To celebrate Neurodiversity Awareness Week, Sarah and Paul unpack what ADHD really is—and Paul nervously, (over)shares that he joins the 1 in 7 people with his ADHD diagnosis. They cover the three ADHD presentations, whether VAST is a better description, a plain English look at dopamine, time blindness and hyperfocus, and they myth-bust the classics: “everyone’s got ADHD now,” “everyone forgets things,” and “it’s just social media.”

You’ll get practical tips for supporting experts by experience, colleagues, friends and family living with ADHD, plus a short, honest section on safety and life expectancy. It’s psychoeducation with questionable humour. Come for the learning, stay for the highly caffeinated squirrels that keep trying to take over the show.

References

Barkley, R.A. & Fischer, M. 2018, ‘Hyperactive Child Syndrome and Estimated Life Expectancy at Young Adult FollowUp: The Role of ADHD Persistence and Other Potential Predictors’, Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(9), pp. 907–923.

Community Care 2026, ‘ADHD in social work: the hidden strengths and costs’, Community Care, 10 March.

Frye, D. 2020, ‘Children with ADHD Avoid Failure and Punishment More Than Others, Study Says’, ADDitude Magazine, 6 November.

MacDonald, H.J., Kleppe, R., Szigetvari, P.D. & Haavik, J. 2024, ‘The dopamine hypothesis for ADHD: An evaluation of evidence accumulated from human studies and animal models’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, article 1492126.

NHS England Digital 2025, Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey: Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, England, 2023/4 — Chapter 9: Attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 27 November.

Partridge, A. 2025, Now It All Makes Sense: How an ADHD Diagnosis Brought Clarity to My Life, London: Sheldon Press.

RowneySmith, A., Sutton, B., Quadt, L. & Eccles, J.A. 2026, ‘The lived experience of rejection sensitivity in ADHD – A qualitative exploration’, PLOS ONE, 21(1), e0314669

In this episode Paul and Sarah have a chat about Experts by Experience, co-production and participation and are joined by Debs Pawley, Coordinator of the Experts by Experience Network at the University of Sussex.

The views represented at time of recording are our own and do not reflect any organisations we work for or have worked for.

Show Notes:

Fox, J. (2020). Perspectives of experts-by-experience: an exploration of lived experience involvement in social work education. Social Work Education, 41(4), 587–604. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2020.1861244

Roger Hart's Ladder of Children’s Participation Model: Hart, R. A. (1992). Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship. Florence, Italy: United Nations Children’s Fund International Child Development Centre.

Laura Lundy Model: Lundy, L. (2007). ‘Voice’ is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Association, 33(6), 927–942.

Children Act 1989: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/contents

The Innovate Project – https://theinnovateproject.co.uk/resources/

Trauma-Informed Practice Padlet curated by Prof. Kristi Langhoff – https://padlet.com/k_langhoff/trauma-informed-practice-resources-6d9prs7r5bfr

Research in Practice Guide: Embedding Trauma-Informed Approaches in Adult Social Care –https://www.researchinpractice.org.uk/media/hj0k0021/ripfa_embedding_trauma-informed_approaches_frontline_briefing_web.pdf

Sarah and Paul discuss what’s happening with AI, ChatGPT, and using big data to inform risk. Will AI be a help or a hindrance? They also discuss how to be part of the change and ensure that professional and lived experiences are not lost. Oh, and Paul does his famous Sir Keir Starmer impression.

Ferguson, H. (2018) ‘Making home visits: Creativity and the embodied practices of home visiting in social work and child protection’, Qualitative Social Work, 17(1), pp. 65–80.

IMPORTANT - Have your say about AI with Research in Practice