But today we are really excited to be kicking off the series with Eddie's session entitled Neuro Affirming Care is not a Trend, it's the future.
Welcome, welcome, Eddie. Just a quick intro for Eddie. Eddie is a wonderful member of the Flourish team. They are a dedicated child and youth worker with a BA and MA in child and youth care, offering valuable experience in child and youth mental health from roles in live-in treatment centers and hospital crisis settings.
Their work provides deep insights into the realities faced by young people living with mental health challenges, grounded in a youth centered, anti-oppressive and trauma informed approach. So with that, I would like to give a huge warm welcome to Eddie.
I'm just gonna bring up their presentation and then I will let Eddie take it away here. So just give me one moment.
Great.
You just have to bear with me. I'm I'm managing technology. All right, here we go. You're welcome, Eddie. And just, Eddie, I can't see all the notes, so if you need me to move to a new slide at any time, and I'm not

Eddie Dobson   2:25
Saving me from doing it. Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Bolen   2:36
just let me know.

Eddie Dobson   2:37
OK, perfect. Well, thank you, Sarah, for the lovely introduction. I just say it still feels so weird when people introduce me for anything because it just feels so foreign for like my own name to be put out there and for people to talk about what I do. So this is so exciting and I'm very honored to be back for the flourish clinical.

Sarah Bolen   2:39
Perfect.

Eddie Dobson   2:57
Change getting to speak again. I got to speak last year. I'm talking about a little bit of a different topic about queer affirming care. So happy to be doing something a little bit different this year, but still bringing in all my passions about supporting folks that unfortunately sometimes continue to live on the margins within our community and continuing to breakdown how we understand these concepts.
Bringing theories into it and talking about how we can kind of continue to broaden our understandings as we move forward. So as Sarah mentioned, I'm going to be talking about neuroaffirming care today and more specifically bringing in a futuristic approach, understanding how we can continue to bring in neuroaffirming and neurodivergent voices to make sure that the work that we're doing is meaningful.
Centered within the lived experiences of those who live it rather than treat it and continue to make sure that we're amplifying. So, oh, look, there I am. There's my face. So exciting. But as Sarah mentioned, my name's Eddie. I am a child and youth worker and I work here at Flourish and I'm our manager of inclusive practice and culture.
Culture. So my role is kind of doing exactly what I'm doing today and talking a lot about inclusive practice, even understanding what the word inclusion means and continuing to challenge it and to just make sure that the folks that are coming into the spaces that we work in feel supported, understood and celebrated.
And as Sarah mentioned as well, Marie was going to be here today, but is sick. So I do want to acknowledge that I am not a psychologist in any way. I am a child and youth worker. So what that means is I'm not an expert.
A neurodivergence, nor am I gonna claim that I'm an expert. While I may have my own experiences and may while I may have experiences within the work that I do, I think it's important to recognize that I'm not gonna be talking today about necessarily what neurodivergence is and all of the approaches and talk about what we can do in terms of treatment, but to.
Really kind of break down how we understand it. As a child and youth worker, I like to see myself as an advocate for the young people that we work with and the young people that we work alongside. And my purpose here really today is to challenge what we know and to make sure that what we continue to do really centers the voices of those that we work with.
Because it's as you'll probably hear us talk about through a lot of these clinical exchanges, evidence matters and evidence is important. But I think what's also important are the voices of those that we are working with because it begins with us, but it also begins with those that we are working with as well. And as a child and youth worker, I think a lot of what I do is kind of.
Go into these systems where a lot of mental health practitioners work and really question why we do the things that we do, where the approaches came from, and how we can continue to take that into the forefront of what we're doing to make sure that everything we're doing centers, the voices of those who actually live within it.
So yeah, that is a lot of what I will be talking to about today and I will get into that in a little bit, but really wanted to give everybody a big welcome back to the Flourish Clinical Exchange and welcome. As Sarah mentioned, these are going to be happening weekly here at Flourish at 12:00.

Eddie Dobson   5:58
On Tuesdays ET time. I'm not really sure what that means, but This is why sometimes I show up places at the wrong time because it's very hard for me to understand the differences. But this year you can expect lots of evidence informed presentations, but really that balance that I talked about today.
Lived experience, clinical insight and research, because of course research is important, but I think it's also important to take from those who live and those that work within the populations we're talking about. And we've designed this series to give you not just information, but also fresh perspectives and.
Kind of practical strategies to be able to support, um. But we also want this to be a space where people feel open to kind of having that dialogue about the work that we're doing and really be able to take a moment just to kind of have for ourselves. Um, a very wise person once talked to me about um.

Eddie Dobson   6:46
That lovely, lovely concept of which I'm blanking for the word now. My goodness, if anybody can remind me, it's when imposter syndrome. That's what I'm talking about. But imposter syndrome's hard, especially in the work we do. There is so much information out there, and sometimes we don't always feel like we have all the answers. But a very wise person once told me that sometimes we can refer.
Frame impostor syndrome from not feeling like we're not enough, but maybe that that's really just us wanting to know more. And these spaces are a place for that, providing ourselves with the opportunities to know that the information's out there. There's a lot of practitioners that also feel similar ways and want similar information, and the more that we rely on each other and be vulnerable within these spaces, the more that we can support ourselves.
Support each other and support the folks that we work with and feel free to jump to the next slide, Sarah. So I am a big believer of always starting in a good way. I think it's important to always set the tone about what we're going to be doing, where we are and to speak about the populations that we're talking about. So I really wanted to start with that.
And starting in a good way is a little bit more than just acknowledging the land that we're on, but everything that encompasses where we're at. So of course, to start off, I want to acknowledge the land that we're currently joining in from, which is the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg and Huronwendat communities.
And I also want to recognize that we're currently within the Dish with One Spoon treaty, which has a lot of meaning within it. But also a big part of it is recognizing that we are to be approaching all that we do within the idea that we live under one roof together and that we should be treating each other within that respect as well, only taking what we need and not taking more.
And I think the dish with one, the dish with one spoon treaty really brings a lot into what we do within our work as well and also recognizing that we should be treating each other and the folks that we work with within those same ways. I also want to honour the many identities that neurodivergency intersects with as we kind of talk about this community today.
Of course, I'm going to be talking about neurodivergence as an umbrella, but it's important to acknowledge that there's a whole lot of other lived experiences that encompass and make this a lot more complicated when we think about minority stress and how things can intersect and interwine within how we live within this world.
So this includes not only race, but culture, gender, sexual orientation, identity, class, disability. There is so much that we can continue to add on, but I think it's important to recognize how much of our experiences with neurodivergent can be shaped by this as well.
And especially to really consider that when we're kind of working with this population. I also want to acknowledge my own limits within talking about this today. I do not hold lived experience within every identity I will be sharing, and I think it's important to note that I'm not coming at this from a place of always knowing.
I kind of get into the presentation. I really want to ask us all today that as we listen and as we kind of go throughout a lot of neurodivergence, that we come with openness and curiosity to take what resonates with you as we speak today and reflect on what challenges you and imagine how you can help.
Create spaces where neurodivergent voices and identities are affirmed, celebrated and supported, and just to kind of take that with you as you go throughout.
Perfect. This is probably something. If you listened to me talk last year, you would have heard me talk about epistemology. And this is something that people are going to continue to hear me talk about because I think it is so important. Epistemology is how I approach a lot of what I do.
Which is recognizing that I truly don't know. I don't. I don't know everything. I will never know everything. And even with the folks I'm working with, I don't know what it's like to live in their shoes. And for me to assume that I know, I think only causes more harm. And what epistemology does so well is really challenge where we think we're getting the knowledge that we have.
And allow us to recognize that there is truth within more than what we do know and what we think we know. So when we say epistemology matters, we're talking about the ways that we come to know and define the knowledge that we have, especially around our entire field. Historically, as we talk about different types of mental health and identities and neurodivergence.
Authority has always been given to the researchers, the clinicians and the institutions, and more truth has been given to the treatments and assessments rather than the voices of those that live within. It's often rooted in a deficit-based perspectives and really shaped by cultural, political and scientific contents.
In context of the time in which we understand it. So I think as we go throughout this whole presentation today, I'm going to keep coming back to this idea of epistemology matters because I want us to question who has the power to define neurodivergence, who is really included within the definition and who defined it.
Whose voices are often centered as truth, as we understand it, and what happens when those affected aren't the ones shaping the narrative? Because a lot of what we know does not come from the population themselves, but actually comes from the people who've studied it.
And without interrogating these foundations, we really risk repeating old harmful assumptions and continuing to kind of have these really negative understandings continue to push forward. Um, while I don't want to get into it fully, I think this presentation is very timely with everything that was just announced, um yesterday and earlier today in the States.
And I think, of course, I don't want to talk about it too much, but I think as we talk about epistemology, I think it's even more important today. Now with everything going on that we continue within this work to push and move forward with allowing the folks we work with to understand that their truth matters and that their epistemology matters.
And I'm gonna keep coming back to this, so you will definitely hear me say this word again. And I'm glad it's a word I know how to say, cause sometimes I really struggle with saying words and being able to say them properly. So I'm glad I could say epistemology so I'm not embarrassing myself the whole time, which is lovely.
And another thing that I'm going to keep coming back to as well, and probably also heard me talk about last year, is this theory of Sankofa. I was first introduced to Sankofa theory in my undergrad in child and youth care, as it's often approach that we take to the work that we do. Sankofa is a very beautiful theory and probably something that you might start hearing about.
Because I know they're currently changing Yanga Dundas Square to Sankofa Square, which I think is incredible. And what it is, is it comes from an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that literally translates to it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.
And I think that this is such a beautiful theory because it really resembles that if we are going to be thinking about futurism and moving forward within how we understand neurodivergence, we must also understand where all of our knowledge comes from. Because if we're going to be moving forward, we need to really understand what we're considering truth and what foundation we're standing strong in at.
As we move forward, it's often depicted within this picture you see here on the screen where there's a bird that's looking back as it's kind of has a egg in its beak and it's symbolizing looking to the past to carry wisdom forward. And while it's often understood from the things that we can learn positively from the past, I think it's also important to recognize where we might have.
Making made mistakes as well and how we can use that to move forward with the not the same places. And for our purposes today, I'm going to be applying both this as a philosophy as well as a framework as we talk about futurism. The idea is that in order to move forward in positive, affirming ways, we must look back and that means acknowledging the histories, the framework.
The stigmas and everything that gets brought into it. And by recognizing what has shaped our field, we can choose differently and imagine a more inclusive and affirming future. And I really do think that this theory allows us to be able to do that. So that this is really what's encompassing my whole presentation today is talking about our history.

Eddie Dobson   14:52
To understand where it comes from, so we can continue to challenge it and talk about why it's important to challenge, to be able to provide us with that foundation of how we choose to move forward. Because really how we do move forward is a choice and it's us and up to us to decide. And I think especially as we talk about things like neurodivergence, I think it's especially important to talk about the past.
Because a lot of what's going around there now is making it sound like autism and neurodivergence isn't something that wasn't around before. And we think about the histories of this population. A lot of it has been erased as well. When I talk about queerness in similar light, there is often very similar understandings within it that these are populations that don't often hold truth outside of the treatment and assessment of this.
Population. So a lot of how we understand it is that this just started as soon as we coined what autism, ADHD or other types of neurodivergence is. But of course, and what we know is that this has always been around, will continue to always be around, and it's important that we provide truth to what matters, which is those who live with and in.
These experiences. So I really want folks to kind of come back to this as we talk about it today. So as we move forward, I would like to acknowledge a little bit of a trigger warning. This presentation assesses topics related to mental health, which definitely includes topics related to anxiety, trauma, depression, self-harm and other sensitive.

Eddie Dobson   16:09
Topics. So these can often be distressing or triggering for some individuals, so please feel free to step out if you do need to. I will not be offended in any way whatsoever, so please do what is needed for you to be able to kind of hear what I'm talking about today and to always remember to take care of yourself, because that's what's important first.
I will continue to talk about vulnerability throughout this presentation as well, and sometimes vulnerability is even knowing our limits and when we need to step out. So feel free to if you do feel like that's something you need today.
So this part I'm going to go through a little bit faster. I do not want to explain fully what neurodiversity is to a room full of psychologists, because I'm sure a lot of you do know what this is, but I am going to go through a little bit as we kind of talk about it today, just as really that importance of Sankofa. Let's go back to the basics. Let's understand what we know to allow us to move forward in those positive.
So what even is neurodiversity? Neurodiversity was coined by our good friend. Actually, I love that their name is Judy, because in the queer community, we'll often say our good friend Judy to be able to describe somebody who is an important figure. So our good friend Judy here, whose name is actually Judy, coined this term that really kind of emphasis.
Emphasizes the differences recognized neurologically, kind of between different types of populations. They were an Australian sociologist in the 1990s, and as an autistic individual themselves, she sought to reframe neurological differences as natural variations rather than deficits. So really kind of.
Paved the way for this foundation of us understanding neurodivergence really different from how we've typically understood it. So really, it refers to the idea that brain differences such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other cognitive variations are a normal part of human diversity rather than disorders that need to be cured or fixed.
Again, I think it is important that I'm saying this, especially today. Key principles of this is really that it's a difference, not a deficit. Neurodivergent individuals experience the world differently and that does not mean that there's anything wrong. And I think especially as we talk about the social context within this as well as I will speak to later, it really does open up how we understand neurodiversity.
Beyond that deficit based perspective, but really acknowledging how much of our actual lived experiences within our communities really intersect with how neurodiversity is understood and presented and really supported. And of course we can understand it differently as we kind of.
Take our approaches in the social model of disability. The challenges of neurodivergent people face come not from the brains like we talked about, but from the societal barriers and lack of accommodations. And the more that we understand, the more that we can support ourselves in making sure that we're approaching this in the positive ways that we need to.
And of course, our good friend Judy here kind of paved the way, the foundation for the neurodiversity movement, shifting our perspectives from medicalization and treatment to more kind of empowerment and self-advocacy.
Perfect. So what does the term encompass? Again, I will kind of go through this one a little bit faster. This is not. I think I'm echoing a little bit.
Can we just make sure that everybody is muted, please? Just so there we go. Perfect. Of course, I'm not going to go through this too much as I'm sure a lot of you already know, but the biggest part that I wanted to take away is that we're understanding a lot of what these kind of different diagnoses are is to really recognize how deficit-based each of them can be.
Especially as we talk about something like dyslexia, it literally translates to difficulty with words or ADHD, which really highlights what's missing in attention and really not what's necessarily present in creativity, focus, bursts or energy. A lot of this deficit-based language really reflects the history of how we've always understood neurodivergence, so not necessarily going to go through them all.
well But I think it's really just important to recognize a lot of what's encompassed within the umbrella of neurodivergence.
So I'm gonna go through a little bit today about some of the history of neurodivergency and how we've often approached it, and how we as psychologists, social workers, child and youth workers, how we support this community.
So in the earliest, earliest, in the early 20th century, autism wasn't recognized the way we think of it today. Instead, it was often conflated with childhood psychosis or schizophrenia and children who often displayed what we now know as autistic traits or things that often kind of fall within the different criterias, such as differences in social.
Communication, interaction, behavior or frequently misdiagnosis having early onset schizophrenia and at this time there is no clear diagnostic criteria to distinguish between the two and I even have its own category for neurodivergent. So this often led to a lack of clarity towards.
What autism actually was, and because professionals didn't know how to classify these differences, institutionalization was often the response. So a lot of young people were often placed in asylums for different types of institutions where the goal was more about containment rather than support, as they were often seen as folks that were not able to provide or contribute in the ways that were needed.
Needed at the time, and really this is where the stigma started. The stigma attached was significant. Children were often seen as defective or withdrawn, lacking what society defined as normal, especially within kind of our social capacity and ability to communicate.
And of course, this deficit-based view not only shaped how folks were treated, but also how families were perceived. Especially during this time, mothers were frequently blamed or shamed, and the early history shows us how deeply stigma is baked in the very beginnings of autism's recognition. And what's really sad right now to even think about is as we talk about this understanding.
Banning of autism from the earliest 20th century.
Yesterday kind of proved us a little bit that maybe things have not changed as much as we might have hoped that they have in terms of how we understand neurodivergence. And then as we move forward, things continue to change. So in the 1940s, we start to see autism described as a distinct condition.
In 1943, Leo Kanner published his landmark paper describing what he called early infantile autism, in which he characterized children as highly withdrawn, struggling with social communication and displaying repetitive behaviors. And his description set the stage for autism to be recognized separately from childhood schizophrenia. So it wasn't until the 40s that this was for something.
That was able to be understood, and around the same time in 1944, Hans Asburger in Vienna described a group of children who also had differences in social interaction and communication, but who showed strong interests and enhanced vocabulary or as well unusual talents in this work laid the foundation for what would later be.
Called Asperger's syndrome or now as things continue to evolve, understanding the differences between autism and the different types of support needs. So level one, level 2, Level 3. But these were very early kind of prototypes and how we understand autism and they were quite narrow and really reflected not the.
Not the full encompass of what neurodivergent looks like. Most of the kids that were studied during this time were white and they were male. And as we know, especially as our dear Dr. Hooper could talk about, this really continues to impact how we understand neurodivergence in girls and folks that were assigned female at birth.
And really, we're only getting to the kind of tip of the iceberg now and being able to understand how much autism continues to impact us beyond the stereotypical ways that we previously understood it as kind of provided that foundation in the 40s. And from these beginnings, stigma also took root. So the field started to divide children into so-called high functioning and low functioning.
Categories as we still use just until recently, and a lot of people do still use language like this. Families, especially mothers, were often blamed for causing autism, reinforcing damaging myths like the refrigerated mother or a cold mother that if we don't provide that type of validation and warm nurturing kind of.
Supportive environment that we might expect from a nuclear family during the time that this is what potentially could cause autism. And this period really shows us how even as autism became recognized, the way that it was defined in categories already carried deep biases and especially as we come back to epistemology and we come back to talking.
About what the future of neurodivergent care is, I think it's important to recognize that these are the foundations that we're setting truth in. And I think it really paints a clear picture for us about that choice that I talked about earlier of how we decide to move forward. As time has changed, things definitely changed as well, especially in the 1980s with the publication of the DSM.
Three, which I haven't heard that one said in a while, as we always talk about all the different variations and all the new ones that come out. But this was the first time autism was formally recognized as a distinct diagnosis, separate from childhood schizophrenia. So even though it was in the 40s that they first figured out that this might have been a thing, it wasn't until the 80s.
That it was actually considered diagnosis at the time.
Which always, when you put it this way, it really makes us wonder why people are still so surprised that we're finding more and more folk actually live with neurodivergent when you really consider it wasn't a diagnosis. I mean, I'm so bad with math. Oh my goodness, we're in 20 Twenty-five now, so that would have been.
45 years ago, I think I see Sarah laughing at me and smiling, so I think I'm right with that one. But that wasn't even that long ago when you think about it. So of course, the more that we understand it, the more that we're gonna notice that there's different variations in how our brains work, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But of course, I'm going to go back to it before I talk about all the things that frustrate me sometimes. But this criteria emphasized more on the social communication and behavioral differences within autism. And around the same time, ADHD was increasingly codified as its own neurodevelopmental disorder as well, which brought more attention to.
Patterns of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity separate from how we understood autism. So kind of neurodivergence in a sense, although the word wasn't used at the time, was understood a little bit more because we had different types of kind of diagnosis at that time.
And this period also marked the beginning of recognizing what we used to call coral comorbidity rather than how we now say kind of co-occurring recognizing that the idea that autism and ADHD or autism and learning differences could co-exist rather than seen as mutually kind of separate or exclusive. And while this was an important step toward a more nuanced understanding the framework.
Was still heavily rooted in pathology and especially stigma was even more during this time as this is really when behavioural approaches kind of started to come into terms, especially the ABA as many of us know and similar therapies were promoted as a way to normalise this behaviour, again being able to bring us more towards how society.
Wanted neurodivergent folk to be able to kind of interact within the world. This especially started with an exclusion for mainstream education, so folks were often separated at this time. Many children were placed in segregated classrooms, denied supports, and this really reinforced stigma and learning opportunities, and parents were still continuing to be understood.
As that cold mother, and that's often what caused autism. So while the DSM 3 definitely helped at the time to formalize a diagnosis for autism and ADHD, it really definitely still kind of continued to push treatment rather than affirmation.
And acceptance. Now as we move forward, we get to more present days. When the DSM 5, our good friend was introduced, another major shift happened. Autism became what we call a spectrum and was more of understood in the umbrella. So there were different type of subcategories during the time.
Like Asperger's, pervasive developmental disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, everything was folded into one diagnosis under the ASD umbrella, which that is the only time you will hear me say that today. By the way, I will not be saying that word again, but the intention was a better way to capture the wide variety of neurodivergence at.
At that time, but stigma still persisted in some ways became more complex because really that's when the autistic savant stereotype was popularized in the media, especially with different types of movies that we've seen, as well as ADHD was definitely connected with lazy and unmotivated perceptions of how we understand it.
So internalized stigma also became a significant issue, as many neurodivergent people grew up absorbing these negative messages and learned to mask or hide rather than to find kind of comfort within our own understandings and ways of interpreting the world. And while the DSM-5 at the time was a step forward in recognizing the diversity within neurodivergence.
It still relied on deficit based criteria and left intact the cultural narratives that position neurodivergent as a problem to be fixed rather than as something that we can celebrate.
So this brings us to today really with the rise of the neurodiversity movement, as I talked about from our good Judy, good friend Judy, Judy, and of course autism, ADHD and other forms kind of within this community became.
More understood its natural variations of brain diversity rather than things that could be caused and need to be fixed. And there's been a lot of push towards identity affirming language in practice, which I know a lot of us can really appreciate. But of course this also included language shifts focusing on kind of support needs rather.
Than our functioning labels. And really, although this was a really big movement and this continues to be a big movement in being able to support this community, there's stigma still present. Unfortunately, whether it's in barriers in education, as I'm sure a lot of us know, employment, healthcare, there continues to be an ongoing medical pathologizing and clinical systems.
That continue to impact this community and although there's been lots of progress, there is still lots of work that needs to be done to be able to further support and really push forward how we understand our divergent.
So key takeaways from this, I really want folks to be kind of able to understand the definition of neurodivergence and recognize that it's always reflected social power and cultural norms, not just science. That it's important to recognize how much of our society and how we expect people to interact with the world really impacts how we understand.
Diagnosis, as well as much harm, has come not from necessarily the traits themselves that we can consider as part of neurodivergence, but also from the stigma, the huge presence of exclusion and bullying within this population, as well as the ongoing pressure to conform.
And to mask and to hide the parts of us that might be a little bit different. And as we kind of come back to epistemology, this kind of beautiful word that I keep coming back to, I want us to question who defined the disorder and whose voices were excluded. Because as we know and how neurodivergence has been understood, it has never included the voice of all of those who experience it.
And still does not continue to hold that. And this really sets the stage for why neuro affirming care matters today and why it's not a trend, but why it is the future, because we do need to bring in the voices of those who live with.
And This is why I always come back to who decides what counts as normal. As we think about what neurodivergent means, we really need to pause and ask who decided what counts as normal in the 1st place? Who decided what this looks like? Historically, colonial frameworks imposed Eurocentric ideas of behavior and erased other cultural understandings.
Of truth. And as we understand how communities came in and erase a lot of indigeneity and community-based understandings of difference, Wellness and relationality, we can understand how our approach to supporting this changed as well. As I learned in a lot of my education as a child and youth worker, a lot of indigenous communities previously understood.
Disability as actually something that was considered special. A big part of it was finding ways to find the unique kind of opportunities for folks to support. It was understanding that everybody played a role in finding ways to allow folks to do that. And now the way that we kind of approach things from these Eurocentric frameworks expects us all to be able to interact and.
Kind of function in this world the same. And as we know, that's not the case. But what happens when those continues to be pathologized? What happens when the work that we're doing still works to be able to unpack those things that folks can't do, whether it be social skills, communication skills, whether it be.
Executive functioning coaching, what we're doing is still saying that there is something wrong and we need to fix it. And I think it's important to kind of unpack that, not saying that it's necessarily a bad thing, but to understand where we're coming from as we continue to move forward this way, that we're still kind of continuing to erase the histories of those who never had a voice.
And continue to push forward what we've been taught is important. And as we kind of take that colonial lens to it and a kind of decolonize our approach to neurodivergence, we can also see how capitalism has played a role in this as well. Neurodivergence has often been understood in opposition to productivity and conformity.
We're talking about populations who are unable to contribute within the ways that we're expected to and a lot of worth. And we can still see this in our own kind of lived experiences today. Worth is often tied to our efficiency, our productivity, to fitting in into doing the things that we are expected to. So when we kind of taken.
Take into consideration what this means for the populations that we're working with. No wonder things are hard. No wonder why identity can be so difficult and why self-esteem can be so low. Because these are still very true ideals that are being pushed onto our young people, that there are certain identities that hold more truth than others.
And divergence is framed as deficiency rather than difference. And I think this is where neuroaffirming care comes in, is being able to flip this around. So if knowledge is produced by those in power, whose truths about neurodivergence have been legitimized even today? How much of what we know reflects colonial and capitalistic priorities rather than the?
Lived experiences and what the folks we are working with actually coined something that they'd want to work with. I know I had a very lovely conversation with my my coworkers here at Flourish as we talked about hygiene in the clients that we're working with. And I had a client who was feeling really, really overwhelmed because brushing their teeth has been something that's been difficult.
And they felt like they couldn't kind of do it the way that they were expected to, because we're supposed to do it in the morning. We're supposed to do it at night and twice a day. And that felt really unrealistic. And we even thought, well, why are we trying to encourage this as well? What happens when we break that down and understand that maybe that's just a structured kind of construct that we've been taught and maybe hygiene?
Oral hygiene can look different than what we've been taught and find ways that allow it to feel good for us. So although it can be as simple as that, I think everything that we're doing within this population, I think, although there's of course treatment goals, I think it's important to question what we're encouraging and why. I think that's the big question here.
So as we move forward and kind of understand a little bit about what neurodivergence is, the history and where it came from, now I want to talk about neuroaffirming care. How have we always approached it? How have we always treated it? And what will this mean for the future?
So really, what is neuroaffirming care? It is care that validates and supports the identity and lived experiences of neurodivergent individuals. It shifts the focus from fixing to normalizing and understanding, affirming and supporting key principles within this are acceptance, so meeting people where they're at without judgment or pressure to conform.
It's validation, recognizing experiences as real and meaningful. Um, and it comes back to that epistemology word, recognizing that truth can look more than what we've studied. It's about respecting, honoring, autonomy, preferences, communication, styles, and boundaries.
It's empowerment, building confidence and agency, creating environments where individuals can thrive. And it's non pathologizing. It's moving away from deficit based models and difference is not disorder. And the big idea here is really neuro affirming care is not just a clinical framework, it's a relational stance. And This is why I always say it begins with us because neuro affirming care.
Isn't just the approach that we take and it isn't just the clinical framework that we've decided to take today. It's what we're choosing to do moving forward and how we're understanding neuro affirming care, how we're understanding neurodivergence and ultimately how we can encourage the folks that we're working with to also understand neurodivergence.
To really break down those stigmas, to reduce the internalized impacts that our society really has on us in understanding these identities, and leaving room to be able to dream big, dream beautifully, and imagine a future that can be more than masking.
More than conforming, but actually a space where we can live ourselves. And I think This is why I'm so passionate about neuroaffirming care, because it connects so much towards queerness and how we understand our identities within that as well, that we're coming from 2 populations who have always been told that truth.
It's not.
The identity, but how we treat it, and I think even just being able to understand that is important.
So going to go through this fast as well for the sake of time, but kind of understanding a little bit again from that Sankofa theory, what is the history of neuro affirming care and what does it look like in the earliest 20th century? A lot of it was focused on institutionalization, sending folks that were considered neurodivergent at this time. It still would have been kind of understood more.
Within a schizophrenia lens, but focusing on managing rather than supporting neurodivergent folks were seen as burdens, not being able to contribute in the ways that we were expected, and stigma was reinforced by these institutional structures, differences equated with defectiveness and not being able to do really what folks were expected to do.
And the stigma continued to be reinforced and then as we move forward.
Things changed a little bit in the 1940s and 1960s when a psychoanalytic model came out. And again, this is where that refrigerator mothers are called parenting comes in, because this is often how folks understood where autism came from. Interventions often targeted parents rather than the children.
And the stigma really kind of came in with heavy blame on parents already under social scrutiny in the post-war culture. And I think even in its own sense, we can even apply this to today and understanding where screens come in and how that can be impacted with how we're understanding neurodivergence and the roles that parents play.
And kind of jumping into the next slide, things continue to change in the 1960s and 1980s, where the rise of behaviouralist approaches jumped in, especially with ABA. The goal was often to kind of extinguish these undesirable behaviours like stimming.
Different types of kind of vocal stims, physical and teaching conformity to neurotypical norms really reinforced the idea that being normal was an acceptable outcome and something we can strive for. And this was a critical inflection point where harm and compliance were prioritized over autonomy and choice.
And then during the 1980s and 2000s, things kind of gradually came into the school settings. So of course there was more integration within the school community. Supports expanded to beyond kind of more of that psychological ABA support, but also to speech therapy, OT, social skills training and there was a.
Positive shift, more inclusion, more broader range of supports, but still focused on fixing rather than kind of recognizing that there is a difference in working with identity first. So it was inclusion but without affirmation. And then we kind of get to today where neurodivergent self advocates began criticizing more kind of behavioralist approaches and.
There is a push towards strength-based care, affirming communication styles, sensory needs, autonomy, identity, co-production, and participatory care models. So collaboration with folks living with rather than top-down, this is what needs to change. But of course, stigma still persists. Many therapies still centre normal.
Formalization, not affirmation. And today it's big challenging is ensuring that neuro affirming isn't just a buzzword or kind of a trend that's coming through, but actually something that we do consider important, something that's bottom-up, identity centered and Co-created within the lived experiences of those that we're working with.
And then as before we kind of go into that last bit, I think big takeaways from this are recognizing really how much of this continues to still impact our community. And now that we're getting into the present day to recognize how much of those previous understandings are really what is the foundation of the support we're doing rather than the voice.
Of those that we're working with.
So current day approaches. I'm going to go through this one a little bit fast as well, but this is focusing on kind of neuroaffirming care that is evidence-based and identity affirming practice that focuses on acceptance and validation. So neurodivergent seen as variation, not deficit.
Identity centered, strength based, focused on autonomy and self advocacy and this really does represent a cultural and clinical shift away from deficit and normalize and kind of towards normalization.
Of course, I wanted to go over a little bit about a lot some of the therapies that we're still using. Again, I'm gonna go through this a little bit faster cause I'm sure a lot of you do know what these are. But today in terms of neurodivergence, the therapies that we're still using of course are ABA. ABA is definitely more criticized now, especially for promoting masking and compliance.
But in a lot of way, there is still critique from the neuro affirming community that we need to shift away from this due to the rigid behavioralist models that kind of do encourage masking. Acceptance and commitment therapy has been a big one that's kind of come up that focuses on mindfulness, values and flexibility and often quite compatible with neuro.
Affirming care. Of course we have CBT, which is a big one that continues to be used. There can be adaptations of this that allow for more neuro affirming ways to come in, but it can still kind of originate from that behavioralist model of thoughts and behaviors being something that does need to be changed.
And more kind of present ones. We also do, as I talked about, have OT and speech language therapy, which also kind of really have embodied neuro affirming care. And as we know here at Flourish, do incredible work in being able to support folks from that lived experience, identity and working on things that we want to work on rather than we need to.
But these are both very prevalent within how we approach neurodivergent now.
And of course, there's been an essential shift, reframing care from a deficit lens to an affirming systemic one. Historically, the individual was seen as the problem and really we have to train them to fit in. And that's been the big understanding. And now we ask how systems, services and communities can adapt to meet people where they're at. And this is.
What it means for care to be truly neuro affirming, shifting the burden from the person to the system and recognizing what we need to change within our systems rather than expecting more to change from the person. And this is really why I think epistemology is so important, because the more that we expect folks to change, really what we could be doing is tying a pretty bow around what we've always done.
And calling it neuro affirming care, rather than recognizing what it truly means and what it can mean when we take in those futuristic principles.
These are just some kind of evidence-based research that's been done before that really do kind of validify the support that's needed from a neuroaffirming lens. These are here. If anybody does want to take a look, they really do kind of highlight why it's important to ensure that we're coming from a neuroaffirming lens and that all this is evidence-based as well.
Oh.
And then this brings me into my favorite part, which is the future of neuroaffirming care. And I'm going to try to go through this a little bit fast, so everybody does have time for questions as well. But the future of neuroaffirming care, it's beyond old lenses. If we don't keep epistemology in mind, we risk turning neuroaffirming care into just another trend, a bow on top of what an old system.
Was that old system says change your behavior, fit in, and then we'll recognize you. But the future of nerve affirming care has to look different. It means creating space for change to emerge from within, not imposed from the outside. It's bottom up rather than top down, and it's about.
More than conformity, it's about authenticity and giving folks the power to be able to live free and to imagine futures where that's a possibility. It's more than just putting a pretty bow on social skills training. It's allowing folks to focus on that identity first.
Because really, if we want folks to be able to start to feel good about identity, it's important that they are able and allow to imagine it from a bottom up and know that their experiences are real and valid and true, and that truth doesn't just come in when we work towards fitting in.
And I think a big question to ask as we kind of come to the end of this is whose voices shape the future.
If the history of neurodivergence was written by those who studied it, the future has to be written by those who lived it. That's the biggest take away that I want to be able to bring to everybody today. That's why epistemology matters. That's why Sankofa matters. Neuroaffirming care is about more than practices and strategies. It's about epistemological justice.
It's about shifting whose knowledge counts, whose truth shapes our futures, and whose histories matter. And that means we don't just imagine neurodivergent people into systems. We let them imagine the the systems themselves and don't just figure out ways that we can include. That's why I Oh my goodness, I always mess up this quote, but it's we need to.
Shake it up because we simply can't stir it in. We can't just expect folks to fit in and expect everything to be right and ready. I think that's the biggest part is we need to allow neurodivergent folks to imagine the systems themselves. What would feel better in this? And an opportunity would be to a model of practice where neurodivergence.
Voices aren't just included, but they're leading. They're the future, and it begins with us, but it mostly begins with them.
And this is where futurism comes in. The last kind of thing I'll leave you with before we wrap up. It is one of my favorite theories, although I probably said this about every theory I've talked about today. Futurism really does come from tenants of Afrofuturism and being able to recognize how folks from different communities can begin to imagine positive futures beyond the constraints.
Paints of colonialism and capitalism and allow us to dream beautifully, dream big and dream colorfully. And futurism has been applied to queer communities. Futurism has been applied to disabled communities, and now I think it's important to apply it to neurodivergence.
It's being able to imagine that a lot of folks have been denied the ability to imagine positive futures, and now we need to do it. It's reclaiming imagination, possibility and joy, and being able to dream beautifully. And when we apply this to neuroaffirming care for many neurodivergent folks, the future has often meant bullying. It's meant fear. It's meant masking.
But what happens if we bring futurism into neurodivergence? We begin to see futures where neurodivergence is not a deficit, but not something to hide, but a source of identity and joy. And maybe we even begin to question whether neurotypicality remains a fixed identity if we let imagination lead.
Neuro affirming care rooted in futurism isn't about fixing or forcing change. It's about building futures from the bottom up, starting with identity, voice and possibility.
And what does this mean for all of us as we continue to move forward? Sarah, can you move to the next slide, please?
Thank you. This is kind of talking about identity, vulnerability and the future of care. As we imagine the future of neuroaffirming care, I want to leave us with this really thinking about what vulnerability means. What we're asking folks to do when we think about neuroaffirming care is to live authentically without fear and to let our identities be seen.
But what we can't. But how can we expect that if we aren't willing to do the same ourselves? Our role as practitioners is to embody vulnerability, to shake things up, to let our lived identities guide us, to bring the person back to the work. Whether we are queer, whether we're neurodivergent, or maybe we live within different mental health experiences, those truths are not the side.
Notes they are the very epistemology of care. The future of neuro affirming care, and I say this with all of my heart, cannot separate identity from practice because identity is where truth lives. And if epistemology is about whose knowledge matters.
Then it begins with us showing U vulnerably and real so our clients can do the same.
And that is my presentation. Thank you everybody for listening and I am happy to answer any questions if everybody has any.

Sarah Bolen   49:14
Eddie, that was just so wonderful and I think so, so timely today. I know we don't, you know, want to get necessarily into the nitty-gritty, but I really think that that was just such a beautiful presentation and really reminds us that.
Even as people that work in this world and and work um to provide neuro affirming care every single day, we always need to check ourselves and remind ourselves where all of our knowledge came from. And I think that is just such a good, good reminder um to have so.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions? You can feel free to leave them in the chat or you can, you know, put a hand up and unmute yourself. We're always happy to have discussion as well. And just jumping, I was on the.
I was on the presentation, so I haven't been monitoring the chat, so I'm just jumping in now to see everything that's here. We have so many nice comments like I love their truth is not a side note. That's a great one, Eddie. I love that you brought that up. I'm just going through.

Eddie Dobson   50:12
OK.

Sarah Bolen   50:27
OK, so here's a great question from Marie. Of course, she always has the best ones. One thing, one thing that always comes up from clients is how safe you make them feel. This is specifically for you, Eddie. How do you create that safety when you're working with clients?

Eddie Dobson   50:33
Yes.
Mm.
Um.
Well, that's a lovely question. I would say a lot of it comes from my background of being a child and youth worker. The entire focus of child and youth care is learning to be in relationship. That is all we do. We learn to be in relationship and I think a big part of child and youth care is not learning how to do one-to-one support, not how to.

Sarah Bolen   50:58
Mhm.

Eddie Dobson   51:05
Treat, but how to live with how to be in space, how to show up and how to be real. And I think the biggest part that child and youth care taught me is how to be authentic within the relationships that I show up with. I think therapy and support can be really intimidating.

Sarah Bolen   51:08
It did.
It.

Eddie Dobson   51:21
And if the smallest thing I can do is bring that guard down and be real and goofy in myself, I think that's the biggest thing I've been able to do to let people feel safe within my spaces, is recognizing really that we're both here to be able to support you and we want you to feel good. And if I can be vulnerable myself, then that's what I can do to help you feel that way.

Sarah Bolen   51:21
Mhm.
Mm-hmm.

Eddie Dobson   51:41
Way too. So I really just try to recognize like that. I don't know everything, but I'm here to support and I really think that the more that I bring myself, the more that I can connect with relationship. And that's why it makes CYC so special. That's all we do is relationships.

Sarah Bolen   51:42
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's so clear, I think that that comes through in the work that you do. We hear it all the time that people just feel so connected and comfortable with you in their work. Another question, what would you recommend for therapists who have been doing it a certain way for a long time?

Eddie Dobson   52:12
Hmm.
Yeah, I think as we talk about approaches that are coming out here now that really challenge what we know. And I say this all the time when I talk about queerness as well. I think the first thing we can do is allow ourselves to have a moment of grace and recognizing that a lot of this is new. A lot of it is challenging things that we've always known and things that have been considered truth.

Sarah Bolen   52:29
Mhm.
Mhm.

Eddie Dobson   52:34
So I think the first thing is to really give ourselves grace and recognize that these weren't things that were always taught. These are things that we have to seek out ourselves. So the fact that we are willing to learn and willing to be open, I think is the biggest thing and something we need to pride ourselves on that we are wanting to know more. And then to really, I think the biggest thing is to listen to those who do live it.

Sarah Bolen   52:41
Yeah.

Eddie Dobson   52:52
I think we can always, we can always learn new approaches and new strategies, but I think it really begins with hearing it from those who live it themselves and to kind of start from there. Yeah, and always find grace for yourself, cause I think it can be hard to expect ourselves to know everything all the time.

Sarah Bolen   52:54
Yeah.
Yeah.

Eddie Dobson   53:09
But so much of this is beyond what we don't know, and more so what we've been taught to know.

Sarah Bolen   53:09
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And and it really feels like that's something, you know, to work together on, not just as people that are working with these communities, but with these communities at the same time. Like this is a two way conversation and I think something that is so much more powerful when we just, you know, involve everybody. So OK.

Eddie Dobson   53:19
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Bolen   53:34
We have another comment slash question. Great presentation. Sorry, one second. Great presentation. Too many questions to ask. Everything is new and shaken up with this approach. How do you handle situations where parents push for compliance based goals?

Eddie Dobson   53:36
And.

Sarah Bolen   53:49
Goals.

Eddie Dobson   53:49
This is a really good question, something I even run into myself where sometimes parents might be really concerned because of course, as we understand a lot of the traits within neurodivergence, we can understand that there can be discomfort within them for the folks that are living within these identities.
Especially as we understand social communication, it can lead to a lot of challenges with developing relationships. So for some families, getting skills and building those skills is the main priority and being able to recognize, well, I want my kiddo to be able to build friends. I want them to feel good. And it can be really hard to then tell parents that actually my approach is to talk about identity first rather than.

Sarah Bolen   54:08
Yeah.
Mhm.

Eddie Dobson   54:26
Working on skills, especially in a private practice, because it's not what they want. They want their kiddo to build the skills. I think being a queer person, I have learned quite well to be able to talk about why identity is important and why we deserve to be able to feel good, especially when we're within identities that maybe are considered outside the norm.

Sarah Bolen   54:31
Yeah, yeah.

Eddie Dobson   54:46
So I think it's given me a little bit of an ability to feel comfortable talking about those differences and why it's important. But usually the biggest thing I say to families is, of course those are things that can come up later within the work we're doing, but I want that to come from the young person themselves.

Sarah Bolen   54:53
Mm-hmm.

Eddie Dobson   55:02
I That's a big part of what I do. Um, and really even normalizing the kind of different variations with how we enter relationships itself. We might even have some young people who don't even feel like they want connections with others, and I think that's something that we need to consider as truthful as well. We might have folks that feel like they need a lot of social connection and some folks that feel that they have none.

Sarah Bolen   55:02
Yeah.
Mhm.
Yeah.

Eddie Dobson   55:21
And we need to consider are we doing more harm than good if we're forcing these folks to have to learn these skills if they're not something that they want to learn. And I will often have that converse, really hard conversation with parents that of course I can work on the skills you want me to do. And I'm always going to center the voice of the young person. I'm going to work on identity. We're going to talk about what these identities mean.

Sarah Bolen   55:27
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.

Eddie Dobson   55:40
And hopefully allow them to feel that positive connection with it. And then from there, if they let me know that they want to work on this and that's what we'll do together, but always lead from the young person.

Sarah Bolen   55:45
Yeah.
Absolutely. I think that's, you know, so powerful. And I think Marie had a really great comment here as well in relation to this, she said. I find it helps to reframe compliance as safety regulation or collaboration and then explore with parents what they're actually hoping for. Is that often?
You know, it's independence, smoother routines or reduce conflict. From there we can usually relanguage the goal in a way that honors both the child's needs, needs and the parents hopes, which is so great. And Regis has a great recommendation here. The Co regulation handbook is really good for this, so.

Eddie Dobson   56:08
Mm.
Yeah.
I love that.

Sarah Bolen   56:29
We are coming up on time, everybody. So I can't believe we're wrapped up on the first clinical exchange back this year. Eddie, this was such a wonderful, wonderful way to kick off the year and I think really frame all of the conversations that we're going to have this year and I can imagine ourselves coming back to a lot of the concepts that you've introduced.
We introduced here today as we work through other sessions this year, so I invite everybody to do that as well. We will be back next week. Dr. Hooper is actually back with another presentation next week. She has also started a group that we started in the spring. We took a break for the summer and is.
Coming back next week, which is our hard to spot autism and PDA monthly discussion group. So that will be our session for next week's clinical exchange. So it's a quite targeted group and we'll have some opportunity for more discussion there as well. So you will receive an invite to that as long as well as.
Additional information about that session and I think Marie also shared some additional information in the sidebar and also I will share quickly, I'm just going to pull it up for everybody. We do have all of our clinical exchange sessions.
Are recorded and then posted at the following link that I just added in the chat. So you can feel free to revisit these presentations at any time and you can also take a look at ones from last year as well. Um And you can take a look at the upcoming schedule. So thank you so much everybody for joining Eddie, there's so much praise for you.
you in the chat. There's just so many lovely comments. I hope Eddie, that you get time to read all of these later as well. Um Thank you once again and we will see everybody next week. Bye.

Eddie Dobson   58:08
Thank you.

Sarah Bolen   58:25
There's so many nice things, Eddie. I hope you're reading them all.

Sarah Bolen stopped transcription