As I told you earlier, he is an absolute thought leader, and told him the story of, it reminded me when I came out of it, of the Devils Wear Prada, the the episode where there were the part where the scene where the young assistant doesn't believe what they're doing is important or does anything. And gentleman goes like that's Cerise jumper you wore was that color was decided in this room five years ago. It's then trickled down until like whatever discount bin you found it in. And it's Atif's thinking is he's been thought leader for twenty five years. The the framing, the way he thinks about the challenge of neurodivergence and and ethnic diversity, other disabilities of intersectionality across is something else. And I certainly.

From our conversation came out having learned a lot and having my frame changed, which I frankly delighted in. It was really, really interesting. So without further ado, let me introduce Atif. Hello.

Hi, Henry. How are you? I'm okay. I'm alright. Yeah. I'm okay. It's o'clock in the evening. It's all a bit dark. It's in that weird winter. We haven't reached winter. We haven't sort of finished with summer. We're in kind of a weird discombobulation of things, but I am I'm generally alright. Yeah. Alright. I'm in the office. Yeah. I'm very, very excited to have you here.

And, yeah, really just just thrilled about it. The and I'm just half of the waffling because I think I wasn't aware that your video your presentation was sent earlier. So rapid turnaround. Do you want to introduce what you're saying? And I'm gonna bring your slides in.

Sure. I will. And I will say from the outset is just well done, everybody. Right? Just, you know, this is big stuff. Just, you know, before I go It's a big thank you to everyone who's involved. Yeah. But also those walking, listening from far away around the world things. Right? Because we are I know the word is often triggered, and it's almost like triggering is a negative thing. Or so it's not a word I like using in this context, but we're feeling things. We're hearing conversations. We're recognizing and in parts of the sum of the calls, I think the last one was a good example, the last chat. We're gonna visit in parts of our childhood that we've sort of buried or tried to bury.

I'm gonna hear conversations that are really gonna like, wow. Do you know the jigsaw pieces that I want to in my life to complete the puzzle, the feelings, the conversations I wanna have with loved ones, the spaces I wanna be seen in. You know? These things are being said in this in this conference, and it's amazing. It's It's heartfelt. It's deep, but it's also you know, it leaves us a little bit lost again as well, I'm sure, in different parts of it. You know? And it's okay to feel those things. So I guess when I talk about this stuff, I'm just gonna say to everybody listening is it's okay to feel these things, and I and I hope we feel them together.

Oh, thank you. Gonna maximize you, let you start to speak. I've got the slides. They're just processing. You'll have them shortly.

Good. And then, Henry, I'll probably just say next slide or or as I go along. But I will do is is is make sure I will leave as much time for questions for for those of you. Ask questions. I'm not sure what format you're gonna do it in, but do you ask questions in the thing, or you can I'll come off live and.

And people ask you questions or ask me questions, but I'll go with that. People should ask they can ask questions on social media. We we pick up most of those. If they want to be sure, they should go to globalada.com, click on the schedule in your name, and post that question there. We'll be we will be going through this. There's already some there. So.

Great. Great. Alright. Well, look, I'll just gently ease us into this, and thanks, Henry, for everybody and everyone. I'm my name is Atif Choudhury. I'm reasonably out there. I've never really know how to express that, but I'm out there enough. And you can look up my work, I guess. We'll we'll talk more about that. But today, I'm actually gonna a bit more about ADHD and the justice system itself. But I I probably have a slightly different take on it maybe, but it will the same value as as wonderful speaker we've just had. But I will bring this into context of race, and it does matter. It it truly does matter in this. Matters for a number of reasons, and I want to hold that space and that we give that an understanding.

And a sense of solidarity, right, to the people that we want to be seen, conversations we need to have, and also the people who will not be safe through these conversations. They may never be safe through these conversations. They may not even want a diagnosis. They might not feel liberated for one. Things to think about. Some of you listening today may be coming to terms with ADHD as a diagnosis. Some of you may be deeply liberated by it and really excited because it's explained a lot of things. But I promise you there will be people who will be far, far away from any conference like this and any conversation like this.

And it might not be part of their social exposure, their social capital, as they say, to even know there's such a thing as a diagnosis or a word like ADHD or an understanding or an explanation. There may be something that I'll touch on with more time in another conference, but also a little bit in this one. There may be a conversation about cultural relevance, cultural competency. Does our current understanding of neurodiversity, particularly ADHD, is it actually a global conversation? I would argue to a certain extent it needs to be, but without cultural competency and a cultural understanding of the differences we show up in and our communities, our cultures. It may not be a global invitation to ADHD as it is a global imposition to ADHD.

That we're describing and pathologizing a label or an identity and say, it means this. It is this. You've got this. When that could be the case. But what if it's also more than that? What if we are made up of so many different things that ADHD is part of our identity, but it's not the only one? And the current framing of ADHD isn't and wasn't designed and still isn't with that cultural competency or global understanding of different global identities in mind. So with that, I'll share a little bit about myself, and I'll pose that question, and I'll raise that question. And I will say it again. I I do ask this question with love, we can think about this in a moment of solidarity and our growth from these conversations.

So I my desk is a bit you asked me. I'm one of the founders of a fair trade company in Palestine, which has worked around the world supporting farmers to build a better life. I am also founder of Diversity and Ability, which is the organization that I guess I'm speaking to you through today, which works with in in the context of neurodiversity and disability around the world. I'm on I'm a board member of Disability Right to UK. I'm very proud of that. But I think the biggest part of what I get to do is be part of an attitudinal change, one that teaches the world or at least gets to play a role in the world in focusing these conversations into spaces of barriers. So in that way, I don't think I'm here to talk about neurodivergent.

People or neurodiverse people or disabled people or people with disabilities or ADHD. I think I'm here to talk about participation. And what I love speaking about is participation. And what does it mean for the world when people are not participating on in healthy ways? What happens to us? Not just us as people perhaps who are facing barriers, but what happens to the world we're building for our children when so many people are masking or hiding or not feeling welcome to participate in it on the terms that they show up in? So this isn't just a Eurocentric way of looking at neurodiversity, but a global conversation about what neurodiversity could be if it was welcomed in neurodiverse terms.

And what are the ramifications of that when we don't do that well? What are the ramifications of that for migrants and people of color when they're masking, hiding, coping, and facing other barriers alongside learning or literacy difficulties or differences in selective per se, but also the way we choose to communicate and and how we don't hide it well because we don't necessarily accuse to Western ideals or Western ideas of how people should appropriately hold themselves. If I use myself as an example, I'm Bengali, and I started my life in social care. I can touch on that a little bit later. But I'm mixed heritage. No. Sorry. I'm I'm children of migrants who came here in the seventies and sixties.

And part of my childhood was about poverty. I'm not sure I know where ADHD starts with me or where the child in social care starts with me or the dyslexic child that struggle to read and spell ends. I'm not sure when any of that ends or starts. I'm not sure that you can ever separate it. But I can say that if we are to look at these things, we can perhaps look at them through the different lenses of understanding. One of them is trauma, but the other is our talent. And we talk about that quite often. But I really truly believe, and and my team is an example of that every day, and the work we do around the world is that is an evidence of that, that talent and trauma lives in the heart of the best of people. It always has.

But we have this idea that talent is the thing we want, and we're looking looking for it. We're searching for it, and we're gonna make sure we make a big noise about it because that's what we do. And trauma is a thing that we don't really want and understandable, but it lives far away there. But the world has shown us time and time again some of the greatest innovations in the world, the things that truly changed the world, have come from people who have experienced loss in their lives, seen the need for innovation, and met communities that have helped them do it. But in the heart of that beauty and that brilliance is, at times, talent and trauma. So we need to recognize that better than we do and recognize.

That the intersectional barriers are preventing us from seeing that. So my next slide is just a picture of my team, really, and I'm gonna just touch on that, which is it's a wonderful team, really. It's made up of 85% of my team under the social model sorry, under the medical model would identify disabled or neurodiverse. And the team is also, Henry, would you do the next slide for me?

Worry. I have. This is I think it's just catching up. Okay. There you go. That's okay.

If it's helpful, I can screen share if that makes any difference.

Is that is that the slide you want, intersectional approach?

No. I think slide after that one. Just let's see. If you go back go back one for me. Yeah. That one. That's fine. Yeah. Let's see if that works. Okay. So let's just update to the team. One thing I'm gonna say in this as well, look, and I love this. It's about social value and social impact. Why it's really important is sometimes people can look at organizations and think, yes. We should do that because it's got it's the right thing to do. Yes. We should spend money on that because it's a charity, or, yes, we should do that because but when you look at that, you'll see that the right thing to do will not be the thing that we do in times of turbulence, in times of change, in terms of recession, in times of difficulties.

The right thing to do isn't the thing that we do. So building a business case for why we need different thinkers in our world isn't just the right thing to do, but it has social value. So I I'm asking this to people listening today and those who are watching to think about that, and I will gladly help organizations also to think about how they can prove a business case to make sure that the right thing they do is also the sustainable thing they do. It's a lot hard lesson. It's something that I had to learn through, and it's taking me and diversity is fifteen years old as an organization, and it takes a lot of time to be able to do that, but I wanna put that seed out there.

Alright. So the next slide is really about the questions. Why is an intersectional approach so important? Some of you have been hearing the word intersectionality. I hope more. And if you haven't, I will do my best to explain it. But intersectionality really is about the barriers that we face. It's also about the different forms we come in. Real inclusion and authentic inclusion means recognizing that our social, political, and economic characteristics interact with social barriers. That we're not just a label or an identity. We're also a mix up of lots of different things that we face. So there's a map that I use to navigate the world, and my map was probably largely formed by the time I was probably 15.

I'd say 90% of it was. The rest of the 10% is learning as you grow older. But that map is all of you listening today have a unique map to the world. It's how how you form your identity, your experiences, the richness of that, and how you navigate systems and your confidence to do that. Some of us are facing maps have historical legacies, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, ableism, capitalism. They are a question of power and how we navigate. And when you go further into that, you might go into spaces of class and religion and faith, sexuality, identity. These are the different forms we come in. All of us come in these different forms. I'm gonna say here, we're all neurodiverse, every one of us, but we're not all marginalized because of it.

And that's the work to do. That's the depth from which we have to go in our solidarity, not just for those who have a diagnosis or struggling to come to terms with that, for those who may not feel safe for one or may never want one. It really does matter if we're to get to understanding of what that talent could look like when it's welcomed and protected. And we are probably the best people to be able to do that because we ourselves have experienced that isolation. We ourselves have felt that pain, and we ourselves are seeking a better world, not just for ourselves and our healing, but also for the children we have. So next slide, I'll I'll speed up a little bit, but this is already a little bit about me on the next slide if I.

Henry, is it coming? Yeah. So that's that's just me when I was at that's the place I grew up in. If anyone has seen Misfits or Clock of Orange, it was all filmed there. But it's a place I grew up in. Myself, I struggled. I am somebody people look at and say, wow. You've organized international companies. You have set up organizations around the world. And I said, yes. I have. And I'm really grateful to that. I get to advise the UN on the dispute road map and and and work with the World Health Organization. But I started here in this place. It's a ginormous council state. It's one of the roughest well, I don't about rough, but it's certainly recognized.

As that. I don't know if it was for me. In some ways, it was. In some ways, it wasn't. I struggled at school. I didn't speak much at school. In fact, I went through five years of barely speaking at all. The first part of my life, I was in social care. Sadly, my mother, through mental health loss, and undiagnosed and unsupported ADHD as well as mental health loss took her own life. And that was a very difficult thing to grow up through. And so as as a youngster, I was separated from my siblings. But we came together through that. There was a space of love and healing, but it take took time. But one thing that I never quite managed to understand was how I learn and how to fit in.

It felt it felt easier just to not say anything and be really quiet than to know what game to play and how to cope with it. I left school at 16 to try and get a job and help help with the bills, But I struggled a lot. And it was said in the last call the last presenter, absolutely, I fully agree. I don't think I've yet to meet someone with dyslexia that doesn't also have ADHD. I'm not convinced our current modeling for either dyslexia or ADHD is yet mature enough to understand the socioeconomic realities behind these labels and diagnosis or the cultural competency or the impacts they have on migration. But I do truly believe that those coping with learning and literacy in a reading context with dyslexia.

Will also be impacted by ADHD in a profound way too. But often, they're in silos, and we separate the two things. And we shouldn't because they're not single issue struggles. They're just maps on how we navigate the world, how we find welcome in it, and whether we find solutions and love amongst communities that allow us to show up and talk about our differences in the ways that we show up in. I'll just do the next slide if if Henry, if you can. And this is a slide I really like. This is somebody whose work I really love a lot. Her name is, and she rightly just said the same thing far better than I did, which is to say that that there is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we don't live single issue lives. It really matters.

That we do recognize that we show up in different war forms, that we're not just labels or a diagnosis or an outrage because we're on a waiting list for a diagnosis, that we are made up of experiences. And some of those are as profound as ADHD, some and of those are profound of more than just ADHD. It's about poverty. It's about shame. It's about culture. It's about loss. Sometimes it's about prisons, and sometimes it's even about self harm. So these things will translate into many parts of the world, but we don't yet understand it very well. We don't understand it in the context of people of color who are disproportionately made up of prisoners unsupported because the neurodiversity.

Is not a conversation as part of their culture or their community or part of their socioeconomic reality. It does matter. If you're thinking about, say, Richard Branson or Winston Churchill, they both have something in common. Two things. One is that they were able to talk about dyslexia at an early age. The second, they have the social economics on their side to be able to tell their story. And the risk of telling their story was there, no doubt, but it wasn't a risk that would have meant they go to prison or they go hungry or they will be jobless. And these are the differences. I I once sort of said that with dyslexia, particularly if if I score exactly the same as Richard Branson on a dyslexia test.

And, yes, I'm entrepreneur in my own way. I know he's a lovely chap too, I'm sure. But all I have in common with Richard Branson, even if I score the same as him on dyslexia, all I have in common with him is a beard because my life experience is completely different. My beginning to the world is different, and I guess my map I use to navigate neurodiversity will be completely different. And that's the understanding we've got to grow to. It can't just be, oh, I've got ADHD too, or I've got dyslexia too, or it's about what does it mean for you, and how does it impact your sense of identity and movement and expectation? What can we do to welcome it on your terms? What does it mean for your culture, your community? This is intersectionality.

In its reality, but it's also a question of justice. Because when we don't get that right, things happen. On the next slide Henry, we got it? Yeah. So this is really something that I think is important, the need for psychological safety. I've always said this, that if you have to do more in a workplace or a school just to get through it, then you're hardwired to share less. If you're facing homophobia or misogyny or racism or transphobia, whatever it really is, you have to do more. You're masking more. You're coping more. You're having to do more. Then you're hardwired to share less. Some people do share, but, really, they're often disclosing because they have to because there's a mental health tool more.

It's not often that we share because we can or want to. Sometimes we share because we have to. So that in itself is a barrier, and the role we play in that is how do we make sure that we anticipate that, that we recognize that? That even and it's really hard for some people to get this. It's really hard that some people's ADHD will show up differently to other people's. That sometimes when we say, oh, I've got ADHD too, that we're not necessarily listening. Although, it's the way we share. Right? So many folks, I'm gonna say, we share a relatable story. As Bengalis, we get really excited about things and gesture it. And I wonder I'm not overspeaking, I hope. I'm not cutting someone's conversation.

I'm not making light or trying to story top them. I'm just really excited about what they're saying. But it's being conscious of how do we hear that pain when we ourselves have felt it, but how do we make sure we give space to it? Because their story or their poverty or their part of it may be quite different to yours. It may have been a lot worse, especially in the early days. That is part of the search for everyday belonging, and we find it in others. So on my next slide, I'm just gonna read it out to you, but it it says it there, really, that without an intersectional understanding of the barriers that neurodiverse or disabled people face, we don't have a relevant understanding. That class, that migration, poverty.

Gender shame, healing, it all plays a part in the conversations we need to have. And we have got to get this into a conversation that understands race and class and migration. And social economics plays every role in whether we have agency to seek a diagnosis, pay for one privately, or even know we're safe even if we paid for one at all. Shame is a big part of this. And these things play out. They play out in our behaviors. I once said that shame dies when it finds a safe place to tell a story. And And it's it's our role to create safe places to tell stories. But sometimes we don't find that until it's after May. Sometimes we self harm because we don't find that. Sometimes we even lose lives because we don't find it in this lifetime.

And often in many cases, behaviors can be so distraught that that they can lead to violence, aggression, self harm, and long term custodial prison sentences. And this is when we've gotta understand that better. Because as we're saying is we we don't look at people and say, oh, they've got ADHD. What we look at is behavior and look at behavior particularly in young people and say, well, that's not acceptable, or that's been damaging, or that needs punishment. My next slide, I'm just gonna share some stats over, and I'll try and make up for time for questions really as well. But I'm just gonna say this this is about this isn't really about race in the criminal justice system per se, because I think that the last.

Session was really did that with a lot of passion, and I really appreciate that. I think it's more about just holding a quiet space to feel something, and I really want us to quietly feel something. But despite making up just 14% of the population, people of color, men of color, and women, we make up 25% of prisoners. That's a disproportionate amount of prisoners. That over 40% of young people in custody are coming from black ethnic minority majority backgrounds. It's not right. We are in such a space where that prisons can be so easy for us to fall into. And is the answer to do more diagnosis? I I'm not sure what that is. I once said, I'll say it now. You know? And it's been said that we we have to get this right.

That these diagnosing and do more diagnosis may be an answer for some. But what are the terms of those diagnosis if they're not culturally relevant to the people we're diagnosing for? That's a big question. I wanna sort of allow space to for people to react to that and think to that. So on the next slide, I'm just gonna sort of move this on as well. So nine percent of prison inmates meet the criteria of autism. It's the current criteria. The criteria itself may change. It may need to. We may find that there's a lot more than nine percent. So twenty five percent meet the ADHD diagnostic, which is huge, and nine percent meet screening criteria for learning difficulties. I didn't read until I was 14. Still don't spell.

If I was basing my sense of identity on those things and I once truly did, then youth custody was probably where I was heading. And and at one point, it looked like I was. These These things can happen so easily because poverty and and choices can be challenging. Having self esteem that says, I've I've got a different life waiting for me. It's not something that's given to everybody. You'd think it would be, but it's just not how I think the psychological well-being and safety of learning isolation plays its role in people's lives. Okay. So up to fifty seven people entering prisons expect to have some form of neurodivergent conditions which impacts their ability to engage. It does self harm. It does anger management. It is.

Not a place that gets to talk about superpowers. But what it should do is just have a sense of everyday belonging that we all will show up differently. We all learn differently. As I said, we're all neurodiverse. We're ashamed if we weren't, really. But we're all neurodiverse, but we're not all marginalized because of it. And I know I've said that before. I'm gonna say it again because that's the work to do. Alright. On my next slide, and I do wanna give space for questions. So if that works. There are only two out of 354 service users who received adjustments while in police custody.

There's some great work happening. There's a team out there, Chris Puddell, doing really good on police services and and and enhancing the police understanding of neurodiversity within the police force itself. You get a better understanding police force. You may get a better community policing. You get better community policing. You get better investments. You may even see a more diverse police force coming through because of the good work that's happening there. There's so many examples of good work happening, but it needs more understanding. And we've we've inherited some absurdities. We've inherited ideas of what makes a good leader only from using present leaders. We haven't inherited the idea that leaders may be amazing.

But not famous, or that there could be great leaders who don't necessarily read or write, who may speak their truths, but not become famous. But role model is something truly wonderful. We all all too often look at differences in people and reject them until they're famous. And then we often say, oh, I knew I knew her. I knew him. I think about different experiences or in my life and think about how many people I might have missed because their behaviors made it hard to see how important important they were in the world. I I I tried I tried to survive it.

So there's some more stats here. I'm just gonna move it through and then just ask some questions here for you guys to think about. Neurodiversity is three times more common in criminal justice system than the rest of population. Yes. That's true. There is a screening limit for neurodiversity, which I do think the figure would be much higher because we're still measuring neurodiversity on fairly narrow terms. The diagnosis itself needs to evolve. I said it need it's it's good that we have something. But a a diagnosis is a is a place for, you know, a heart that's got nowhere else to go, and we need to understand that. So it's not that it's found a perfect home.

But we haven't got a good job understanding what is the impact. My diagnosis doesn't say anything about things I've told you. It says how I perform on a particular test, but it doesn't say he moved around a lot as a child. They struggled to fit in. They didn't speak. Or his what happened to his his parents. Nor was it designed to. But those things matter. So when we look at the diagnosis, we're gonna have to build an understanding of the social economics of it to build a trauma informed care approach to it and an understanding of what are the terms we're measuring global identities on. And if we're gonna keep doing it on particular Eurocentric identity without understanding migration or class or shame or culture.

Then we can't blame people for not showing up for it, for not wanting it, to not rush to get a diagnosis or medication or anything. Because we're not doing anything other than telling them they should be more like us, but understanding what is it about us that they're afraid of. And what is it about our design and our thinking here that doesn't serve them? And if the ramifications of trying to get a label helps you not go to prison, then perhaps I'll do it. But that's not an invitation. That is a a deep seated imposition. And so we can do better. And our understanding of neurodiversity and our demands on ourselves just will reach that. But we've gotta dig a bit deeper than we often do.

So when we think about that, when we think about those in prison, most people, they were not asked or assessed or diagnosed for neurodiversity within the justice system itself. And I know that you're gonna do more talks on this. I I have a particular position on the school to pipeline, and I have the the joy in my life of working with Amanda Kirby who who does some great work on that. But it is true that so often, people are not gonna find out about these things till much later in life. I didn't get to find out. And the label for me was deeply liberating. I run a podcast on this conversation called Labels and Legacies. A label was deeply liberating, but I shouldn't have been so dependent on it.

Or to even wait till I'm nearly 40 to get it in order to to feel welcomed nor should anyone with late diagnosis. But as I said, I'm still not convinced the diagnosis itself said what it needed to say. And, truly, it was just human understanding and human enthusiasm for the ideas I had that made them become real. So I'm gonna move on to the next slide, which is just yeah. The neurodiversity is is and it's talked about a lot in these sessions. I can see it. That that there are there are long waiting lists. Henry, sorry. Would you do the next slide for me? And that the waiting lists are and I think you've really talked about this in previous sessions as well. There are long waiting lists, and you've seen that. And it does need to change.

But we do need to to look at this in terms of what is the mental health impact of this. Sometimes we have a knee jerk reaction almost to say that neurodiversity isn't a mental health illness and such and such. This this, of course, is true, but that's not the point. I think the point is that learning isolation, by that, I mean, not being supported because of differences, has a mental health consequence. And that consequence is real. And it affects the social justice system, and it affects the mental health system that we have, and we can do better. So I'm coming to the end of this, really. And I'm on my next slide. Now I guess I'm gonna throw it to Henry, really, and back to questions and spaces, and maybe we can just have a chat.

But I guess I'm saying it. This is my third time. If you take away from anything from me is this. And remember what I said about the map to the world. I'll be courageous with you, and I know this won't be popular for some. But diversity really does a lot of work supporting homeless learners, learners who are facing literacy, rough sleepers. And in that space with assisted technology and training and support, we anticipate that that neurodiversity or neurodivergency, as we call it, is there. We work on that position. We don't wait till it can prove itself. But I will face people who somehow navigate the world as if they're somehow neurotypical to one they're day they're not. Was I neurotypical until one day I could prove I wasn't?

And so we're gonna have to do better to recognize that we all use different maps of the world, how we feel loved, whether we're welcomed, whether we got to eat regularly, whether we knew we were protected, whether we met adults that loved us. It shapes our brains and the way we navigate the world. It gives us a space of knowing we have a place in it. This changes our brain makeup. And having a trauma informed care approach to the work we do, including ADHD, will really make the difference if we're to avoid school to prison pipeline and the loss of so much people going through this pain. We are all neurodiverse, but we're just not all marginalized because of it. And so that's the good work ahead of us.

Okay. That's my next slide. And, Henry, over to you. That's my contact details if or the team's contact details. Be in touch. I'd love to know how this this felt for you, Gaul, And, yeah, and and more questions. There's a lot more to say, but I I feel like in the time frame, I I don't wanna too much. But I do wanna bring out to you all to think about the Eurocentrism and the lack of cultural competency in our way of looking at neurodiversity at the moment. And I hope I mean, that we're provocation and a sense of hope for a better way of a better understanding on this.

That was that was Thank you. And I particularly think that that last line just threw us, like, the the neurocentrism and lack of cultural competency. Can you just talk a bit more to neurocentrism? Because I you're the first person who told told me that phrase, so I was I've I've fallen in love with it. Can you tell me what you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. I'll do my best. So, again, I don't I don't know if this is popular for people. I I think that I'm curious. You know? I I think okay. So, look, if I I'm gonna use myself as an example. So I I'm not anybody's neurodivergent. I'm I'm somebody who just wants to be welcomed. But the terms in which I know I navigate the world won't be from my indigenous language. It won't be from my first it will be through how I cope with with being a child in a British school school state system. And so with that comes power. Okay. And someone could say, well, yeah, but that's every day for everyone. Okay. So so let's slow it down a little bit. The modeling for neurodiversity itself, whether it's ADHD, dyslexia, etcetera.

Is done in a particular lens over a particular set of communities. We We haven't looked at how communities around the world might do this. When we are looking at global conversations, so I might look at, say, Nigeria or Kenya and say, tell me about your ADHD Conference. Tell me about your neurodiversity one. I'm often watching is a conference about how they are to the education system that was left behind. So I might go to see a position on Kenya, and it will show me this is how dyslexia work. Okay. But but but you're showing me as if the English is still here. They left in nineteen sixties. What is this what you're showing me? Said, well, this is. Okay.

But what is the context of it in terms of your people, in terms of Maasai people, in terms of Nairobi people, in terms of understanding this through Swahili? And that's lost. I could could do do the same in any country. I could go to any there isn't a border in Africa that was made by an African. There's no border in India that was made by an Indian. There is no border in The Middle East, and sadly, we see it now that was made by somebody from the Middle East. So if we don't see that people had control over their nation states, why would they have had control over their education system? They didn't. What they did is survive an education system that was given to them, enforced upon them.

So when we come to learning differences okay. So that happened in the past, but let's talk about now. Well, now we're still saying the same communities if we use the word international development, we're making them more developed. So the same community are coping with how to cope with the conversation of neurodiversity, how to understand ADHD in a global way, how to understand dyslexia in a global context. But, actually, what they're doing is trying to understand it in a European context. They're not really being able to say, let me teach you, Europeans, how we understand it in our world. Let me teach you in our culture, it looks like this. Let me show you in our.

Excitement and joy for the world that we communicate like this, that we don't have a deficit. We just don't conform to the way you think is socially acceptable. But in our joy, we mean it with love. And why shouldn't our version of ADHD be something you learn from? In fact, we're not even asking that question. We're worst part of it, Henry, is that people are just not even curious about it.

Yeah. And the culture you know, I talked to someone from, for example, from Japan, and they were talking about the impact of the hyperactivity of ADHD in a culture where the requirements to, you know, not step out, not move and and particularly for them in in their family there. They I could see how impactful that could be in the impulsivity to speak out. And so the cultural relevance of ADHD traits, which we talked about when when we met previously, is something that really isn't talked about enough in any way. And it's when you start to think about and I think we also talk more when we talk about the time challenge of ADHD. Well, if you're from a South American country, like, where.

Is much more of a of a of a more ephemeral thing for for so many. You know, if you arrive to You're right.

But, look, every culture will if I may, unless you use timeliness, every community has a particularly, majority has a conversation, a joke about it. You know? Or say, that's Indian time, you know, or Bengali time or or or or Nigerian time. But, essentially and then others will say, well, it's timeliness, or there's a deficit. But what if it just was communities that are not that restricted to capitalism? That that that that there is a courtesy to be on time. Of course, there is. But there is an understanding that we are allowing ourselves to be human and to approach these moments with our culture and our community, that means we're not on the minute. Maybe we're from communities and cultures that lived in hot suns.

And we don't have to rush for everything, you know, because it's not healthy for us. And so when I'm just maybe giving that and so does that have to be timeliness? Does it even have to be disrespectful?

Can it just be, okay. There's an there's a reason why some community is And and that goes to your point of the the the cultural relevance, the cultural competency of understanding ADHD, that something like that will look the time issue will look very different depending on culture. Now I have a question from my co founder, doctor Max Dave. He said like, will you know, I don't want to disappoint him. Can you give some ideas about how the diagnostic criteria could be more culturally sensitive and relevant? Absolutely.

And this is a longer longer time than I'm but I'm just gonna give you a basic one. Yeah. We we have about four minutes. But let let's recognize. Okay. We have a diagnostic criteria that doesn't even take into account second language. So we might measure someone else's dyslexia not recognizing they may be translating from two languages. The language of English, but they still think and feel in a different language. But then we're gonna look at that and say, oh, okay. Their social coding is a bit slow. No. It might be super fast because they've just done it in two languages. Or so there's an example. Where to to build the cultural competency is to say, where is the person from?

What is their childhood upbringing? How long do they live here? What are those things that relate to the things that that make this safe? And above all, when we're doing the diagnosis, particularly in a deficit model, make that person safe enough to wanna tell you those things. Because if they don't tell you those things and you yourself are not psychic, you're not gonna know. So that means rehauling a lot of those lot of the ways that we look at diagnosis at the moment. And, yes, there's an urgency in the waiting list. So why are we gonna then change the diagnostic waiting list or make it even harder? Well, we're not.

We may need to just look at the idea that we can do diagnostic better and faster by reframing it through what are the barriers and impairments that person's facing and address the barriers first rather than having something that proves they've got something in in order order to get their barriers even talked about. So that to me is is a way of doing it, that we look at where are the places and the culture and the communities they're from. What is it they identify language? And does it really have to be a deficit just because it might be in The UK?

Thank you. And in one of the questions that have been posted to the page, these are fantastic topics and themes today. I'm glad you're talking, Atif, about the equally vital one for people to understand. And I know your charity does very, very good work, disability disability UK, which you're a part of as well. We've seen a number of comments come in from essentially your fan base.

I can't see I can totally see the chat on. Yeah. It. The.

We had someone you talked about your very challenging start in life and the things that happened to you in in childhood. We had this come in saying, if you've had negativity all your life or abuse from the system, what's the point of even participating? Participating. You're more than participating. You're leading. What's your answer to Phil?

I've just I feel absolute somebody to to to whoever wrote that question, please hold yourself. You know, just you're loved. I don't I don't know what to say to because when you it's so we're asking for logic and reason in a place and events that are illogical and unreasonable. I hope people can understand that. That where do you find a place when you're going through such pain? I don't know. I I feel like I was loved. I don't know why we struggle with the word love, especially in this country, because my community doesn't, but but what do you do in this country? But but but to know you're loved and to know that you're not on your own is hard work, but it is gonna need love. And to know you're not alone to get through this stuff.

To not give in to addiction when it feels like it's it's so easy and and warm, to not give in to anger and and even aggression or violence because that's the only way that feels alive again. I don't have an answer on that. I think that and I wish I did because I think about the loss in my life and my mother that I cannot remember, and I don't have an answer on it. I just ask that we address shame together, and we look for love in our lives, and we be loved for other people who need need to see it.

Thank you. That was really powerful. And that was really powerful. Atif, you're Thank you so much for coming to the conference, for speaking with the passion, intensity, the deep thought that you did for your understanding, for your work. I hugely appreciate you, and thank you enormously.

That's alright.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Henry. I just wanna have to sign you out and say goodbye, sir. Yeah. That's alright. Bye. Thank you so much.

No worries.