JACQUIE LEE: 
Hi everyone. Welcome to today's webinar my name is Jacquie Lee and I'm a practice development officer here at (inaudible) I would like to start today by acknowledging the Kaurna people, the Traditional Custodians of the Adelaide Plains were Esther, Emilia and I join you from today and the Traditional Owners and caretakers of the lands and waters in Burnie where Jaisen calls home. I also pay my respects to the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to and care for our lands and waters. We pay our respect to aboriginal and Torres straight Islander cultures and to Elders past, present and emerging. Thank you for joining us today. We will get into a discussion. I just want to do some housekeeping first. Live captions are available for this webinar. To find them please follow the link in the chat box. There will be a live Q&A at the end. So please submit your questions for our panellists via the question box in the go to webinar dashboard. The webinar is being recorded. That recording will be available in around two weeks by the emerging minds websites. Just look for it under the webinar banner. You can find a section of related readings and resources in the handout sections of your go to webinar Control Panel. Including information on Emerging Minds new advance practice certificate in child health and trauma, which is a free online training program that combines video demonstrations, written content, facilitated tutorials and supported group learning sessions. Lastly, there will be a short feedback survey that will open at the end of the webinar, so please stick around and share your thoughts with us. Today marks the 18th annual world autism awareness day. In 2025, this day is about so much more than just awareness. It is about actively promoting the acceptance, appreciation, inclusion as well as recognising the contributions that autistic people make to their communities and the world. As such, we would like to recognise the children and young people and adults whose pain, trauma and heartache, including at the hands of harmful systemic processes require recognition and compassion. We also recognise the strengths and know-how that neurodivergent families and children have drawn on to navigate this world that wasn't built for them. We respect the skills people have developed to contribute their lived experience and strive for a more inclusive society. We are committed to deeply listening and responding with integrity to their voices and expertise. So, it is my pleasure to welcome Esther Fidock, Jaisen Mahne and Emilia Zygocki. Start out with a quick getting to know you question. How does your own expressive neurodivergence inform your practice.

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
Hello. It helps me in two ways. The first ways that, before I realised I was in autistic ADHDer, I was the kind of person who would say things like "I love working with autistic people, they are so blunt and direct and it makes it so easy to work with them." Then I realised I am autistic myself. That is why I find it so easy. Learning about the double empathy problem and knowing the autistic communication is very valid and for autistic people it is quite easy to indicate a lot of the time. So there is that aspect. The other aspect is that psychology, affirming practice, early childhood, autism ADHD, these mighty areas of interest. Because I spent so much time in these spaces, researching and learning more, I'm so passionate about the space and I think it also affects the way that I practice as well.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thank you Esther. That makes so much sense. It is such a privilege to have you join us today. Emilia, welcome. Can you tell me what drew you to this work?

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
Hi. For me, I was really drawn to your diversity because I can see how prioritising collaboration with clients and supporting children to feel safe and empowered and have their voice included in (inaudible) is so powerful and valuable. I can see and have observed how great the outcomes are when you are working with them. It's really exciting to be part of this and being able to contribute, even as an occupational therapist we are quite strength based in nature so this is quite an organic direction to go into with my work.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Thank you Emilia. Jaisen, what are some of the delights that come with being the parent of a neurodivergent child?

JAISEN MAHNE: 
I think being able to raise children who are on the spectrum is challenging and rewarding. Seeing the growth and there are very young and anxious, and becoming well-adjusted and happy people is wonderful. The compassionate, apathetic, and they don't have any filters so they see the world in an interesting way and I enjoy having conversations with them. They have a sense of wonder and also a deep sense of justice and now they can self-advocate which makes me feel really proud.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. That is awesome. Thank you Jaisen, Emilia and Esther. I'm so excited to hear more from each of you. Based on the registration questions that we have received, we have structured today's webinar around for overarching topics. The key components of neurodivergent-affirming practice, supporting children and families through the diagnostic and assessment phase, accommodation strategies to help autistic and ADHD children survive, and finally the importance of advocacy including in education is settings. Esther and Emilia, what does neurodivergence in practice mean to you and how does it show up in your work with children and families?

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
For me, at the heart of it you're a diversity affirming practice is really just that holistic approach to understanding a child and family in a dynamic and looking at not just what is going on for them as an individual, but all of the systems and communities and connections that surround them. I think a really big part of this is understanding that our role as professionals is not to make an autistic child not autistic or to not look autistic, but our goal is to help autistic children to feel well and to thrive. I think that is really the heart of neurodiversity affirming practice for me.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
I agree. We want to make sure that kids understand that we are supporting them because the world is not set up for neurodiversity and there are a lot of things that exist are not very supportive, so we can come in and support them to exist and feel empowered and supported in systems that might not necessarily have been set up for them. I think, for me, in terms of showing up in work, I think making sure that we are looking at children and their families as the experts of themselves, rather than coming in and assuming that we have all of the answers because we have worked with neurodiverse people in the past. We are coming to them as equals, and that collaborative approach is, I think, really important in how we work with clients and families.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Thanks guys. Jaisen, can you share a brief example of how a neuro-affirming approach has helped you and your family?

JAISEN MAHNE: 
Having practitioners understood the situation without neurodivergent children was key to early intervention. Particularly in the case of our youngest son who is on the spectrum. We had suspicions because of his behaviours, and we mentioned this to our child health nurse. She suggested to us that we get him assessed as he was showing signs of self-soothing, and little behaviours that just didn't make sense to us. So that child health nurse really put us on the right track. His twin sister is also on the spectrum, and we have had much success with the practitioners who have acknowledged our concerns. She was really good at masking and made it difficult to diagnose her early. But because our son was going through autism specific learning centres, the staff were quick to observe her behaviours and we managed to get her in with her brother so the early intervention had a significant impact on her development as well as his.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Amazing. Thank you Jaisen. Thinking about diagnoses and assessment, Emilia we know that assessments can be difficult for families to access for a number of different reasons. How important is it for a child to have a formal diagnosis of autism or ADHD?

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
While you are right that a diagnosis isn't really necessarily (inaudible) for us to be affirming of the child and the needs, the diagnosis does unlock access to services and access to support such as NDIS, if students are at school and they have a diagnosis they can get access to one-on-one support for specialised equipment if any to. (inaudible) children self-understanding, understanding that their differences are not that there is something wrong with them, or comparing themselves to neuro normative group of people in the classrooms - rather than thinking there is something wrong with them, they can understand and be empowered to learn and connect with other people who might have your diversity as well. I think one thing to quickly acknowledge with the diagnostic process is it is really complex and confusing for families. You go into the process of getting a diagnosis, despite medical models not necessarily neuro diversity affirming and talking about deficits or challengers or things that children cannot do or other children their age are able to do and they aren't able to do. So you go through this really complex process that is quite deficit based and then went support are unlocked you have therapists and people coming in trying to flip that over and coming from a strengths-based perspective. It can be really confusing for families to navigate through as well. So, the validation of a diagnosis can reduce masking, risks of burnout as well. And it is a self-acceptance and understanding of diagnosis and what resources to look for. It can be very empowering for people and their families for their support persons.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thank you Emilia. Before we continue, would it be fair to say that the length of principles of neurodivergent-affirming practice, they can be applied regardless of whether there is a formal diagnosis or not. Would that be fair to say?

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
Yes. I think what I would say to that is that, what Emilia was saying is that sometimes actually accessing a diagnosis, especially if you are in a rural area where there is a really long waitlist.. I know in Adelaide that has to be quite a long waitlist for services, and I think as mental health professionals, it is part of our role to make sure we know what an autistic, ADHD, neurodivergent presentation looks like so we can provide supports that are tailored to their needs, specifically even if they don't have that formal identification yet. Or even if they go through the formal identification and at the end they are told they don't think the child is autistic, obviously there are things going on that mean they need specific supports. I think whether a family accepts the diagnosis or find it really hard to come to terms with, either way, we need to make sure that we are tailoring our approach is to that child's neuro type. And I think it is so important if we have a child showing up anxiety, and we have a look and we think "I think autism is in the picture or ADHDers in the picture", or it may be in a family there is a lot of stigma and fear around that, you might not necessarily use that particular language. But maybe you support them to go and get an assessment and get the assessor to have a look at what is going on for them. But let's keep working on this areas that you need support in. Let's do some kind of figuring out of this child's sensory world. What might be going on there? Are there some sensory things they are finding tricky to manage? So maybe compartmentalising your language around the specific needs that they have, rather than using the diagnostic label, if that feels scary to a family at that point in their journey. Anything, what Emilia said as well, if a child is presenting to us in showing up with what you might think is depression, but they are actually autistic and in autistic burnout, what we do is a typical approach to (inaudible)'s we do things like scheduling activities which for a neurotypical card might work well, but if we aren't understanding there is burnout and we're trying to put more things on the schedule that this child has to do and maybe things we imagine are the pleasurable activities but maybe aren't related to their special interest or something, then it can make burnout worse because it is adding more onto the plate. So, my takeaway is whether there is a diagnostic label or not, we as professionals as part of our work we have to know what it looks like in children and families and we can tailor our approach is accordingly.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
To quickly add. Just in all the environments the children are in, utilising strategies such as universal design for learning and visuals and having predictability and they set a trauma informed, it can support all children. So those things can be put into place regardless of the diagnosis.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Thanks guys. Esther, your response kind of leads nicely into my next question, which is around how do you support children and families to accept the child's neurodivergence and why is it important to do so?

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
I think it is a real journey, and I think as clinicians we need to really prioritise that connection and rapport building. As we do, working with any clients. But we need to understand where they are at, what they think about neurodivergence, because we need to tailor our approach and meet them where they are at. We can't just come in with guns blazing saying "I think your child is autistic. Let's do an assessment. I think that would be helpful. As quote if they are so terrified of their child being autistic, go gently gently. Explore the things they're coming to you and struggling with. If they're coming to you and saying that their morning routine is completely overwhelming and they just don't even know where to start, help them build a visual schedule. We know that is probably going to help autistic children. Carrier approach, go gently gently. Weave in things that are going to help. Whether they have a diagnostic label or not. And hopefully through that connection and safety and trust, you can start to gently explore and build in maybe doing an assessment and accepting that understanding further on down the track.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thanks Esther. Jaisen, someone who has been through this journey with three of your children now, what would you like practitioners to know.

JAISEN MAHNE: 
Being in a regional area, it can take a long time to get assessments done and reports written. And the cost can be prohibitive as well especially when you have two on the spectrum. GPs and psychologist can support families while we are waiting because families can get frustrated. And they might be struggling financially to get that assessment done in the first place. It is important that there are no Aero divergent affirming petitioners as well. In our case with two children needing an autism diagnosis, the cost financially mentioned is high. So we needed our GP to be able to refer us parents to a psychologist to deal with the overwhelming emotions we were experiencing ourselves, as well as getting our referrals organise for our twins as well. So, having resources on hand to help families navigate the journey and assessments. And other medical appointments as well. Organisations can provide things like domestic support for families that are struggling with their households. It would be hopeful because things spiral out of control. I think if practitioners can look at the whole family and look at the whole dynamic of what is going on. So, we have other children and how is it affecting the family and how is it affecting the other children. I think if practitioners can take that into consideration it makes it any easier on us, as parents and as well as on the children.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Thanks Jaisen. Moving on to think about accommodation strategies, Emilia, I was wondering how can practitioners support children in developing self-regulation skills and why is this important for their mental health.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
I think it is important to define self-regulation 1st. Self-regulation is our capacity to manage our energy levels, emotions, attention and behaviour. And effective self-regulation supports (inaudible) learning and establishing relationships and maintaining well-being so that is work from Stuart Shanker. I think, for us, we need to recognise that self-regulation isn't just isolated skill. It is something that is developed through positive experiences of coagulation over the lifespan, where adjusted adult or a caregiver is able to provide a responsive presence to help the child regulate their emotions and body, and guide them to problem solve if there are feeling uncomfortable, and you get back into that more regulated comfortable space. Supporting self-regulation is really important for mental health because it builds a foundation for emotional resilience, self-management, and self-advocacy. When we can support children to make a link between 'when I feel this gives comfort, doing this makes me feel better' they can generalise that to do that independently eventually when needed. Coregulation is the number one most important thing and just because a child is able to self-regulate on one day, doesn't mean they are able to do it independently the next day. So, we fluctuate between the need for coagulation and independent self-regulation because it's just as we do as adults. Sometimes we call our parents or call a friend if we needed Debrief. Same goes for kids in the different contexts that they are in.

JACQUIE LEE: 
That's great. Thank you. A follow-up question. Can you speak to the connection between self-regulation and self-harm, and how you might support a child or young person who is engaging in harming behaviours?

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
Yes. Sometimes, self-harming behaviours or a coping strategy in response to stress, emotional distress, or a gap in having a sensory needs met. But it isn't always the case. Ask the child. Also professionals, make sure we have a good relationship and rapport with the child and provide a safe space for them to be able to discuss it. We are coming in from a position of nonjudgement. We are coming in as curious, and we just want to make sure they are safe and not hurting themselves. We don't want them to be hurting. So if we come in with curiosity, we can help children find safer alternatives if possible and find nice, affirming ways to regulate and express their emotions. As an occupational therapist, I try to understand the function of the self-harming behaviours. Even looking at it through sensory lands. What they are obtaining through that self-harming input? We can ask them, we can explore alternatives, we can look at different ways they can also receive that sensory input without causing physical harm to themselves. If they are emotionally distressed, we can explore that and we can explore self-advocacy scripts with them. How can they communicate that they are uncomfortable and need something else and are feeling unsafe in the body? And we want to collaboratively plan a safe alternative, if needed. So we can involve the child to identify different coping strategies rather than coming in and just telling them they can't do something because it is self-harming. We can come in and build up to it together.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thank you Emilia. Yes, I think it can be such a daunting situation for everyone involved. But it is important, as you say, to have that nonjudgement and curiosity. Esther, I was wondering if you had any thoughts or insights to add.

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
Yes. I love the way Emilia spoke to that idea of really just connecting and getting to the heart of what is going on for the person. Because I think, especially as a psychologist, if someone comes to you and says they are really concerned because the child is self-harming, everyone is freaking out. Everyone is freaking out at that time because it feels really scary. It's scary for a child to be doing harm to themselves. And I think thing able to have really open and frank and honest conversations about exactly what is going on, and what need that might be knitting for someone. And taking into account the neuro type as well. If they are autistic, maybe they are experiencing pain or the pain threshold might feel a lot different so they are not actually feeling pain from doing that to themselves. (inaudible) for an ADHDer there might be an element of impulsivity that comes with doing that. And I think if you don't look at and make sense of exactly what is going on underneath their, then you can miss a lot of really wonderful opportunities to help them and provide (inaudible) for their family. If I think about a client that I had once he was a young teen, and in talking with him about self-harm, he was like "well you grown-ups get statues, so why aren't I allowed to do this." It was just such a great example and an opportunity where we had that rapport and he could talk like that. And I could understand, as far as he was concerned, where his mind was at. He wasn't conceptualising it a self-harming. He wasn't distressed. He thought it was cool. He was doing it with a pen. You know what I mean? So when we connect and we ask what is going on and we have that rapport, we can have much more fruitful conversations about supporting them. Of course we need to do risk management and to explain our concerns and think about different ways of managing things for them because it isn't safe. We have concerns about if it is when they are really distressed, then we can say to them "I'm worried about you because I care deeply about you and I want you to not feel so distressed that you get to the point where this is happening for you, so let's tackle or figure this out together. Because I really care about you." And I think that's a much different approach than what Emilia said 'you aren't allowed to do this because it's really bad for you, so let's stop it".

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Thanks Esther. Jaisen, you mentioned earlier about practitioners needing to take the whole family approach when it comes to supporting neurodivergent kids. I'm wondering, what would you like practitioners to know when it comes to supporting families as a whole and within that, supporting neurotypical's.

JAISEN MAHNE: 
Feel like practitioners do need to look at the whole family dynamic not just the neuro-divergent individual because there is always so much going on and that is going to affect that child in some way or another. Whole brothers, sisters, mum and dad. Everyone has something to say. And that can be quite overwhelming. In our case the entire family has some kind of neurodivergent traits. Some of us more than others. So having an information and being able to draw from that can only help support the family. Having information on hand that everyone can understand, let resources and things like that. I think neurotypical siblings need to get as much attention as the neurodivergent ones as well. Practitioners can support families by suggesting that parents find time to spend with all of their children equally, if that is possible. To listen to the concerns of that neurotypical child as well and to explain to them what is happening in age-appropriate terms. And to support them as much as they can, and as much as they support the neurodivergent child. Because, you don't want jealousy or resentment coming from one of the other children because the other child is getting so much attention. I think, for us, our least neurodivergent child is 12 years old. It was good because we could explain to him in adult terms what is going on and how it was affecting the family. He could see how it was affecting the family so I think if practitioners can find ways to support everyone, and just have resources on hand... I always say resources, I am happy to take as much in resources as a practitioner is willing to give me. Because the more information we have as parents, the better job we can do assisting our children to grow up into healthy, happy human beings.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Thanks Jaisen. In terms of resources I know you have all contributed some fantastic materials to the resource handouts. Viewers, please don't forget to download that before you leave today. Jaisen, what has helped you and your children to build self-advocacy skills?

JAISEN MAHNE:
Being in a regional area, it is out of necessity that we had to self-advocate because we don't have any access to resources. Basically, we utilise information from other families who had neurodivergent children. And we set up a group of mothers and some dads - but mainly mothers group - called Friends through Autism. And we had other parents come along to the coffee group and just discuss where they were getting their resources from and sharing that information was important because some of us had no idea. We were new to the area as well. So we had no idea what was available. These other families pointed us in the right direction to find organisations and practitioners that would help us out. Some practitioners, we had to do a lot ourselves. Walking around looking for resources. Again, my suggestion is it would be nice for practitioners to have resources available to give to parents so that they can self-advocate. Giving them those first steps and first places they can go to to start learning to go out and get the resources for themselves, do some research, and through that you can self-advocate better towards practitioners when you do have an understanding. Then you can go in and say "Hey, this is the situation and I have heard this and this about this practice. Can you help us? Or if you can help us, do you have some sort of resource you can pass on to us, or can you refer us to someone who can?" And I think if you can do that that is half of the battle won.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thanks Jaisen. Right, you can't advocate for what you don't know about. Emilia and Esther, what strategies and resources can assist teachers in understanding and addressing and advocating for the needs of neurodivergent children?

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
For teachers who are supporting neurodivergent children, making sure that we can facilitate an inclusive classroom and the class context is something quite important because not using trauma informed practices that you are probably already doing. Things that involve predictability, and coming in with unconditional positive regard towards the child. So, every day they come in, you are happy to see them regardless of what happened the day before. It is not a child's job to regulate for you or comfort you as a teacher. So remembering your roles as a regulator. And we want to foster (inaudible) safety for the children. We want them to be comfortable, and feel safe coming into the classroom, feeling so they can unmask and be themselves. If they need anything or need any accommodations, you had that open communication with them. And in class, if they have any specialised learning plans, that is something that is created collaboratively with the child involved rather than people coming in trying to put some compliance based rules in, for example. We want to make sure that we reinforce valuing student voice, utilise proactive regulation strategies. That is something that can be done with the whole class and benefit everybody. And be mindful of our physical environment as well. We want to make sure that a classroom is supportive of children regardless of the sensory preferences and needs. I think in terms of approaches, reframing behaviour as a sign of dysregulation or of some sort of stressor rather than something challenging that a child (inaudible) some purpose. It can really support that additional positive regard approach that we are coming in to, and it can support us to unpack the why and see if there's anything you can do as a teacher proactively so that there isn't as much dysregulation happening day-to-day. Things like predictability is something that gives a sense of safety. Consistent routines and expectations can reduce anxiety. And we want to focus on connection rather than compliance. So that co-regulation is super important. If we are coming in with practices such as rewards, if we can learn a little bit more about them and understand why that is not the best practice for a neuro diverging child because it can prompt anxiety and cause a bit of disengagement. And it doesn't foster that intrinsic motivation. If the reward chart is not there, how is that child going to be generalising. What is going to be the driver for them repeating or doing that activity again in the future? So things like incorporating universal (inaudible) for learning. There are a whole lot of resources online and in your resource packets as well, that allow different ways of learning to be provided. So if they need a bit of extra support or differentiation, that is offered and available to them. In terms of that sensory considered environment, making sure the lighting can be adjusted. Children have access to movement. Different types of seating options and regulation breaks as needed. And then use of proactive regulation strategies. So having a class wide brain break every 10 or 20 minutes for one or two minutes so the child is not sitting there feeling they need to get there wriggles out. Or getting to that point of dysregulation. So we can try to be proactive where we can.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thank you. We could do a whole webinar on universal design. Fascinating. Esther, offer to you.

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
I'm thinking that helping children to self-advocate in the classrooms. I assess adults and they feel so interwoven with their masking that it can be hard for them to unpack what is the mask and what is them. What behaviours are my doing that actually feel good or bad, if I'm not taking into account this masked version of myself that exists in so many settings. I think all the way back down to when kids first at school, they are really encouraged to suppress and ignore and deny their experiences or what is going on for them within their bodies because they feel a bit fidgety because the body needs to innately move to concentrate, and the teacher says cross your legs, look at the teacher, hands in your lap. So all of these constant little repeated reminders that they cannot do what their body needs to do. So I think that as professionals - and OT's amazing support that this - it's helping children to connect or reconnect with the body and what it needs because again, a hallmark of an autistic neuro type is differences with communicating experiences to other people. There are so many aspects at play here. You have to know what is happening in your body but you also have to be able to communicate it to somebody else. Autistic children might not be able to notice what is happening inside the body. Might be hypersensitive. Then they might also not realise that when this thing is happening, if I speak to this particular adult in a particular way, I can get help for that thing I need help with. For little ADHDers, maybe it there is that little impulsive nature and they turn into someone who is perceived as the ‘naughty child’ just because they have is behaviours that come naturally to them that are not allowed to be expressed in ways that don't look naughty in the classroom. Like Emilia said, if you can let all kids move when they need to move, you can get rid of a lot of these things.

JACQUIE LEE:
Absolutely. Thanks Esther. I feel there is a misconception that if you give kids that opportunity then they will get out of control or something like that. They will take advantage of it.

ESTHER FIDOCK:
Like full-blown anarchy, right? I want to say, for all of the people who are watching her teachers, I am a psychologist. I studied teaching but did not end up becoming a teacher. I get that you are trying to manage 30 little people all with varying needs, and varying supports and varying presentations. Please don't feel that I am denying how hard it is to teach especially now post COVID. Because it is absolutely exhausting. Going back to it Emilia said earlier about doing our best to help people to go through the assessment process and access those extra supports for the classroom, I think that's really helpful. Another thing I wanted to say is, you can access services and resources from places like yellow ladybugs. They are a specific organisation and have lots of great resources and an online conference goes for three days. Please have a look at those kinds of services as well. There are really good for helping to understand acknowledge and support kids to advocate for themselves in different environments as well.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thank you Esther. Thank you everyone. That brings us to the end of our formal webinar. We've had so much engagement in this webinar. We have had over 100 questions come through during the registration process, and many more filtering in over the course of the past 45 minutes or so. So thank you very much and please continue to submit questions if you have them. We will do our best to get to some of them shortly. As I mentioned earlier, we also have a... Did I mention it earlier? We will be taking some extra time off line, after the live webinar, to ask some additional questions. So there will be an extended Q&A that will be recorded and available along with the live webinar recording when it is released in a couple of weeks time. So please continue to submit your questions.

To start off with, this is for the whole panel, I'm wondering how can the approaches we have discussed today be applied to support non-speaking children?

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
With communication, we need to acknowledge that it is really diverse and some children who might be nonspeaking deserve (inaudible), respectful and effective communication support. So if a child requires additional devices or an AC, making sure they have access to that because having a voice in being able to communicate is a right of every child. So honouring the way in which they communicate or are presenting is really important. And we want to make sure that we're perceiving competence for the children so they can engage meaningfully. And we assume that they understand what we're saying to them, rather than coming in and underestimating what they are capable of. We want to make sure that we are including them in decision-making. So even if they are not speaking verbally, they still have a voice - especially invoices that impact or affect them. And then collaborating with other professionals. So, if a speech pathologist comfortable to support, or if we can get some input from the family, or there is another professional who is able to support your engagement with the child or the child's engagement with the world, grabbed their input and get involved. See what they are doing in their settings, and if we need to up skill or train, get the training because we want to be able to communicate and we want children to be able to communicate and engage with whatever contacts are in whether that is therapy or school. So that they feel confident engaging with people and the world as they navigate through to adolescence and adulthood. And not dismissing them and shutting them off because they aren't thinking or communicating in the way that normative people would expect them to.

JAISEN MAHNE: 
My youngest son was non-verbal. He would sit there and observe and we would observe him and so as parents we are watching this unfold and he is not walking and not talking or doing anything. Not hitting those milestones we were expecting. But, then one day, he just got up and started running. He is washing his sister make the mistakes and he waited until he could stand up and just started walking. That was interesting. Then suddenly, he just started talking. It was like he was waiting and learning and observing himself before he does it. He is quite a perfectionist now so he does everything through observation. So I think it is really important that practitioners value the insights of parental observations. Because we are with the child 24 hours a day sometimes tactically. We see behaviours and we see them not hitting milestones or whatever is going on, and I think it is really beneficial to talk to the parents or caregivers and say "What have you noticed? What are your observations?" Because that can be really enriching as far as getting to the bottom of where we are at on the scale of things and how we can help from that point.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. Esther, did you have anything?

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
Jaisen said... I love that you are emphasising that idea that as professionals, we have to work with the parents and caregivers and understand their perspectives. They might be unique perspectives and maybe they don't align with hours necessarily, but that isn't our job to place our expectations on top of the families we are working with. And I think what I really love about your diversity affirming practice is that it is so individualised and so tailored. Historically, if you were presented with a child who doesn't communicate verbally, you would decide what you are going to teach them in order that they can communicate verbally. But now it's more about how they are communicating? They are already communicating. It is actually about us figuring out what they're trying to tell us and empowering and advocating for the other people that they are connecting with in different environments, build their skills in learning how to understand how this little one is communicating. I have seen some amazing, really interesting and unique approaches like parents who realised that their children were spelling out words and letter blocks on the floor and writing things that they wanted. What they appear to be stimming, watching a particular part of the YouTube video over and over. But when they listen to what the YouTube video was saying it was actually a specific phrase that was appropriate and matched the context that the child was in. I think affirming practice is so good for this because it means as professionals we look holistically at what is going on for the child, and their strengths and unique approaches to interacting with the world. And we lift them up rather than adding our expectations.

JACQUIE LEE: 
Thank you. That highlights the importance of being curious and respecting the child, and seeing them as a person with agency who will have their ways of wanting to communicate that we just need to uncover. How would you approach learning with a culturally and linguistically diverse client? What would be important to do and consider?

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
I think, for me, is a very white person who is in the spaces, my approach would always of course be to link in and get consulting, supervision, mentoring, peer support from people who are in those same communities as a client I'm supporting. And see if I'm the best person to support them. If I can gather some information and support them in my spaces, because that is fine. Am I the best clinician for this person? Or have I just been sent to this person by someone who hadn't really thought about the implications of sending me. I'm thinking about cases where the children are referred to a clinician whose gender they might find... The gender that that person is, they may not feel comfortable talking to them. So I think firstly, having a look at what is going on there and ask if you are the best person to support this family. Linking in with communities, it is incredibly important. Finding professionals in those communities or elders or people with wisdom in those places so we can understand perspectives on mental health, perspectives on autism, perspectives on the child and family. For us, having a cultural humility and understanding and analysing our biases as clinicians come into the spaces. And being reflective ongoing about that. I think it's really important.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI: 
I agree. I think recognising if you aren't necessarily the best fit for the family is super important. When you are working with families who perhaps pick a different language than you or have a different cultural background, if you have open communication with them and seek to understand what language they speak, (inaudible) communicate with a like a written summary after some sessions that they can take home and maybe translate? Or can you support the translation while you are supporting a child? Learn about their values. Learn about their understanding of neurodivergence. Learn about their understanding of my role and their understanding of why we are getting the support, and why they have been referred to this.. It can be really important to understand where they are coming from. In some cultures, I think a disability can be perceived as being cursed. And we don't learn about that at university. We have a very Westernised sort of approach. So, if we can learn a bit about the cultural beliefs around the diagnosis and how they are feeling about it, we can be as supportive as possible. In terms of things that we can apply to our own practices, we can simplify a language and reduce some of the jargon. You might not talk about the complexities of the sensory processing and high threshold, low threshold. If somebody has just perhaps migrated to Australia and they have limited language, you might use concepts that are simple and straightforward. & English. Also, if you have questions or if you didn't explain things in a way they understand, you can explain it again or find resources. In terms of resources and handouts, things that we can share with those families, if there is anything that can be translated or anything where there are different language translations available, have that available as well. If families can connect, if we can support families to connect with local support as well, that align with the needs it can be supportive. Not only for the child we're supporting, but for their whole holistic support network as well. Because we want everybody to feel supported, and feel like they have people they can talk to. Sometimes referring for parents for mental health care plan, it might be a bit scary, especially if they are going for immigration or if they don't really understand what mental health care plan implies. So, check in with their understanding and come gently, from a place of empathy. And reinforce that we are there to support and we are not as scary as we look. (Laughs)

JACQUIE LEE: 
Absolutely. That's a beautiful answer. Not just around disability, but understanding views towards mental health can be so different across cultures. Thank you for your points about meeting the family where they are at. It's fantastic. How can practitioners for support neurodivergent children with histories of trauma? That's a big one.

ESTHER FIDOCK: 
I definitely have worked in a lot of spaces where this is very relevant. I think as clinicians we would meet a lot of families who have experienced trauma in our spaces. So it's integral that we understand what that looks like and how it shows up. I think the neurodiversity paradigms and trauma responsive. Our goals are to develop a real sense of safety and trust is a big part of what we do. As a clinician, supporting families and our goals aren't around compliance or coercion, or trying to get children and families to do what we think they need to do is part of our protocol. It's very individualised. I think some of the considerations from a practical perspective might be that if we are thinking about an autistic child and we're looking at resourcing and understanding maybe this child cannot understand things in theory and (inaudible) maybe they can visualise (inaudible). I think analysing and making sense of that, maybe our resourcing needs to look more at tangible and visual resources. Maybe you need to bring in very sensory related elements. Maybe deep breathing is something that is actually triggering for an autistic child rather than calming. Again, have a really tailored and individualised approach.

JACQUIE LEE:
Thank you, Esther. Emilia and Jaisen, I'm just looking at the clock so I need to wrap up. But what I will do is I will continue this question in the Q&A after today's webinar so that everyone who is joining us, you have an opportunity to skip forward and watch that part of the recording. 
Esther, that was a fantastic response. Thank you to the three of you for joining us today and to everyone at home and work who has tuned in live. Thank you so much for the communications team and the child and family evidence and evaluation team, especially to Erin and (inaudible) with our process. Please subscribe to the newsletters to be notified when the recording comes out, and also please don't forget to fill out the short feedback survey at the end of this webinar. Your responses will help us to improve and guide our future webinar offerings. If you are a manager or interested in evaluation please register those. We also look forward to seeing you at our next webinar with CFCA, which is ‘Understanding and responding to childhood suicidal ideation. A case scenario’. That will be broadcasting on 30 April. Thank you again to our panel, and to everyone who has joined us today. I hope you found this useful and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

Welcome back to the extended Q&A for our webinar on how to use neurodivergent affirming strategies to support child mental health. Once again, I'm joined by our panellists. Esther Fidock, Emilia Zygocki and Jaisen Mahne. So, picking up where we left off in the live webinar, Emeilia and Jaisen, how can practitioners best support neurodivergent children with histories of trauma?

EMILIA ZYGOCKI:
In terms of practitioners working directly with children? I think it's a great opportunity just to encourage, self-advocacy and really prompting us as practitioners to establish a really safe space for children that we're working with. The goal isn't to retraumatize. We don't need to know exactly what happened. We don't have to talk about specific things. We just want to support the child to be able to self-advocate. So what that might look like in a therapy session or in school might be if you're giving a child an option that if you're uncomfortable or if you don't want to talk about this, or if you want to do a different activity, that's okay, just let me know. And allowing children to have those repeated opportunities of success where they say, “Oh, I'm not really up for this” and that being okay, there's no consequence if you advocate for what you need. If a child does want to disclose anything, you can thank them for trusting you with it. And again, come in really gently, co-regulate, check in with them. Like, “That was quite a lot. How are you feeling now?” And I suppose like prior to that kind of self-advocacy skill being developed, you can come in as a co-regulator, and notice indicators that a child might not be comfortable with an activity or a topic. You can say, “I notice that your body language changed a little bit. Would you like to keep going, or would you like to maybe try something else?” And just showing them that there are different options and they're not in trouble and that they are safe with you. So, I think for supporting children who've experienced trauma, making sure that you're allowing the sessions or the interactions to be quite child led. And the goal isn't necessarily to talk about specific events because we want to avoid that re-traumatisation.

JAISEN MAHNE:
Yeah my daughter she has a very small window of tolerance. So, it's taken quite a long time to expand that. And her psychologist is very good at, regulating when or knowing when to call time or if my daughter feels like she's not coping or she's worn out for the day, or she's overloaded or overwhelmed. Then she'll just say, you know, I'm done for today. Or, you know can I finish up early today? And her psychologist is very happy to let her just walk out of the room because she's worked, you know, she's worked on that window of tolerance. She's understanding where the boundaries are. And that's really helped my daughter want to go back to sessions because she doesn't feel forced. She doesn't feel made to sit there and actually engage. If she's not feeling it she's, you know, she's welcome to go. And another thing that they've done is zoom meetings where she's done the same thing. She can see that she's physically or mentally drained and she'll just say, okay, well, you've done your 15 minutes today or 20 minutes you've done really well to even come today to be seen. So that just gives them a bit of confidence to go back and I think that's really important.

JACQUIE LEE:
Thanks, Jaisen. Thanks, Emilia. Fantastic insights. How can practitioners best support the wellbeing of children with co-existing mental health concerns? So, for example, anxiety or depression or OCD?

ESTHER FIDOCK:
I think for clinicians are really thorough and comprehensive. Kind of intake and assessment process is really, really important. So, getting the child's perspective, getting other people's perspective who are within part of that family dynamic. getting an understanding of where things are difficult and trying to figure out why things might be difficult. sometimes reading between the lines, sometimes being quite specific about using really visual approaches, writing things down, using things like mind maps to make sense of things. using maybe YouTube videos or books of children's experiences and kind of having opportunities for a child to see maybe themselves represented in different, circumstances so they can say, oh yeah, that's me, when maybe they might not have been able to just come out and say, I feel really anxious when XYZ happens. I've heard children say things like, for example, you know, “I couldn't sleep because it was so windy, and I just was thinking about how the roof might blow off”.
And I was like, oh, you were really worried about the roof blowing off. And they were like, no, no, I wasn't. Stop thinking about it. And I couldn't sleep. And I was like, well, that's worry. Like, that's what we would call worry or anxiety. So it's really being specific, listening and maybe helping them to pull those concepts together. Because if they don't know that, that's worry. But over here we've got this kind of segmented approach to helping them manage their worry. Like, what's the point in doing that? Because they don't know that. That's what worry is. So I think yeah, just having that really tailored, specific approach to each individual, it's so important. And I think when it comes to this area too, I always recommend, of course, good supervision, supervision with a really affirming clinician. There's a couple of people that I always refer people onto. Sandhya Menon from Onwards and Upwards Psychology. She has programs specifically tailored to understand how to support autistic ADHD children.
So they're great. They're like self-paced. She also does supervision. Rebecca Gannon from Kaleidoscope Assessment does amazing supervision. And also Theresa Kidd from the Kidd Clinic. They do a lot of work around, anxiety and also PDA. So I think that's probably my main kind of advice around helping children with those co-occurring, mental health stuff that can go on alongside autism and ADHD.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI:
Yeah, I think they’re really, really great ideas. I think, also if there are other health professionals involved. So, if there is like for me as an OT, if there is a psychologist involved, seeing if there are any reports and yeah, just really getting that client input, that child's input of what does this feel like for you? what have you tried, what helps, what doesn't help, and letting them sort of lead what that support from you is going to look like. yeah. I think like, different things can present quite similarly. So, things like having variations in your sensory sensitivities or, co-occurring conditions such as, that could present as executive function Difficulties if we're feeling particularly stressed or if we're feeling or if we're depressed. So, it can look a lot like dysregulation can look a lot like shutdown. So, just sort of being able to differentiate between, just coming in through a like single condition lens and looking at it holistically is quite important as well. And just checking in, you can ask you can ask your the child you're working with, like, did I do the right thing or is there something that something I could have done a little bit differently that would have helped a bit more can be really good as well?

JAISEN MAHNE:
Yeah I think that if GPs are involved that they can refer the parents to psychologists or like neurodivergent affirming psychologist preferably and psychiatrist as well because, in our case with my daughter, she was experiencing depression and anxiety like next level. You know, over and above what we felt, you know, was part of that whole neurodivergent thing. We weren't sure what to do. So, uh, we went to, uh, a psychiatrist in Launceston, which is a, you know, it's an hour and a half drive, but it was worth it because he took the time to go over time with the appointment and really delve into what was going on with her and over a couple of appointments. he's the only male practitioner that she will engage with, and we thought that that was pretty special for her. So, he has a way of just he just sits back and just lets her talk and, and he'll challenge. He challenged her and I think challenging sometimes just to get the answers helped. So, if we can get if the parents can get referrals to neuro affirming professionals, it just makes that journey a little bit easier on everyone.
And I think that, what both Esther and Emilia said was that, you know, with the practitioners that understand the situation and can help bring out what's going on. And I think, you know, to me, that's really important.

JACQUIE LEE:
Absolutely. Thanks, Jaisen. Thanks. Esther and Emilia. Finally, how can practitioners support children who struggle to successfully make and maintain desired friendships? Jaisen, I might just ask you to turn off your microphone while you're not talking as well. I think it's picking up noise.

JAISEN MAHNE:
Sorry. Yep.

JACQUIE LEE:
Totally fine. Yeah so how can practitioners support children who maybe find it harder to make and maintain the friendships that they'd like to have?

ESTHER FIDOCK:
I think from this perspective, sorry. I just want to say, understanding what friendship looks like. And for us as adults, sometimes we have this idea of what children's friendships should look like. So again, you know, we might inadvertently place these expectations onto the children that we're supporting, where, you know, we can see that they're not really connected with a lot of peers. So, we think, okay, here's a problem, let's help them fix it. Whereas if we take that affirming approach and really work with them to figure out, you know, do they want more friends? Are they happy with the friends that they have? Does their friendship and connection look very normal for an autistic friendship? You know, sitting next to each other and playing Minecraft at the same time. is friendship for a lot of autistic kids, you know, and for us to place our neuro normative expectations on what we think friendship should look like, it's doing them such a disservice because autistic friendship is valid friendship. So, I think, first of all, going from that perspective is, you know, what? What is friendship and what does a fulfilled and meaningful friendship look like for autistic and ADHD children? And going with that, another thing might be, you know, if the child is saying, I feel really lonely, I want more friends. I try and make friends, but, you know, other kids won't play with me. You know, like if there really is that desire to connect more with other people, I would from an affirming lens. We're not teaching neurotypical social skills. But what we might say is these are some of the things that other kids might do to try and play with you. These are some of the things that not autistic people might do when they're trying to play with you or trying to join in a game. And I think understanding that autistic lens and neurotypical lens is it's almost like helping a child understand how to translate what's going on for them in their spaces. Like this is autistic communication and this is neurotypical communication. You'll probably see both you can practice and do neurotypical conversation. That's called masking. And you know, that gives you the opportunity to talk about what masking is and how sometimes you might want to mask. And that feels helpful in those moments. But it takes capacity and energy like it opens up, I think the doorway for really, supporting them to feel empowered and understand what's going on in their different environments without making it seem like to have friends. You have to walk up to someone and make eye contact and smile and say hello. And like all of those neuro-normative things, we don't want to. We don't want to force that upon them, of course. So for autistic friendships, generally speaking, I think connecting through shared interests is a really good way to develop friendships, for children in these spaces. So think about, you know, Lego clubs, for example, or Minecraft or Pokemon or whatever it is that has that shared interest component and having, you know, a grown-up facilitate maybe those activities and, and really honouring maybe people want to do things individually, maybe they want to join together as a team, whatever that looks like.
But just kind of being there and helping to build those, maybe helping with parents as well, you know, organising things like playdates and having that consistency around, you know, we catch up at this time on this day and just helping them to maybe, bolster that a little bit outside of school education settings as well could be helpful. But yeah, I guess those are some of my key, key ideas around friendship.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI:
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. As well, I was going to focus on the, in the part of the question that says we want children to successfully make and maintain desired friendships, and I'm wondering who's desiring them? Like, we want to make sure that the goal is something that's that comes from the child that they want too. And it's not a matter of somebody indicating, oh, this child sits by themselves at lunchtime rather than playing with someone else. He needs help with his friends, because sometimes that's what a child needs to be able to reset before going back to class. I think the interest-based activities are brilliant. If we're doing something structured with a little with a group of children, again, letting children lead in that as well, rather than, coming in with a sort of pre-existing, quite Westernised, masking, encouraging curriculum that might indicate that neurodivergent traits are things that need to be fixed or things that are wrong with them.

And how can we problem solve this way that you are so that you're not like that anymore? We want to move away from encouraging that, masking, so doing things that children are interested in, even if they're structured, if children are, go off on a little tangent, if they start talking about what they want to do on the weekend, let that conversation happen, even if it's not sort of in the routine, because that's a naturally occurring social, interaction that the children are having and then celebrate when you see that they're trying something that there might have been a little bit worried about or, ask them how they felt about that and where you can kind of come in and support, but we want to make sure that the interactions are really authentic and relevant to what they what's important to them, rather than somebody else's external expectation of what play or friendship really looks like.

JAISEN MAHNE:
I think as…

ESTHER FIDOCK:
Sorry, Jaisen. You go.

JAISEN MAHNE:
Yeah so our children were homeschooled, so they didn't have other children to engage with, and we tried going to some homeschooling groups, but the kids, because they were also neurodivergent, they didn't really get along at all. So, it was very difficult. And my daughter found that she wanted to make friends, but she was scared that because she was worried that speaking to someone and then going dark for 3 or 4 weeks or ghosting them, I think she calls it. not because she wanted to ghost them, but because she just can't engage. Like she gets tired and she gets overwhelmed and she's just worried that children, other children wouldn't understand that, particularly neurotypical children. So she found it very difficult to make friends. What we've what we discovered was using outside sources like, groups, like with the NDIS, they can get, like, support workers that will take them one on one with another participant and get them, like, just get them in the car and talking and go and do an activity.
And that way they can sort of start to learn to make friends, which is hard, but my explanation to the kids was that friendships like neurodivergence are on a spectrum. So, not everyone you meet is going to be your friend. Some people are just going to be an acquaintance, and others you might meet someone and they could you could click and they'll be friends for life. But that's not necessary. You don't have to push for friendships. They develop naturally. And because it's on a spectrum, you know, you can have close friends, you can have friends that you might only talk to once every 12 months. And that's okay. So, I think it's important that, practitioners can sort of like explain that to kids, you know, that it it's not, you know, it's not them that's necessarily awkward or anything like that. It's just that people are people and you make friends with who you make friends with. So yeah

EMILIA ZYGOCKI:
Yeah, there's no specific formula. It's not like if you follow these steps exactly. You're going to have a best friend forever.

JAISEN MAHNE:
Exactly.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI:
It'd be quite tricky, I think, even with that example that you just gave where your daughter felt a little bit worried about ghosting somebody, I think, for a practitioner, that could be a really great opportunity for that self-advocacy to come up again. So, if that's what she's concerned about, how can we support her to express that to somebody else, saying that sometimes like this? if you're using the spoons metaphor, you can say sometimes, like going out really uses up all of my spoons or it takes a lot out of me. It takes a lot of effort for me to leave the house and go to something like this. So I might not be here for four weeks, but it doesn't mean that I don't want to be your friend. It's just what I need to feel a little bit more, feel a little bit better, rest, recover and then I'll come back. So hopefully we can play again in the future, things like that. Also like anything such as like setting boundaries as well. If somebody is making them feel a little bit uncomfortable, professionals can come in and we can support them to express that.
Like, hey, “I don't like it when you say that or that was that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable when you did that”. We can come in and offer some self-advocacy scripts. So rather than, I suppose, also like when we're, if we go back to that, avoidance of sort of forcing masking onto children to be able to make friends something such as a script rather, such as, looking into people's eyes when they're talking makes me a little bit uncomfortable. And I'm just focused on which I, I should be focusing on rather than listening to what you're saying. So I might be looking at the ground or I might be looking somewhere else, but I am paying attention to you like a script. Something like that can support that self-advocacy without trying to encourage a child to hide their authentic self, or do make themselves uncomfortable in order to make somebody else feel comfortable. Because that's against really the neurodiversity affirming lens and paradigm that we're trying to encourage. We want kids to be able to thrive and be confident in themselves, so things like that could be quite supportive for them.

ESTHER FIDOCK:
Yeah, I think. I'm sorry, Jacquie. Now I'm interrupting you, too. Emilia, I think that idea of, like, if you can be your authentic self, then you can make authentic connections with other people, I think, like, that's really so such a beautiful way of saying that. You're kind of highlighting the idea that we want children to be their authentic selves, because if they are, then other people who connect really well with that version of themselves, who they are authentically, they will find them and connect with them. I just wanted to say as well, when I tried to interrupt multiple times, I just wanted to say to other practitioners and, you know, adults in this space to please be wary and mindful of social skills programs. I think a lot of us maybe would tend to try and find some structured, supportive approach if we have children who are struggling with social stuff. But just be careful, because some social skills programs might describe themselves as affirming. But then when you look at it, they are actually teaching children neuro-normative neurotypical skills and then rewarding them for doing it. So, if your child is involved in a program where they learn to make eye contact and smile at someone and walk up to them like without any mention of masking or understanding their autistic neurotype or anything like that. That's not an affirming program, no matter how much they say it's affirming in their promotional materials. Some programs that are actually affirming that I've noticed if you go on the website, AUSOME trainings and it's spelled A U S O M E, they have like some resources and booklets and things like that, and they're really emphasise everyone's different neurotype and what friendship and communication looks like. So it's not teaching social skills, it's understanding social dynamics. And I think that kind of thing is really good.

EMILIA ZYGOCKI:
Yeah, I facilitated Confident Kids with a speech pathologist a few years ago, and it was amazing just to just to watch what that looked like in a group setting. So like, children learn how other children might communicate and like they were and like they were supported, to understand how other people might sort of travel through the world rather than like, okay, if you do this, like, let's not do that, because I think that understanding really fosters acceptance. So, you know, if we know better, then we can do better. We can't be upset with children for, not recognising that someone not looking at you means that they just don't like looking in your eyes. If we don't teach them that, you know, like we need to explicitly introduce that to everyone. There's also a free curriculum, called the LEANS Curriculum. It's from the UK. It's called Learning About Neurodiversity in Schools. And it's got like a lot of lesson plans. So teachers could implement that as a whole class as like a PowerPoint slides and different workshop activities so we can promote that whole class or whole school understanding of different neurodiversities, and then do a few different activities as well, so that we can have a holistic acceptance, not just coming from one individual, but coming from the students as well.

JACQUIE LEE:
Amazing. Thank you all. I feel like we could do an entire webinar just on friendship and connection, just based on that conversation. Thank you again for your time. Thank you to everyone who has joined us watching this webinar. Unfortunately, that's all we have time for today. But we hope to see you again at another CFCA webinar soon. Thanks, everyone.