Rethinking ADHD through a Not Broken lens
Description
Join the Not Broken Project for a thought-provoking webinar exploring one of the most debated topics in contemporary mental health: ADHD. Featuring special guest presenters and some of Australia's leading experts in the field, this session will examine competing ways of understanding attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, and what these different perspectives mean for assessment, treatment, and support.
While the conventional biomedical framework views ADHD as a neurodevelopmental disorder arising from underlying brain dysfunction, the Not Broken approach invites a broader conversation. It considers ADHD as a description of real and often disabling experiences while encouraging exploration of the person's life circumstances, relationships, environment, strengths, adversity, and coping strategies.
This webinar will explore concerns around rising ADHD diagnoses, increasing stimulant prescribing, the influence of brief screening tools, and the risks of over-medicalising everyday human struggles. Participants will gain insight into an alternative framework that emphasises individual formulation, transparent discussions about medication, and a wider range of supports including psychological approaches, educational strategies, coaching, family interventions, environmental modifications, and lifestyle changes.
Designed for clinicians, educators, parents, lived-experience advocates, and anyone interested in the future of mental health care, this webinar offers an opportunity to engage with diverse perspectives and consider how we can support people experiencing attention and behavioural difficulties in ways that are collaborative, compassionate, and evidence informed.
A timely conversation challenging us to ask not "What's wrong with this person?" but "What has shaped this person's experiences, and how can we best help?"
Lineup
Dr Paul Denborough
Paul is a psychiatrist who brings an innovative style to his work in transforming mental health services. With over 20 years of experience in the public health system, he currently serves as the Clinical Director of Alfred Health’s Infant, Child and Youth Area Mental Health and Wellbeing Service, as well as its headspace centres. Throughout his career, Paul has remained deeply committed to improving the lives of young people and their families. He played a role in developing Australia’s first headspace centre in2007, a ground-breaking youth Early Psychosis service, and the Discovery College – an initiative that creates learning spaces to support understanding and change in how we think and talk about mental health. Paul is well recognised for implementing progressive programs and cultural changes across the mental health sector and contributed to The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System in 2019. Paul approaches his work with a strength-based and solution-focused mindset, continuously aiming to help alleviate mental distress for young people and their families.
Professor Jon Jureidini
Jon is a child psychiatrist whose work is grounded in a deep commitment to ethical, compassionate, and inclusive mental health care. In addition to his medical training, Jon holds a PhD in philosophy from Flinders University and has pursued trainings in critical appraisal (University of British Columbia) and psychotherapy (Tavistock Clinic), reflecting his broad, thoughtful approach to mental health. He leads the Critical and Ethical Mental Health (CEMH) research group at the University of Adelaide, which conducts research, teaching, and advocacy to promote safer, more effective, and more ethical research and practice in mental health. Jon also heads the Paediatric Mental Health Training Unit (PMHTU) that provides training and support to medical students, GPs, allied health professionals, teachers, and counsellors in developing non-pathologising approaches to mental health in primary care. Over his three decades at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide (1990–2021), Jon’s clinical work included child protection, immigration detention, and remote Indigenous mental health care, demonstrating his commitment to helping young people and those who care for them.
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