up with making loads of money, I decided to retrain as a counsellor and help people instead. So, that was twelve years ago now. I retrained as a counselor, and now I work full time as an author and an ADHD campaigner, primarily within the criminal justice system, but also within the education system. So that's how my sort of ADHD showed itself when I was younger. I always had a terrible attitude, terrible attitude. I was always told off my attitude, but I still did my homework, went to school, never skipped school, never went out with boys, never tried weed, never smoked, never drank, never did any of that because of a very strong willed mother. That's what kept me on the straight and narrow now, Daley.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I am willing to say that I was born into a white middle class family, and I don't say that as if I'm boasting it all. The point that me and Sarah try to make here is that I think very much both of us, if we'd been born into very different circumstance in our life, I can very under much understand how my ADHD and the traits of my ADHD could have got me into a lot of trouble. You look through all of my school reports when I was at school, and they say the same thing fidgety, lacks attention, messes around, interrupts a lot. If I ever had a deadline for any piece of work, including at university, it was just absolutely impossible impossible for me. The amount of times I would finish bits of coursework, I wouldn't work.

The hours before it was due in instead of the weeks I had to in advance to do it was untold. I was very lucky that I had a very supportive, decent family structure, which unfortunately, for a lot of the people that I encounter in my job, simply isn't the case. And that's not necessarily just strong parents. That's strong role models as well. I joined the police, I think it was Nicola on the chat bar made a very interesting comment, which I completely agree with.

The traits of ADHD often lead people towards careers in the emergency services and the military. And I completely understand that because there's a massive sense of structure and, you know, free dopamine and that side of things. So I'm not remotely surprised. And let me tell you unequivocally, there is incredible amounts of neurodiversity within the police service. But, yeah, I I I've had I have struggled in my career. I certainly struggle with any, more longer term pieces of work that I've got when I'm dealing with something and the action's there and I've got that dopamine kick, absolutely brilliant, not a problem at all. But when anything's a bit more long term requiring a bit more patience and a bit more sort of, less deadline related.

I do really, really struggle. So my ADHD diagnosis has certainly made a lot of sense to me And I'm kind of of the mindset now that I will try and work with my ADHD traits rather than the last thirty six years prior to being diagnosed when I was very much working against them. So that's a little bit about me and why I think I've managed to keep on the straight and narrow despite in spite of my ADHD. Next slide, please. Next slide. So.

The the big question is what is the difference between us and tens of thousands of boys and a very small proportion of girls that we must not forget. A slide went backwards, by the way. It's Oh, yeah. Fabulous. We're having There we go. ADHD time. I love it. Nice. So it should be a pretty pink and green and blue one now. Really, what we want to identify him and really clarify is what is the difference between us who became a police officer and became a counselor and a business owner? What's the difference between us and the tens of thousands, and we are talking that many, of boys but also girls? There is 5% of the prison population is girls, and every single one of them I've met has been ADHD.

But ninety five percent are boys. So what is the difference? What was their background that led them into the the lifestyle they've got? So, Daley, do you want to do next slide? Well, I'll say next slide, please. Yep.

Yeah. So the point me and Sarah both made is that we both had quite strong role models within our families, but a lot of the families, certainly I come across and meet on a on a regular basis, don't necessarily have that structure. You have a lot of kids with undiagnosed ADHD who are dealing with families, living with families who themselves let's be honest, the hereditary link with ADHD is as hereditary as height and eye color, so a lot of these family members will have ADHD themselves. There'll be a lot of domestic abuse. There'll be a lot of alcoholism. There'll be a parent that might have gone a parent or parents that might have gone to prison.

Parents that may be not setting those sort of boundaries in place and, you know, allowing kids to sort of be more on the side of going out and experimenting with drugs. I think a lot of kids frequently, if they don't have strong role models at home, if you have undiagnosed ADHD and you're as people pleasing and wanting to sort of be liked, as I know I feel quite often, you may go and try and get that structure from the wrong place and that can be local gangs or, you know, local toughs for want of a better word. I think we they we've we've undiagnosed ADHD. We can often find ourselves going towards, you know, the wrong crowd. Now I.

Can't talk about the criminal justice system and the effect changes we wanna make there without identifying the problems with the education system and I'm sure that's been discussed because I'm very much of the mindset that I don't consider myself to be disabled. What disables me is the structures of society that I've been brought up in and I include education in that. Now if the education system is based towards a neurotypical mindset, if you have a neurodivergent.

Condition, you are more likely to rebel against that. So this notion that you sit there, you have to pay attention and make eye contact and listen and, you know, all of these rules that go completely against what my ADHD wants me to do. Well, what happens when we back against that trend? Well, in education and schooling, you are told off. You are the naughty kid. You are given detention. You are expelled or or taken out of schooling. And I'm very much a firm believer that if you tell a child enough that they are bad, they are naughty, they are wrong, at some point, they are just gonna say, pardon my French. Fuck it. If that is what I've been told my entire life, then I'm just gonna be that naughty kid. And, you know, we are pushing kids.

You know, out of the structure of mainstream education towards elements where they are far more likely and susceptible to falling into the wrong sort of, you know, wrong sort of crowds. Now I have nothing against PPU, people referral units. I've spoken to a lot of kids and young adults who have actually been told me that the first time they're ever understood is at one of these units. But if you're sticking a load of naughty kids together, well, the likelihood is they're gonna be, you know, kicking off and and mucking around and that sort of thing as well. So that's kind of, you know, my perception of it.

Sarah? Yeah. I'll just say that on the the on the list of blues on the left hand side, when I was working in the prisons in the Young Offender Institute, pretty much every single thing in those blue, lovely little rectangular with, arrows coming out applied. These children who were young adults by the time I got to met them, they've not been made to do their homework. They've they've been allowed to smoke often from the age of nine, 10. They've they've been allowed to use cannabis from the age of 10, 11. They'd even sold it, a lot of them, from about, you know, the age of 10, 11, 12. They've been out delivering for their father who was a drug dealer.

Nobody cared much if they'd been to school. They didn't get told off. I mean, it it was so opposite of me. It was unreal. I literally haven't taken one day off school ever in my life. I'd never skipped school. But for the kids I was working with that were in the young offender units, it was common. They they they rarely went to school. Nobody seemed to care. The school didn't seem to mind. They'd they'd given up, I think. The parents just didn't seem to know or care. And very, very dangerously, and I see this happening all the time, they were allowed to mix with older teenagers.

So you've got literally 11, 12 year olds hanging around with 18, 19 year olds, and those 18, 19 year olds are gonna use those 10, 11 year olds to get through windows for them or go and nick whatever for them. So these younger kids who haven't got parents on them like a ton of bricks like mine was, they are out there risk taking and thrill seeking and because of their natural ADHD traits, don't wanna do the boring stuff. So they are out there doing the exciting stuff. And older teens are always going to encourage them to do that. One of mine classically told me that from the age of nine.

When his mother wanted to put him into care and his grandmother wouldn't hear of it, he went to live with his grandmother, but she worked every night till 10PM in an old people's home. So from the age of nine, he was out with all the teenagers who were allowed to be out in the evening. So obviously, most nine year olds were being kept at home by their parents to do their homework and not when they were nine. He wasn't. He was out with all the 15, 16 year olds who were allowed to be out in the evenings. And, of course, he got into trouble. So where did I meet him? In a young offender unit. So moving over onto the right hand side onto the nice purple cloud there, very often.

These kids get taken into care, fostered, or adopted. So there's a much higher ratio of ADHD in kids in care, fostered, adopted. There's been, official papers put out on this recently. We we worked this out years ago, but there's an official paper now saying that it it's absolutely definite. And with this roundabout 50%, they think, of the prison population has either been fostered, adopted, or put into care. Most of these children, if not all, have been removed from households where one or either of the parents, often both in my experience, are ADHD. Most of the young offenders I've worked with, their parents have both been alcoholics.

And dad's usually been a drug dealer and or a drug addict as well, and sometimes mom. So this is the background they've come from. So what this once they're removed from these households, and I've worked with tons and tons of these teenagers, I can tell you that the little list there with the dots on, this is exactly how they feel. They feel rejected that nobody really gave, pardon my language, a shit about them. Nobody really cared.

They've always felt not good enough because they don't have the same school uniform, they don't have clean uniform, they don't have good shoes, they don't have good trainers, they don't have the proper PE kit. So they always feel they're not good enough as the other kids. They're not they're just not as as good as as the other people. They feel that they don't fit in because of that. And then what happens is, because nobody's caring about them as they perceive it, they think, why should I care? Why should I care? And they they they just give up. So they just think, well, I've not got this. I've not got money. I've not got, you know, a parent to go home to, and they give up. And that giving up is when they get into trouble.

And also, a lot of them not not not all of them, but some of them feel that they've got something to prove. They want to prove that actually they have got something they're good at. There is something they can do, and often that becomes something criminal. It becomes something that isn't accepted. So that's that's that sums up how most young offenders feel about themselves. They haven't been looked after. Nobody's cared about them. So why should they care? Why should it matter if they go and commit crime? Who gives the monkeys? Nobody cares. So why should they? That's what that's what happens.

A point I would make as well, and it's not even just necessary about neurodiversity, but a lot society has a problem with kids in foster care. And, you know, the amount of children I have met who get almost adultified, and they because they they you know, a lot of the kids that are going into care are often put into care miles away from their families or and things like that. They're the kids that are going missing all the time. And they will go frequently missing, and you will see police and social services and all of these different partner agencies.

Almost get to the point where they shrug their shoulders, and they don't actually see these people as children anymore, and they don't treat them as children anymore. And very rarely does anyone actually ask these kids, are you okay? It's just they are seen as an absolute inconvenience, and I think there's a real societal issue with how we view kids in care.

Next slide, please. Totally. I totally agree with that. I think we'll take these one after the other one, Daley, if we if we will sort of split these up. Sure.

Well, I mean, the amount of these.

Are what we could consider to be the traits that get people into trouble. Now something I will say here is that I don't know many ADHD people that would not be able to tick some sort of examples of the you know, give examples of each of these different boxes. So not thinking about the consequences, doing things and not thinking about them. Well, let's be honest. That is gonna get yourself into trouble frequently because you're just doing things. You're not thinking them through. And if that thing is involved that, you know, involving sort of taking something or not thinking of what the actual consequences might be to that action, then we frequently see that they are the things that are going to get people into trouble, which links quite nicely onto the next one, Sarah. I'm wanting things now.

Now the amount of boys I've worked with in young offender units, for starters, none of not one has ever had a Saturday job. Not one. Not one has ever had a paper round. They've never done anything at all to support themselves. Again, because parents haven't encouraged them. My mother got me out washing cars when I was about 10. And then when I was 12, I was, shipped into a hairdresser's and I worked in hairdresser's on a Friday after school and Saturdays.

But I found it very interesting that every young offender I've met, and I've met tens of thousands, not one of them had a Saturday job or an after school job, not one. So because they've got no money coming in, what do they do when they want things? And they've got no patience, and they don't really wanna wait till birthdays or Christmas. So stealing becomes the obvious answer. And these kids get into stealing, particularly clothes, particularly track suits, particularly trainers, particularly anything that has got a Ralphie or Nike attached to it. And they want it now. They don't want to wait. So because they don't make their own money, because they've not been encouraged to by parents.

They will they will steal. So they'll get into stealing adult some of them are very, very young age. I mean, the youngest I've heard is sort of five, six, but that's extremely young. More often, it's when they hit the 10, 11 mark, they will start to take things because they want them, they know their parents can't afford them, and, they want them now. So they don't they don't have any other way of getting them other than taking them.

Absolutely. Again, you think very closely is that impulsivity. You know? I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do it now. You know? Impulsive things. It links back to not thinking the consequences. But because people with ADHD are so impulsive, and I will include myself in this, we can very easily start getting addicted to things. We are far more likely to try drugs. We're far more likely to, you know, start drinking at an early age and that sort of thing. And, obviously, the way ADHD type brains work, that's probably not a good thing. We can get very easily addicted. The amount of people I have met, even in my support group, so I'm talking about police officers and police staff who have racked up debt debt from their impulsivity, gambling debt.

Spending money, shopping, that sort of thing. These are the things sort of things that can sort of get you in into trouble. And that impulsivity, when combined with things like emotional dysregulation, can lead to people acting out. And as it says there, fighting criminal damage affray. I think that one with impulsivity as well, you can throw justice sensitivity into that, our very strong sense of justice. And if we're not getting justice in the way, a legal way, we're gonna get justice in our own way. So that can cause, yeah, some severe consequences as well.

Sarah? Okay. So hyperactivity. And now this is again, when when I was young, I want I was active, and I wanted to be doing things. So I was going to ballet, which was quite hysterical when you've got severe dyspraxia, but I did go to ballet for quite a a long time. I went to guide until I was thrown out for taking it over. And I used to go to a lot of after school clubs. So I used do netball practice after school. I did all the drama clubs, anything to do with drama, speech competitions, all that sort of thing. So I was getting my adrenaline and my buzz and and keeping busy doing things.

But all within a positive way. So there was never any need for me to go out and and do anything sort of slightly dodgy because I was so busy with my netball practice, my netball matches that we played. I represented the school for four years at netball. I represented the county at certain sports, believe it or not. And I was always busy doing something positive that either or homework, lots and lots of drama, lots of speech competitions. So I my hyperactivity was being managed, in in a positive way whereas the the boys, again, mostly boys but sometimes girls, their parents don't make them go to cubs, scouts, guides, pathfinders, Sunday school, any of these things. None of them.

Organized sport? No.

Organized sport, nothing. They've never been to anything. They've never been encouraged to join after school clubs or, you know, chess clubs at lunchtime. Never been encouraged to do anything to utilize their hyperactivity. So, of course, it it comes out in other ways in the only ways they can think of, and that is often it becomes offending. I mean, the classic one is building size. The amount of teenagers I know who have found their ways onto building sites at night and have the best time of their lives.

Leaping from scaffolding to building and and, you know, having the most amazing times. It's so thrilling. It's an exciting, an empty building site. And they would get caught, of course. They usually get away with the warning, those ones, unless they've actually done any damage. But, of course, it's dangerous because they could hurt themselves. So hyperactivity, if it's not managed, it can very easily go in the wrong direction.

Which very closely links to adrenaline seeking. And if you cannot go and get your dopamine fix from a nice legal high, what ways can you go and get a dopamine fix? Well, there's plenty of illegal ways, be that joy riding, be that fighting, be that any of the numerous things that can get people involved in criminality. So, yeah, these are what we reckon are the traits that get people into trouble. And I think I've kind of mentioned there as well with the additional ones, are kind of emotional dysregulation side of things. And, yeah, justice sensitivity is another one that really gets people into trouble as well.

So next slide, please. That that's how easy is, an unmanaged pool to get into trouble with the law. So the next slide is kind of what really is the situation in prisons, young offender introduced and juvenile prisons regarding ADHD because there's a lot of people talking about it, a lot of people with opinions about it, and we feel that we know quite a lot about it because we have current serving.

Prison officers, We have counselors who are currently working in prisons. And as you'll see from this next slide, we'll alternate again daily, but it very much depends on who you listen to. But we're talking to the people who are actually working in the prison. I've literally this afternoon just had a meeting with the neurodiversity manager for at the Ministry of Justice. We're talking to the people who are actually in the prisons right now, and and the figures that we're coming out with are based on what people are seeing in the prisons right now. The one I will just link in with this, the orange one, because they did brilliant with the green one, that's his thing. But this this much outdated figure of one in four.

Which has literally made me want to implode on so many occasions. When people have been when I first stopped working in the prisons, in 2016, the figure was that one in four inside had ADHD and it lit I'm surprised I'm not dead because it literally gave me a corollary every time. It would make me so angry. It's nearly all the people in prison have got ADHD and we'll you'll see that from the further bits in a minute. But this one in four figure was around for years. Thank the Lord. It has now finally been dropped because it is so inaccurate. It's not true. So the one in four figure, forget it. It doesn't exist. And I'll let Daley do the green blob, which is his sexuality.

Yes. Well, Dame Sally, Coates in her recent government report said it would be reasonable to assume fifty percent of the prison population has ADHD. As Sarah says, this one in four figure is the one that's still often banded around, but it's very, very safe to assume that that figure is wholly inaccurate. Part of the problem is, and why we can't get an accurate figure is because then we're not screening. We're not screening at any point during the criminal just, you know, any any point when someone's interaction with the criminal justice system, we are not screening. So the dataset isn't accurate at all. So.

This this is why we you know? And we'll about down the line. We need to be looking at doing screening and getting some more accurate data involved.

Yeah. I've got I've got some hot right at the end, I'll tell you the hottest news from the neurodiversity manager to say about that, but I'll leave that till the end. So if you go over to the left at the bottom, a prison mental health nurse of twenty years who had ADHD herself, she says, I've always reckoned it is approximately eighty five percent of the prison population have ADHD. That's what she said. And.

That's backed up there by an an h an NHS mental health worker working in prisons, these are people who are literally day in, day out going out of prisons. Again, someone else who estimates eighty five percent.

Yeah. And then, in the next blue box, we know a master's level psychotherapist, who is ADHD herself, and she's working at Underwood. For those of us, I suspect possibly quite a lot of people know what Grendon is, but it's the only fully therapeutic prison in the whole of The UK. So they the the offenders there are in therapy literally all day, I think from nine till twelve and two till four, something like that. Now she also worked in another prison, which I think is a category b, in the Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire area, and she says, Sarah, it's pretty much a 100% of them in her view. So and she's a master's level counselor with ADHD herself. Pretty much a 100%. Oh, and then the last one is me, so I might as well say about me.

I've I've counseled in two young offender units, Aylesbury Young Offenders and Portland Young Offenders in Dorset, and the Mount, which is a category c male prison, and Guy's Marsh in Dorset, which I think is a category c as well. And I've always said it's eight or nine out of 10. And although I've got this calculator, I suddenly realized that my eight or nine out of 10 is also 85%. So so we're we're all coming out around that 85% of the people that actually work with the people in the prisons.

It's not a statistic as such, but my day job in policing is looking at safeguarding investigations. You name it. I look at it as part of an audit work and the amount of undiagnosed neurodiverse conditions, and I'd say primarily ADHD I see on a daily basis is frankly frightening, and it's not being dealt with at all. Next slide, please.

So if we've the right if we've got the right one, why is life more difficult for ADHD offenders? Are we on that one? Yes. Indeed. Yes. We are indeed. I'll start, and then we'll alternate daily. So they are usually locked up alone for twenty three hours a day. I know there are exceptions to this. If they've got gym or they've got counseling or they've got work or they've got library or they've got something else, they'll be let out. But an awful lot, of that gets canceled these days. It gets canceled because the prisons are so understaffed. So when the prisons are understaffed, what they do is they lock everybody up for safety. So you'd be staggered how many offenders are actually locked up for twenty three hours every day. A lot of them are.

In single cells, so they're on their own. So their mental health is I can't well, can you imagine what that does to an ADHD person leaving them on their own for twenty three hours every single day? Sometimes better than that, but sometimes it could be worse. They've got a pet a Padmate. Now that's fine if they get on with the Padmate. If they don't, can you imagine being locked up with that person for twenty three hours a day? So it is when you've got hyperactivity and when when one of your traits is the need to get out there and do something, when that's an actual trait and somebody locks you up for twenty three hours a day every day, Is it any wonder when they come out, they kick off? I don't think so.

This one's a really good point. So I know what I'm like if I'm, bombarded by lots of different noises. I tend to actually literally shut down. Imagine having to deal with that every single day and especially if you have an undiagnosed condition, an untreated condition, what that must be like for someone with sensory processing disorder and how difficult that must make your life. Another point there, how poor the food is and for the, you know, a lot of people with ADHD, they will already have things like IBS issues.

Yeah. Not ideal. Not ideal at I'll just add on to that. I had a client at Portland who was diagnosed with Crohn's and, when he was diagnosed with Crohn's, the prison were not interested at all in what he could or couldn't eat. So I had to at home, literally go home, Google it, run off loads of sheets of paper of Crohn's of of what you can eat and what you can't, take it into the prison, and he did eventually get it through to the kitchen. They eventually gave him what he needed to eat, but they weren't prepared to make any adjustments. They froze until we slapped the paper in their hands and said, oi, you've got to do this or you're or you're killing him. So, food is an issue. And, obviously.

Some ADHD people, me included, have got issues around food. There's a ton of food that I don't eat. Well, in prison, they make no exception for that. You either eat or you starve. Easy.

Yeah. So as I kind of already made this point around being locked up for twenty four hours a day, well, you know, if you've got ADHD and you wanna get out there and do something, and a regular activity, well, often things like gym, football, and the workshops are cancelled because of lack of staff. And if my hyperactivity doesn't have somewhere to go, you know, you you only have to Google the importance of exercises to neurodiverse conditions, for a multitude of reasons. Well, if you're not getting that and all of these other things, that could be a massive, massive issue. Yep. And, the other important thing is I think this is starting to change.

Way too slowly, but it's starting to to change. Counseling courses they do have counseling in prisons. They do have therapeutic interventions. But for example, at Grindon Underwood, there's no understanding of ADHD at all. So even in a therapeutic prison, no understanding of ADHD. And even more scarily in the drug and alcohol services, which they do have in prison, they usually have a drug and alcohol wing. Again, complete no understanding, no training in ADHD. So they're trying to get these people off whatever drugs, alcohol, spice they're taking, with absolutely no understanding of the addiction element of ADHD. So that the lack of training in those areas is scary in the prison system.

Addiction and self medication as well. I mean, you consider what I take Lvans. When you consider what that actually fundamentally is, I would strongly suggest a very large amount of people who are taking drugs and alcohol on a regular basis are doing so to self medicate. And it alarms me that we're not making that connection for offenders. So there you go.

Well, that Yeah. And then the I'd wanna be in whether or not they will be allowed their ADHD medication is a postcode lottery. Some prisons will allow it, some don't. Now I, again, I think this is getting better. We had somebody who went back to prison a week ago and straight away well, I did email the prison to be honest, but, we did email and say, look, this person's severely ADHD and the neurodiversity manager, which they have now put one in each prison, which is terrific, went to see this person, and they have been kept on their ADHD medication. Now when I was working in Portland prison and Aylesbury prison, we're only talking seven, eight years ago, all the everybody was taken off their ADHD meds, everybody.

So they were not allowed them. But I think that's getting better now because I'm hearing more and more that boys are actually allowed to take their ADHD meds, which is terrific. I'm thrilled about it.

There's so much good information. I'm just jumping in because I'm very worried on time. We've had questions come in. So I just wanted Two to more slides, Henry. That's it. No. Great.

Okay. I'll hand back to you. We'll whip through them real quick. So Daley, crack on with and we'll do we'll alternate.

Okay. Next slide, please. Oh, where we go. That's wonderful. So what are we doing about this? Now when I met Sarah, Sarah was very focused on getting screening within the prison system, which a 100% we have to do. But the point I kind of made to her is that we by the time they're in prison, it's a little bit too late. We ideally want to be detecting undiagnosed ADHD at people's first contact with the police. Now I personally think if we sorted out the education system, that would be the best place to start, but I'm a police officer, and I can only really deal with what's in front of me. So we have we discussed it, and we you know, through my work running an ADHD support group from policing.

I have quite a lot of contacts, we put it out there about which forces might be wished to try and take part in an ADHD screening pilot. Because me and Sarah can talk about the amount of ADHD until the cows come home. But as I say, we need a decent dataset to better make a change. So, fortunately, the city of London police have been running a screening pilot from May to August this year. It is continuing, it's continuing on the back of the very, very encouraging figures that we are seeing. When I say encouraging, mean it's proving what we have been saying. Sarah, I'll let you talk through that next one. Okay. So, it showed that sixty two percent of people coming into a police station were showing signs of having undiagnosed ADHD.

However, we had made one classic ADHD mistake for which I take full responsibility. We have forgotten to put on that form, are you already diagnosed with ADHD? Because a lot of people came in and said, well, I'm not filling that form in. I'm diagnosed ADHD. So we missed a good chunk of people there that have been amended now. So it was showing literally sixty two percent though who had absolutely no clue that they had ADHD were coming into a police station, and then there was a chunk on top of that who were diagnosed but still ending up in a police station. I suspect largely because they weren't on medication, I suspect.

Yeah.

Very much so. That's also in the purple. The one thing we did get right, we asked them if they consider themselves have an addiction problem of any kind and pretty much all of them said yes. So a lot of this is self medicating undiagnosed ADHD hugely. And also there was a big, big chunk, of people who said they've got they were diagnosed with dyslexia or dyspraxia, but nothing else.

So we're almost certain with them the ADHD had been missed. Yep. And that doesn't surprise me at all. The amount of people I've met who have gone and got dyslexia diagnosis at a young age because I think it's very apparent in education but didn't actually get their ADHD, addressed at all is rife. And I can talk about, one of my own family members who was diagnosed with dyslexia from a very young age in education and was recently diagnosed with ADHD because it managed made a considerable difference to his life in terms of his understanding of his, certainly his emotional dysregulation. That's certainly something I'd say. So on to the next slide. Next slide. And we're nearly done.

Yeah. So I will just say, what are we doing about this? And we're doing a lot. We do nothing but I do this twenty four seven.

And Daley does a heck of a lot as well as bearing in mind he works full time. But, Daley, if you wanna start with the police. So we have been speaking through a considerable amount of police force around this. And literally, this afternoon, I had a very, very interesting conversation with someone from Derbyshire Police here in The UK about the screening pilot and, you know, the reasons for doing it. And it's not just what we are saying here as the reasons for doing it. Back in July 2021, the inspectorates.

Of police, the inspectorate of prisons, and the inspectorate of probation published this report. You can Google it and find it. It's called neurodiversity in the criminal justice system. 75 paid document, and it literally gives a factual basis for why all of these things should be happening. But the recommendations on that report are screening and using the screening data. The other one, which I think is very important, is mandatory training around neurodiversity.

For all people in the criminal justice system because it would alarm you, ladies and gentlemen, that neurodiversity awareness training is not mandatorily part of a police officer's training, which baffles the hell out of me and something I try and do in the, in my spare time and educate people. But we are speaking to a lot of forces, and we're hoping to get a few more on board soon. I believe Cumbria are about to start relatively soon. Any any minute. Yeah. We've got we've got new ones coming on. But we get literally new police forces every week approaching us. I'll just mention at this point in case we forget later on, that includes international police forces. We've had police forces in Australia.

Canada, and America because they all tell us that screening isn't going on in police stations there, and we are helping them to set up as well. So this is not just The UK. Just moving on to those other four really quickly because I know Henry's short of time. Youth offending services. We're very passionate about youth offending services because, obviously, we want to catch children as young as possible Early detection. Yeah. Keep keep them out of the criminal justice system as much as possible. So we've got two trials just about to start, one with Durham youth offending team and one with Birmingham youth offending team. Probation oh, that's got around the wrong way, but never mind. Probation.

We have got two probations that are starting to do screening as well. Homeless services, are also rammed with ADHD, we're doing a pilot with some Martin in the Fields in London, and an addiction service one with the way the Oasis partnership in Buckinghamshire, and also hopefully Turning Point are joining in on that. So we are we're passionate about screening and will help anybody do it. It doesn't cost any money. We've got online screeners. We've got paper screeners. We've got it automatically marks itself. You can put we've got GP letters attached to it that you can use to send to GP. And we are this specialises really in the criminal justice system and addiction and homeless and have to get these people out of these situations.

That's what we're trying to avoid. I I think I think our dream is to get enough of a dataset, and we're only gonna do this through screening to make the government act. And, ideally, what we want to be happening is people, screened for ADHD, and I will say other neurodivergent conditions as well. And if they're flagging, to be sent fast track towards getting diagnosis and medication. Now sometimes people kick off at me when I say that because why should criminals be doing that? We we wouldn't think twice about fast tracking someone for drug and alcohol programs, would we? Because we we appreciate there's a societal benefit to this.

Someone said in the chat bar, about the prison system is not equipped to reform and help people. I personally think that the way the prison system is right now, we can take neurodiversity out of this, doesn't isn't trying to reform people and change people. But I genuinely believe if we were to do this right through all levels of the criminal justice system, you would see considerably less people going to prison. You'd see a considerable, drop in drug and alcohol dependency. And also, let's be honest, the victims of these crimes as well, it's a win win win to my mind. And it's short term pain in terms of the money. It would.

Know, go into it for long term game. And I just now, me and Sarah need to get the data to back this up. So, yeah, I'll stop talking. And on our very, very, very last slide, which you can probably see.

I I've been showing it. I'm very so people people have been able to see how, yeah, how to get how to how they can help get involved.

To Penny. We will help anybody set up any sort of pilot if they want to do a pilot. Or if they just want to start screening, they can just start screening. We don't charge anything. We're doing this completely charitably, and we will help anybody start screening. And that includes internationally. Please don't just think it's The UK because it's not. It's international.

It's what you're doing it like, look, remember you were talking here last year about your plans and watching your work come to fruition and alongside Daley, like, and it's expanding out as an extraordinary thing. And I there've been some wonderful comments. Sarah and Daley, what you're doing is brilliant and so and so needed. And I thought also to Daley, to your point, like, about, you know, people wouldn't blink an eye at fast tracking into an addiction program, whereas to an ADHD program and that kind of stigma that we have and someone's written about that. Those comments quite a lot, Henry, and it really upsets me. It really does. I mean, I've posted articles about this on But it is I yeah. I can but obviously.

The issue being that people are waiting years. Right? Like and there's a fundamental issue that people can't they aren't getting timely things. Now I've got we've had someone come in, and I thought, well, one, Sarah, I know you're you're not shy of a balmy. So I thought we'd take it head on. You've said numerous times that you had a strong mother, she kept you on the straighten there. It seems to be that you're saying that those who go down the wrong route is because they don't have a strong mother. Yep. And I that is offensive. The presentation is suggesting it's parents' fault. I'm finding it really offensive for parents who try really hard.

I thought I will take that on the chin, but I would also tell you that every boy I worked with in prisons and young offender units didn't have a mother. Yeah. And this is interesting. People can judge and say what they're like, but this is fact. Whether they had a father or not was irrelevant. Some had fathers who came and went, some had stepfathers, some had some random relationships with their fathers. Didn't really matter what the relationship with the father was. But the ones with the good strong mothers, they were the ones who were in once and out again. But all the boys that I worked with didn't. A lot of the boys' moms had died that I worked with. They died extremely young from addiction, primarily alcohol, some drugs.

And it was losing their moms when they were round about the 15, 16, 17 mark, that was when they'd all lost their moms, that's when they lost caring about themselves because they'd lost their mom. So they just so I'm not saying that, you know, you've got to be an incredibly strong mother and and and if you aren't, your child's gonna go off the off the rails. I'm purely talking from my experience. All the boys I've worked with in prisons have not they've mostly not had a mom at all. She has either died, left the family, or it has not been present in that person's life, and that's why they've gone off the rails. And they'd be the first people to tell you that. I I certainly wouldn't blame parents.

I think it is just a fact that people with ADHD, we like structure. And if you have structure within your life, be that from parents, be that from school, or be that from work, you're far less likely to get involved with criminality and that side of things. So I certainly wouldn't blame parents, but I think, as Sarah says, there is quite a strong link to having a good core parent family group, and it doesn't have to be a mother. I think it there's lots of good role models out there. It can be, know, friends or other members of your family, but I think it massively helps. That's my personal opinion.

It does. And I'm purely basing that. I'm not I'm not judging parents in any way. I'm basing that on the hundreds of clients I've worked with in young offender institutes and on the outside with abex offenders. Sucking a mom is is a is a big red flag for problems.

Well, thank you for responding to that, and I think you've made it clear. It's less the kids are at a complete absence of a mom from your position and experience. We had another comment, I think is worth I'm I'm we're doing some of the more punchy ones. I've never done or done drugs. Oh, sorry. No. I was gonna. So so now we're giving criminals free screening instead of putting them behind bars or or consequences. Why does the CJS blame everything on ADHD?

Why does it always and does that suggest ADHD people are are criminals? Well, I I mean, should I take that one, Sarah? Please take that one, Daley. Yeah. I I I yeah. So first things first. If someone's committed a horrific crime, I would like to make it very, very clear that no one's gonna say, oh, you might have ADHD. You're gonna be clear of that crime. But we should be taking that into mitigation. You would take someone if they had, I don't know, something hypothetically like paranoid schizophrenia. Let's let's say they did someone was paranoid schizophrenic, committed a horrific crime. Would we not want that to take that into mitigation? And I'm talking about the traits of undiagnosed ADHD and untreated ADHD.

Having an impact on the criminal justice system. I certainly believe that we should be taking that into consideration. It's not a get out of jail free card. It's just acknowledging that undiagnosed and untreated traits of ADHD can lead people towards criminality and addiction problems and all of those sort of things. I do not think it is a, as a get out of jail free card at all. I just think it is something that we should be considering. And as I said earlier on, I don't think it's a case of I'm gonna commit a crime and get a free diagnosis. It's just acknowledging that there's a societal benefit to helping people.

Stopping people getting involved in criminality at the earliest possible stage. And if people can't understand that, then I'm sorry.

Sarah, I don't know if you got anything. No. I I totally agree. And and and the what I would say is that these these people have been let down desperately already. They've been if if I can just take one example of a boy who's now 30.

Up until the age of We've got we've got to wrap up because we are over. Sorry. Well, he he'd he'd been let down both because he's not been diagnosed with ADHD nor dysgraphia nor dyslexia. So he'd he'd gone to prison numerous times, but he'd been let down massively by the system. So should we not give him a diagnosis and keep him out of prison? Yes. I think we should. I I think we owe him that because we've already ruined his life by giving him the most incredible low self esteem, hating himself for doing what he was doing. All sorts of problems for his family because of his of his criminal behavior.

And should we fast track him for a diagnosis and keep him out of prison? Yes. I think we should. Sorry. I don't care if people don't agree with me. I think we should.

Thank you very much for your time, Emily. And that's the, you know, the keeping out of prison, the rehabilitation, helping have someone have a diagnosis to support themselves so that they can change their life Absolutely. And and defeat their disability. They've been struggling with the chaos and the lack of understanding, and that's the big We have got to go because the wonderful Adam Welsh has been waiting patiently. He arrived early. Super good. Well, thank you, everybody. You guys have been amazing. I love this. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Alright. Bye. Wonderful. Thank you.