Doris Hopkins from PAAA is on the panel for ADHD Australia Education Summit: Building Brighter Pathways 2021. Doris joins a number of professionals and advocates at this event.
ADHD Australia is showcasing and discussing existing and new educational resources to support educators and students with ADHD.
October 21st 2021. Tickets are available now.4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
This event was created to showcase the findings from the ADHD Australia education survey and to discuss existing educational resources and new resources to support educators and students with ADHD.
The MC award-winning journalist, Wendy Tuohy from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, will introduce speakers and moderate a discussion with a panel of experts on resources and support for educators and students.
Speakers & Topics
Dr Kathy Gibbs: ADHD Australia education survey outcomes report
Dr Erin Leif: Positive Behaviour Support and ADHD: Preventative, practical and person-centre
Trish Rymer: OLT: ADHD professional learning for teachers
Dr Michele Toner: ADHD WA teacher PD programme
Jazz Goldberg: Neutopia Prototype
Matt Tice: Neutopia Prototype
Panel Topics
- What current education resources are useful to support our students with ADHD?
- The student perspective: Do you think students with ADHD are supported by their teachers?
- What other training and resources do you think Educators need to better support our students with ADHD? And how can we make these resources for teacher training more accessible?
Panellists
Trish Rymer | Online Training Australia
Educational Consultant for Online Training in Australia; MSc Education Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK; BA (Honours) Developmental Psychology, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK; Post Graduate Certificate in Education, Students with Special Educational Needs, University of Hull, UK.
Dr Kathy Gibbs | Griffith University
Lecturer, School of Education and Professional Studies at Mt Gravatt Campus, Griffith University; Professional Advisor for ADHD Australia.
Dr Samantha Hornery | Learning Links
PhD (Dyslexia Interventions), Bachelor of Education Primary); Product Innovation; Education Manager, Learning Links; Private tutor and advocate for students with learning difficulties.
Doris Hopkins | PAAA
Lead of a National advocacy group – Parents for ADHD Advocacy Australia (PAAA) since 2018. Passionate advocate for parents and carers of individuals with ADHD, mum of two primary school aged children and marketing executive in the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr Erin Lief | Monash University
Board Certified Behaviour Analyst – Doctoral (1-08-4210); Senior Lecturer and Course Leader (Master of Applied Behaviour Analysis) at Monash University, School of Educational Psychology and Counselling and Faculty of Education.
Aruna Iyengar | LUCID/Advocate
Parent of two teenage children – a girl aged 16 and a boy aged 14 (one of whom has ADHD), Uber driver, chef, tutor, basketball rebounder and owner of a market research agency, LUCID.
Dr Michele Toner | ADHD WA
OAM, PhD, MSpEd (hons): Chair of ADHD WA, ADHD Coach and Consultant, and author of ADHD WA Teacher Training Program.
Matt Eastman | Special Education Teacher
Special education teacher and Assistant Principal in a primary school in South-Western Sydney, President of Canterbury Bankstown Teachers Association, and sits on the NSW Teachers Federation State Council and Executive.
Lukas Barker | ADHD Student
Year 6 student, ADHD advocate, and a lover of LEGO.
Simon da Roza | Exceptional Learners
Principal Divergent Coach; Exceptional Learners, teacher with 33 years experience, and a dad of divergent learners – identifies as a divergent learner.
Why is this summit important? Q&A with Doris Hopkins PAAA National Advocacy Lead.
Why is this summit important?
For those genuinely interested in the objectives and content of this first ever ADHD Education Summit:- This forum is so very important as it has such a variety of speakers and panellists, including educators, parents of children with ADHD, and student with ADHD, representing perspectives on how students with ADHD can be better supported at school.
Who should attend this summit?
The Summit provides a chance for educators to see the results of an Australian survey by ADHD Australia of 1000 respondents, who have fed back their levels of understanding of ADHD, what sort of professional development they feel they need, how they’d like to receive the professional development and other insights.
It provides educator attendees with the opportunity to hear about professional learning options such as OLT ADHD course and ADHD WA online teacher course- the OLT ADHD Australia course is a blended tutor led course which has been available in multiple Department of Education jurisdictions in Australia for over 6 months. As a result of the summit, 1300 more educators will be aware of it and hopefully request to complete it. Hopefully there will be similar demand for the online ADHD WA course.
What is Positive Behaviour Support?
The summit will include a presentation on Positive Behaviour Support and ADHD: Preventative, practical and person centred. PBL is a framework embedded in the QLD and NSW departments of education. I understand the approach from the speaker will cover “meeting the student where they are at, teaching new skills, proactively providing accommodations, embedding student strengths into the process, including the student voice in the process…and the presentation will NOT focus on forcing kids to do things that they can’t do, taking things away from kids, or normalising kids.”
Whilst PBL is a framework utilised in many schools, there has been variability in understanding and quality implementation across schools and hence there has been a range of positive and negative experiences associated with it. I am sure these challenges will be discussed and teachers guided towards more collaborative and solutions focused approaches with students
How is PAAA represented?
The attendees will hear from an amazing 11-year-old student with ADHD called Lukas who will share views on what teachers should know about ADHD based on a survey of students with ADHD across Australia that he completed as part of a school project – this will be a highlight of the summit
As a panellist at the summit, I plan to represent the members of Parents for ADHD Advocacy Australia by highlighting some key outcomes of the PAAA’s “Parent and carer survey of experiences of ADHD in schools: critical gaps”. I also plan to discuss the benefits of a strengths-based approach to supporting students, the benefits of strong parent collaboration and the advantages of teachers having a deeper understanding of ADHD and classroom adjustments.
PAAA member Simon da Roza from Exceptional Learners will share his pearls of wisdom on supporting students with ADHD not only from the perspective of an educator, but an ADHD coach and having personal lived experience.
A final word…
I cannot emphasise more how much of an amazing opportunity this summit is in raising awareness and understanding of ADHD among educators. I know this is the first of more summits planned, and there will be many learnings taken from this in the planning of future summits, including more speakers who are openly neurodivergent. I can only encourage educators to attend to form your own view!
THANKS DORIS! Interested in attending? Register here: