Right. We are very excited about this next segment. It's a big deal. And I've got Louise and Rachel waiting in the wings. Louise is the CEO of Brain in Hand. It's Brain in Hand is a hybrid support system, which is both digital tools. So it's a fantastic app. It's one to one coaching and twenty four seven human support, helping neurodivergent people manage overwhelm and anxiety. And it started about fifteen years ago in terms of the development, launched ten years ago. Like I don't know one honestly that can touch them for what they've done. And they've got a significant lead initially starting around targeting sort of individuals with autism. But obviously, forty percent of people with autism have ADHD. So naturally.

We're in fact supporting lots of people with ADHD and are now focusing on ADHD only as well. And it's a support practice brought by multiple individuals and organizations, particularly around schools and NHS. And it's it is something like, they are pioneers in this and absolute leaders. And it's a it is a true, truly privilege to have them here and and talking and and telling us about what they've learned. So I'm very, very excited. Right. Without further ado, let me introduce let me bring in Louise and Rachel.

Hello there. Hello. So is our tech working? Can you hear us alright? We can hear you fine, loud, and clear. And.

We can see you. Thank you very much for being here. We're absolutely thrilled. Obviously, it's pretty early. And well, good preschool audience. Handing over to you. So you should you should if you want to share some slides.

Yeah. So that's gonna be the first challenge. Let's see if we can get We've got Hailey as well. There's Hailey.

Lovely. Right. And we have to give props to Rachel who, like, just messaged him in the in the private chat. Make sure that to to bring that in. Yes. If one of you shares your screen your slides, I can then bring them in, and then I'll.

So I'm trying to is that working? I'm trying to share that. Is that coming up? No?

We don't have it as as yet. I don't know if we have the slides as well because I can share as well. So we I was a little worried about technology being the right. Okay. Let me see if this works now. Because the excitement of yes. We've got something now. You need to Now I just need go screen presentation aspect. And present. One of the great challenges of doing a continuous live conference is that you obviously can't sit and there's no backroom where you can go and sit with the people. Right. This is what Is that working perfectly. So let me bring those slides in. Hannah, I'm hand it over to you. Okay. Wonderful. So.

I'm we're delighted to be part of this conference. And thank you, Henry, for your very, very warm and generous introduction. So I'm with my lovely colleagues, Haley and Rachel, who are coaches at Brain in Hand. I've got some slides, probably going to talk for sort of ten, fifteen minutes, and I'm going to do a q and a with Haley and Rachel, and then wrap up and be really happy to take questions. And Henry, do kind of stop me if you feel there's something that needs to be clarified. But I will talk and unless you say hang on a second.

So I'm going to make a start. You're on dangerous grounds giving the ADHD the authority to jump in.

I'll go for ten minutes and then I'll let you jump in. No, I'm just teasing. So no, please do. So yes, as as Henry said, we are digital and human support system. And we established originally to be here for people who are autistic. But really, over the last couple of years, we've realized that quite a lot of our users either are autistic and have ADHD as well or actually have an ADHD diagnosis or importantly have not got a diagnosis but believe themselves to be ADHD. We've realized that we now need to better describe ourselves as a support system for people who are neurodivergent. So I just want to say a little bit about myself just to give some context. I've been at Brain and Hand for five years. I am not neurodivergent.

But I do have a very kind of personal story that my son is extremely dyslexic and he's now 23. But as a parent of a dyslexic young person and seeing their experience in education and the frustration of wanting to see them flourish and have all the tools that they need and not see those tools provided, it gave me a real kind of passion to do what I do now, which is making sure that technology is exploited in the best possible way to enable people to flourish and and and to be their best. So that's the kind of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, as well as having spent twenty years in research and trying to understand what is it that actually is most effective in helping people.

And doing that for a long time, think doing some really good research and then actually struggling to see that research put into practice. So I have the wonderful opportunity of brain a brain in hand of doing something that I'm passionate about, getting the evidence together to demonstrate what works and how we can improve it, and then getting out there and hopefully affecting and improving lots of lives. So I I have genuinely got the best job in the world. And I really want to emphasize today that we're not here on a sales pitch. I don't want to be coming across as if I'm trying to flog brain in hand. What I want to do is share our story, share what we've learned, share what we're trying to do.

And be honest about the things that we think we've done well and the things that are challenging. And hopefully, can lead to a really good debate and discussion. As as Henry said, we've been doing this for quite a long time. It's quite a challenge doing sort of innovation in the public sector. There's all sorts of real barriers to overcome. But we have learned a lot and we've made some good progress and I'm really keen to share that. So who are we?

As you see that well, there's a lovely group of people there and that really sort of sums up the kind of vibe of brain in hand. We're a smiley bunch, we're friendly, and we're very mission driven. We want to make the world a fairer, more accessible place because we know that if you are neurodivergent, if you're autistic, if you have ADHD, you will encounter barriers that will make it harder for you to flourish in education, do well in work, access work in the first place, and perhaps just generally in in society, participation can be more challenging. So we focus not on saying, are you autistic? Are you ADHD? But we're saying, do you struggle with overwhelm?

Do you find that anxiety can really stop you from doing things? Do you find it difficult to get motivation? And that's the sort of theme that runs through what we do. So whilst it's quite helpful to have a diagnosis, to have brain in hand you don't have to have a diagnosis. People are very aware of what the challenges are that they're experiencing and how to articulate them and it doesn't necessary it isn't necessary to have a diagnosis. So I've mentioned already that research is an important part of for me what I do and what we do at Brain in Hand and I've just got a few stats here pulled from various bits and pieces that we've done just to give you a flavor. So for example, a large number of our users are students and over.

Four fifths of them said that brain in hand had actually helped them be more able to cope with their day to day stresses. So this idea of being practical and helping people overcome barriers is really captured by that stat that we want people to be able to just get on with their day. And and for students, that's obviously practical things like being able to manage a program of lectures and doing study and living independently. And we've also got users who are in the workplace.

And you can see the stat on the right there where we've got a third of people said that having brain in hand has enabled them to feel more likely that they could stay in their job, that they won't feel a need to leave because of trying to manage their neurodivergence in the workplace. And the central stat there about two thirds of people saying that Brain in Hands help them with stress or anxiety. That's very much at the core helping people to be able to cope with anxiety and do things in spite of it and manage it.

So our commitment to research is is fundamental. We have a research team. We've had about a million pounds in grant funding to do independent research on determining whether or not brain in hand is actually beneficial because we don't want to be promoting something that doesn't work. And we've had articles published in peer refereed journals. We've had we're just about to publish a study and I'm going to be sharing findings at the end of my presentation that are hot off the press from that study about ADHD. So hopefully that's a hook to to keep you keep you with us. So yeah, research is really important. And we've invested quite significantly in that because I don't want to be promoting something that isn't making a difference.

And also the other thing that's very important to us in in our sort of DNA as an organization is co production. I very much believe in the statement that you you can't do you do things kind of with people rather than to them. So right from the beginning autistic users and people who are neurodivergent have been part of the process of identifying what the problems are to be solved, working up prototypes, testing out those prototypes and been part of the process to roll them out. So that has meant that we have designed something which we believe is really there for to meet the needs of our neurodivergent users. And to just bring that to life.

Quite early on when I joined Brain in Hand, I realized we were getting quite a lot of feedback from someone who was in the autistic community and they were saying that it's really a rubbish product and it wasn't working and it was expensive. So I reached out to them and said, look, I I want your feedback, but can you can maybe do it in a constructive way? Could I engage you to do a review of our product and help us to make it better? So that was quite a few years ago. So Connor is the person who who made those criticisms and he's now part of our team.

Has been our co production lead and has got right in the heart of how we develop our product and has really helped us as along with many other people to make our product better. So that's an authentic commitment to co production. So what is it? I've I've said what our company does, but let me give you a bit more of an insight into how what how we do what we do. So as Henry mentioned, what we think is unique about our offering is that we're trying to take the best of human support. So coaching, having a human being there who can help and support alongside digital tools. So things that are with you all the time on your smartphone, on your iPad. And by putting those together to create a hybrid system.

We're helping people to be able to manage their daily lives. And the human support is there in two forms. We have our team of coaches, and you'll get to meet Rachel and Haley in a moment. So booking in coaching sessions to work on particular issues and challenges. But also as a safety net, we have 247 response service. So at any point, anybody who's a brain in hand user can request some support and that will come to them either in a text message or a phone call or even by email to help a particular difficulty and in the moment to get the day back on track. So we've got this combination of coaches and on demand support so that hopefully.

With the tools in the digital tools, the support in the digital tools and the support from human support, our users can overcome whatever challenge they are facing in their daily lives. And thinking more specifically about ADHD, because as we've mentioned, we started off focused on an autistic community. So just to pull out a couple of features. So if yeah, as I've said already, there's a twenty four seven support. So if something is challenging, say perhaps in the workplace, there's a meeting coming up, feeling very anxious, not knowing how you're going to cope with it. Just requesting.

Some support from our response service, maybe just to talk through how you're feeling or reconnect with a couple of strategies that you've developed before for how you cope with high pressure meetings. So it's that practical system that has been designed around your needs and is fully personalized. And there's a quote here, it always brings things to life when we actually hear directly from our users. So the user saying that your coach is the human face. The app is the tool. By having them both, you're strengthened in more ways than one. You have the tools to make it through, but it's the coach that helps you decide on what tools to make. So I think that really does kind of summarize how the two elements of our product work together. So.

I'd like to move now to our q and a of Rachel and Haley. Now I can't actually see Rachel and Haley. So I'm going feel like I'm doing this a little bit in the dark. But I do have my questions here. So if you can just bear with me one moment while I pull up my questions and we will start our q and a. So actually Rachel do you want to just say a few words to introduce yourself?

Yeah. Absolutely. So hello, everyone. It's so it's so lovely to be here. So my name is Rachel Babbage. I am the coaching practice manager at Brain in Hand. I have been here for four years now and worked kind of from the bottom upwards. And prior to that, I spent a lot of time working with the National Autistic Society around rights and entitlements and moving into transitions to adulthood. So that's, you know, something I'm really passionate about is getting transitions right for everybody. I also am a parent of a a little girl. She's autistic ADHD, so I'm also learning.

To kind of put my skills and hopefully as a professional into practice as a parent. So it's a new journey for me and it's an exciting one. Lovely. Thanks, Rachel. And, Haley, do you want to introduce yourself?

Yeah. Of course. Good morning, everybody or good afternoon, evening, good afternoon depending on where you are. It's really lovely to be here. I've been at for nearly five years now as well. I also started at the bottom and kinda worked my way up, and I've been senior coaching manager, which is fantastic. I've I've sort of experienced lots of things and get to support the team to develop and kind of deliver great support. My background is kind of mixed, so in social care also within the higher education space as well, so supporting individuals using assistive technology. So my sort of passions and love for technology combined with that human and supportive element is is why I really love being here and working at Brain in Hands. From.

A personal perspective, I'm a supporter of an autistic young adult, and I am also suspected ADHD myself, which may be prevalent in the way that I'm overtalking. So I'm going to be quiet now.

You're amongst friends, Hailey. That's absolutely fine. Lovely. Well, thank you. So I'm gonna start with Rachel. Rachel, just get us going. What is coaching and how would you describe, Brain in Hand coaches?

Yeah. Absolutely. So coaching is a really unique support, and what it does is it provides a collaborative and safe space. And especially for our users, this is where we can focus on their skills, their strengths, and the changes that they want to make throughout their lives. So in our coaching sessions, our coaches will listen with genuine curiosity. And this is so important because we need to understand what our users are thinking, but also how they experience the world. Our role isn't to tell our users to do, but what we're doing is we're guiding them to the solutions that work best for them through reflection and objective assessment. And we really champion our users and walk with them through the brain and hand journey.

And this means they have the continued support so that if they are making successful changes, we celebrate with that with them, and that's absolutely fantastic. But, also, if they're managing more difficult situations and new challenges, we can also be on there to on hand to support with that. So what we've done is we've developed this bespoke system. So we take all the benefits that we have from coaching conversations.

And support our users to build this into the technology in a meaningful and personalized way. And by blending these together, we see that our users are empowered to have a support system that's completely unique to their needs. They have all the learnings and awareness from their coaching sessions, but it's built discreetly and accessibly into their phone.

Amazing. Yes. Thank you. And Haley, how is coaching useful for someone, with ADHD?

So we know that neurodivergent individuals face lots of barriers, through society anyway, and that can often lead to misunderstandings of their individual needs, which then in turn can create low self esteem and a lack of confidence. And that is especially true for those who are awaiting a diagnosis or have received a late diagnosis, as they can often lack an understanding of their own needs, but also not have the support there to navigate what their challenges may be. So coaching can really help people to have a better understanding of their own skills and their strengths and the challenges. And the coaching environment created gives a really safe space.

And that allows people the confidence to know that any area of their life that is really important to them can be explored. So for example, while waiting for a diagnosis or for support, individuals can still be making progress and positive changes in their life and recognize that even without that diagnosis, their challenges are still valid. And they can still be finding ways that really work for them.

Yeah. No. Amazing. I think it's one of the bits of feedback we quite often get is just the set sense of understanding and that people are meeting a coach who does get what it is to be neurodivergent. I think we hear that quite a lot. And but Haley, can you give me an example say for we've got a lot of students who use Brain in Hand. How specifically can coaching help them?

Yeah. Absolutely. So for example, for some of our younger users who are in education, coaching can really support them to build that self awareness and confidence in knowing sort of what does and doesn't work for them, especially as they're preparing for transitions into different education settings or into adulthood. Whereas, for example, in the workplace or in higher education settings, we do find that Brain in Hand coaching can really support our users with ADHD by providing accountability, structure, and those practical strategies to overcome whatever the difficulties they're facing might be. And what we try and do throughout our coaching is we want to focus on managing things like procrastination.

And time management to help and support people to excel in education or or work wherever they're they kind of might be. And across the board, we know that having ongoing coaching sessions will really allow for a continued self reflection and to support individuals with life changes kind of as they're happening. And that can really then instill motivation and confidence with individuals to sort of build on their strategies. And they often find as well, specifically with our ADHD users, that the coaching sessions provide that space to body double so they can use that time to build up their brain and hand system and ensure that it is still meaningful for them.

Lovely. Thank you. Yeah. And I'm just you've just sort of reminded me there talking about is that about half of our team are neurodivergent, aren't they? So we did a survey of the workforce and so we've we've got a team of neurodivergent individuals, quite a few of our coaches are neurodivergent. So it just adds to that sense that we kind of understand our users. And just coming back to you, Rachel, thinking about ADHD, what concerns do ADHD users commonly bring to coaches?

Yeah. So in the coaching role, we do see that there's so many unique challenges and barriers. So just to kinda say that we always kind of work in a way that when somebody shares something with us, we focus on that with them because that's what matters most. However, saying that, we do see some common barriers and challenges across different areas of life for our ADHD users. And one of the most notable that I can kind of think of is managing over and under stimulation, but actually the fluctuations of this need based on anxiety and environmental barriers. And for some of our users, a really great starting point around this is using the traffic lights because not only is this really recognizing when these fluctuations are happening.

But also if there's any trends or patterns, we might notice that there's things happening in their life that we know is causing anxiety, and that's also adding to overall understimulation as well. So through coaching sessions, what we might actually look at is working collaboratively to build proactive and reactive strategies to manage these different needs in the moment so they have everything that they need within the unplanned section. Another area that we do often see is rejection sensitive dysphoria, but also emotional dysregulation. And we know that actually this can have a really significant detrimental impact on some of our users. They may be extreme experiencing extreme anxiety or negative emotions based on anticipated rejection.

Or also find it really difficult to manage any kind of rejection that they feel that has happened. And this is really misperceived by other people and not recognized as what it is. So one of the things that we always look at is that self care and well-being. Are we using the diary to kind of plan in that decompression time and that ability to self regulate so that people have time to come down. But, also, what are the practical strategies that someone might need in the moment? And moments of overwhelm, things that can be really helpful are positive affirmations or thought challenging techniques so they have that in their brain and hands so they don't have to think about it too much. It's all written out.

But as I mentioned, we do see the common challenges, but it is essential that we recognize an individual's experience and what they want to gain from coaching and what their goals are and we focus on that.

Lovely. Thanks, Rachel. Haley, coming back to you, how do our coaches and their skills and experience equip them to support our users who have ADHD?

Absolutely. So as you mentioned before, we do have a high percentage of neurodivergent individuals within our team across the business, but also within our team. Around fifty percent of our team are neurodivergent themselves. But all of our coaches come from relevant professional backgrounds. So for example, we have coaches who have come from specialist teaching or speech and language therapy or are accredited coaches. And every single coach within our team possesses the skills and knowledge that are gained from directly supporting neurodivergent individuals or those with a mental health need. So they've got that hands on experience and that breadth of knowledge from actively working with people.

So we we really focus and seek out individuals who have got knowledge and competence, but also work in a really person centered and action focused way. That's something that is really important as as the way that we that work as as brain and hand coaches. And when we're sort of building our team, it's really important for us to find individuals who've got a positive approach to addressing challenges that are faced by our users. So our coaches really need to be be able to sort of build a good rapport with people that they're supporting and to provide that nonjudgmental space and psychological safety, which we know is really important, especially for those who are ADHD and is a really valuable thing to to be able to do.

Amazing. Thank you. And and Rachel, I touched on earlier about the on demand support service. Can you say a little bit more about that and and how our users use it? Yes. Of course.

So our on demand support service is human support in the moment. And what's really important about this is that our users have the confidence that there's a real person available whenever they need it. And, actually, it's through either phone call or text message based on communication preference, which our users can set throughout their app so it can change if they need to. The support is really easy to access. It's available. There's a button on demand button throughout Brain in Hand that can be accessed on any page. But, also, what the system will do is it will prompt somebody if they're recognizing that they're logging things are feeling difficult on their traffic lights within the app, so their mood monitoring.

And if the system recognize that those buttons are being pressed, it will give our users that option to actually request support. So, again, taking out some of the thought processes and the mental energy of actually going, I do maybe need some more help at the moment. So it's available 24 a Sorry, Louise. No. No. No. Not at all. Carry on. Let's just take a breath. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. And and once a user has requested support, that call will come within thirty minutes. But we know from our data that it actually happens much, much quicker for most of our users, but we say thirty minutes is the maximum that you would get a response time from.

And really importantly and what sets us apart is that our responders can see into areas of our users' accounts for the duration of that support. And this is so they're able to offer kind of continuity within the support they're given. It's much more personalized. They can see what's going on and what solutions can be helpful for that user. So we're not just kind of working with no kind of pre information. Yeah.

No. And I think actually, I mean, the average I think the average contact is within about five minutes. Like you say, looking at our data. And last question, before we wrap up our Q and A is we've talked about brain and hand being hybrid. So we've got coaching, we've got on demand support, we've got the digital tools. And how do those from a coach's point of view, how does the digital bit actually work?

So we know that technology is becoming much more prevalent within the support space. And for people whose needs don't sort of typically meet our sort of typical care services, it's something that is is really valuable for them. But for the technology to be effective, it can't be a one size fits all approach. It must be adaptable to fit with individuals' unique needs, which is where sort of bringing hand comes in. So by combining that human support with the technology, it means that we can work with people in a way that's gonna work for them. We know that they've got access to consistent and personalized content through their app. And the the conversations that are had through coaching, we know they hold so much value, it.

Means that that what's developed throughout those supportive conversations can be in this in the the strategies and things that are personalized and that are established between the user and the coach. There's somewhere for them to go, and then the user can access them wherever they need it, whenever they need it. We know that some people will need support to understand how technology works, but they also might need support to personalize their brain in hand system and find a way that it'll work actually best for them. So we don't want to sort of fit them into a box. We want to create brain in hand and build brain in hand around that individual, what is meaningful to them.

Lovely. Oh, thank you. Well, that's the end of the q and a part of this session. So thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Haley. It's always lovely to spend time with you. If you want to stay on though, because I've got a few more slides and then I can hand back to Henry and we can see if there's any questions. So if you bear with me, I've just got a little bit more to cover and then we can open it up. Haley and Rachel have touched on the digital tools and this just gives you a bit of a flavor of of how we've structured the app part of the product. I'm not gonna go through it all in detail because I think you've got a sense and we're not here trying to give you a a root and branch experience of brain in hand. It's just to highlight how something.

That's hybrid, that's digital and human can work and how it actually operates in reality. So for example, on the left hand side there, we've got a panel of solution packs. So we've harnessed the expertise of all of our users over the years to see what sort of things work for them in different situations and we've bundled them up into these solution packs. So rather than a a new user having to start from scratch and building all their strategies and and ways of working, they can if they want to use solution packs. So if they're feeling unmotivated and they click on that solution pack, they will be offered a whole load of strategies that might help them that have been generated from all of our kind of previous users.

Second tab there is the diary. This is the whole idea about creating structure in the day, having routines.

So for example, the big challenge might be just that whole idea of getting up, getting yourself organized, getting out of the house. How do you break that down so that you can do that consistently without leaving important things behind, fretting that you haven't locked the house up, making sure you catch the bus on time. These really practical things that can really get in the way. So having a kind of diary with all these routines structured in it. And the way that it's organized as in the way it's visually laid out there is very much been led through this co production approach. So the different color schemes, the way that the the tabs are set out on the screen there to make it feel.

Very much about I can see how my day is looking. I can see what's coming next. I can see how it's been chunked up. We've referenced the unplanned section. That's what happens if something comes along that you aren't expecting and you've got strategies for dealing with that. And then a very important part of the product is the ability to reflect. So the timeline there allows a user to see whether they've had a coaching session, they may have used the on demand support, they may have been logging their mood. It's all there on the timeline to support reflection. And the whole idea of of what we're doing is trying to help people understand the things that cause their barriers and challenges.

Understand them, develop ways of overcoming them. And an important part of that is through reflection and action. So the timeline is key to that. And then on the right hand side, you can see the traffic lights that Rachel and and Haley both mentioned. And this is a way of checking in with yourself in a very simple way. How are feeling? Are you red? Are you green? Are you amber? Can you name an emotion to how you're feeling? Do you need to make any notes about what's causing you to feel like that? And the whole challenge for many neurodivergent people is being able to recognize how they're feeling and to try and prevent things from escalating. So traffic lights are quite a simple but effective way of doing that.

So that just gives you a flavor of the sort of the actual digital tools as we're talking about them. So I'm gonna try and share something from our users. Now this video may not work. So Henry, I'm gonna be looking to you. If it doesn't play, I would just move on. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed that technology won't let us down. Here we go.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like we've got sound.

Oh, no?

No sound in the face. No worries.

We will just go on. So we can I think we'll have that one posted on our website, so if anyone's interested? But it's just a lovely account of how this young woman had had diagnosed. She's autistic ADHD, had agoraphobia, had actually had quite a lot of different therapeutic approaches, had really struggled. And what she found with Brain in Hand was this practical focus had enabled her to start doing things like leaving the house, catching the bus, been able to succeed in college. So it's just kind of brings that to life. Okay. I'm just I think you've got a good enough flavor from what Rachel and Haley have shared of how we help our users. So this is an example here of a student. So their challenge was around anxiety about meeting deadlines.

And sorting out presentations, having confidence and focus. And this was really affecting their ability to actually do their coursework and and flourish at college. So they used a mixture of the traffic lights, the on demand service, and the coaching, and they were able then to manage their anxiety, have coping strategies that they could use in the future, and they then were able to go on to their second year at university. Similarly, we've got an example here of someone in the workplace. They were struggling with managing sort of burnout and anxiety, found that the diary was a way of being able to kind of keep on top of things.

That they were doing much better by monitoring their mood and anxiety by using the traffic lights. And that then in turn meant that they had lower burnout, bit more confidence. And they too were at university and managed to have better attendance. So it just gives a flavor. So.

What I just want to touch on this and again, like I'm saying, this is not a sales pitch. This is if anyone has heard from what we've said that it's interesting to them just to make you aware of how we're trying to enable this to be funded. And this applies to all sorts of assistive technology, not just Brain in Hand. Just to emphasize, we are only in The UK. So those of you from the other countries, the global audience, I I apologize. We're sharing this. We do want to go international, but at the moment, we're just in The UK. So our mission at Brain in Hand is to make Brain in Hand as accessible to as many people as possible. And we've tried to negotiate different government funding sources to do.

Fortunate that the Department for Education actually approved Brain in Hand as an assistive technology for students. And so if someone has a diagnosis of ADHD or autism, through something called disabled students allowance, they can see a needs assessor. And if a needs assessor thinks that Brain in Hand is good for them, it will be fully funded through that government grant. So that means thousands of students have Brain in Hand. It doesn't cost them anything. It's covered by government funding. Also, those of you who are in work, you may be aware of something called access to work, which is another government grant.