This year’s ADHD Awareness Month theme, “The Many Faces of ADHD,” reminds us that ADHD isn’t one look or one story, it’s a spectrum of strengths, challenges, and creativity that shows up differently in everyone.
At Peer Power Youth, I’m proud to say that we are ADHD powered! Many of our team, myself included, are neurodivergent, and it’s our lived experience that shapes everything we do. When I first wrote about being diagnosed with ADHD at 43, I was flooded with messages from people who recognised themselves in my story. Some went on to seek assessments for themselves or family members.
In care and youth justice spaces, we meet young people navigating complex systems where neurodiversity is high, and too often misunderstood. Our empathy-led approach means we meet young people where they are, not where systems expect them to be.
We are intentionally neuroinclusive. Across the charity, we try to make things easier for all brains through community involvement in our co-designed strategy, training and internal decision-making mechanisms. Hybrid working options, fidget toys, shorter meetings, creative visual tools, and wellbeing breaks are just some of the ways we do that.
We don’t always get it right, but we are always listening, learning, and evolving, through varied and accessible feedback routes.
Being ADHD powered makes us more creative, responsive, and empathic. It gives us the insight and courage to challenge systems, and to model what inclusive, compassionate leadership can look like.
Anne-Marie Douglas, Founder & CEO, Peer Power Youth.
At Peer Power Youth, we recognise the incredible value of our neurodivergent team and the unique perspectives they bring to our charity. Also, many of the young people we support at Peer Power Youth and in the community have ADHD and, as Anne-Marie describes, we pride ourselves on being neuroincluisive which makes us more compassionate to everyone we work with.
About Peer Power Youth
Peer Power Youth is a youth led charity working with young people aged 10–25 who have experienced trauma, including abuse, neglect, exclusion, and injustice. We are an empathy-driven organisation working to transform services by inspiring young people with lived experience to have a voice.
Since we began in 2016, Peer Power Youth has supported over 1,000 young people and 7,000 professionals, helping to embed youth voice at the heart of care services.
Our goal is to transform services so that they meet young people with empathy, equity, and care – not control. We want services to support children and young people early, to prevent harm from escalating.
Keep up with the latest on empathy, co-production and youth-led system change.
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