Utopia Campaign Launch
What you'll learn
- Aims of the campaign
- What we want achieve
- What to expect
- ADHD Girls' plans for the next quarter
Summary
Utopia, the campaign
- We want to unearth the nuances of ADHD and other co-occurrences through listening to unique lived experiences of intersectionality.
- Phase 1 of this campaign is run in collaboration with Qbtech Ltd
- We want to uncover hidden stories of neurodivergence across culture, race, class, gender, learning disability, and many more.
Utopia: A Place We Can Thrive campaign was inspired by other neurodivergents who felt that perhaps their story was not reaching mainstream media.
We often hear people sharing their lived experiences “My ADHD means that I’m like this or my Autism means that I’m like this”.
But what if you do not resonate with these lived experiences?
Do you seek support? Or do you continue to wander in oblivion, wondering what is wrong with you, and who to go for help?
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Apart from the gender bias in diagnosis for ADHD and autism, e.g., the pre-assessment rating scales for ADHD was famously developed based on research done in boys, which led to a large proportion of girls and women with ADHD flying under the radar, we know that other reasons play a role in why neurodivergents have been misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and mistreated.
The stigma that prevailed around neurodivergence, and the under-recognition of its nuances within medical and healthcare professionals further compounds this issue.
To complicate the matter, a subset of society consists of people who do not express their neurodivergence in the same ways due to various factors, such as those who were born into communities that have to adopt to certain social rules and those who suddenly find themselves in difficult life circumstances.
Utopia aims to give a voice to neurodivergents (with ADHD) and these intersecting areas in Phase 1 of the campaign:
- culture & race
- parenthood
- gender
- learning disability
- high intelligence/ achiever
- and many more in the next phase.
The key takeaways of this campaign will:
- Educate healthcare professionals and teaching staff on nuances in neurodiverse traits within people from marginalised communities to reduce diagnostic gap;
- Provide tools for organisations to create neuroinclusive cultures; and
- Open up conversations for neurodivergents across different communities and life circumstances, to improve representation so they can get diagnosed and find support.
The takeaways of the interviews would inform a potential book on Neurodiversity & Intersectionality, video courses that we are creating to help neurodivergents with ADHD thrive in their lives, work and study.
You can invite Sam to speak at your organisation or subscribe to her upcoming bite-sized video courses on ADHD and neurodiversity via a new learning platform (also called Utopia) launching in October.
You can register your interest here and we will update you when we launch.