Your Autumn 2024 Round-Up from ADHD Babes!

Your Autumn 2024 Round-Up Newsletter

Hey Babe!

ADHD BABES is a support group for Black Women and Black Non-binary people with ADHD.✨
Clinical diagnosis not required.

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What’s Been Happening?

Awards & Nominations

We have won and been nominated for several awards over the last few months!

Nominated for Stereotype Buster Award - Genius Within - Vivienne
Winner of Organisation of the Year - Genius Within
Winner of Community Organisation of the Year Award - Inside Out Wellbeing

Shauna is pictured with the other winners of the Neurodiversity Awards in September. ADHD Babes was awarded the 2024 Neuro Champion of the Year award!

Thank you Genius Within <3

We are Writing a Book!

“I am so excited to share that I have signed with a publisher to write a book for Black Women and Non-binary Folk with ADHD! I want to ensure this book is a resource for our community and fulfils our needs, so there will be focus groups across November and early December to gather our stories and contributions for the book.” - Viv

You can express interest through this form.

Please also download and complete this Waiver and send it to Viv at vivienne@adhdbabes.com before attending the focus groups.

Outreach & Awareness Building

Vavengers Black Joy Panel

Viv was a part of the Avengers Black Joy Panel in October for their Black History Month Event. It was an event focused on Black Joy! For more information about Vavengers and their work supporting survivors of FGM, Click here

YGNU Panel &

NHS Workshop

Viv also attended the YGNU Panel & hosted a workshop for NHS Kent. Both events were held to celebrate Black History Month and we were able to raise awareness about our experience as Black Women and Non Binary People with ADHD!

Science or Fiction Podcast

Join ADHD Babes as we speak on the first live panel for 'The Science or Fiction' podcast. This live panel discusses social media’s involvement in the rise in ADHD diagnosis requests. Watch here!

New Activities

Imagination & Understanding Equity

Veronica has been running workshops & focus groups with our community on imagining & understanding what Equity actually means for us. Here’s what They had to say about the experience. "Holding space for us to define what equity means to us and imagine what this world would be if it centred care has been a true exercise of community development. I look forward to theorising with Babes over the autumn workshops, which will map out our Pathways to Equity. The online workshop on Thursday, November 14th, 7-8.30pm GMT."

Read more about this in Veronica’s Blog below.

Concerns, Complaints & Feedback Form

Here at ADHD Babes, we’re committed to creating a positive and safer experience for everyone in our community. If you have general feedback for us, something hasn’t gone quite right, or you are worried about someone’s wellbeing/safety, we’d love to hear from you.

Your feedback helps us learn, grow, and improve.

Sharing your concerns fosters a sense of collective safety, which is part of our values and philosophy.

Please share your concerns below, and we’ll do our best to address them as quickly and thoughtfully as possible.

Thanks for helping us grow stronger as a community!

You can share your concerns, complaints, or feedback by filling out this form, which is also located at the footer of our website.

Events

Nature Walk with Touch Grass CIC

In July, we held an immersive, creative nature walk with our babe LiLi in collaboration with Touch Grass Camp, in London, Battersea Park. We had an amazing time! Here is some feedback below:

“I love it. Thank you for creating a safe space for black ADHD Gay Bi Women.”

“Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Great group, Welcoming and knowledgeable hosts, sunny weather.”

“It was organised really well. Organisers were responsive and adapted well to those of us dealing with transport issues.”

Benefits Workshop

In July, we held a two-part Benefits Workshop that ADHD Babes & Elaine Hughes facilitated. The first part was an online information session about all the benefits our community could be entitled to. The second part was a hands-on in-person session where we facilitated body doubling while Elaine held a mini surgery so babes could ask questions on a 1-1 basis. This was one of the most requested sessions in our previous surveys, so seeing it come to fruition was amazing. Thank you to all those who helped make this happen!

Open Space Events

We had an open space event in August facilitated by Jasmine Gibson. The community were able to talk about the link between ADHD & Hormonal Health. Here is some feedback:

“I enjoyed the content, the presentation and the style of Jasmine’s talk. The information was greatly presented, and I had new information to think about and research to peruse and discuss with my own medical practitioners. I thoroughly enjoyed the space and time to learn...”

“I think Jasmine did a really good job of involving the group and engaging people; it was great how everyone was sharing resources and experiences.”

National Theatre - Hot Wing King

We partnered with the National Theatre, which kindly offered us tickets to see The Hot Wing King as our August Social.

Here’s some Feedback: “This was amazing. It was really lovely to see a show about the positive sides of the black community and black excellence.”

“Such a brilliant idea and amazing partnership to make happen. So appreciate the work that went into making this happen.”

“Great choice of show & good turnout! All that was missing was some wings!🤪”

Knit & Sip

Our Babes, Azeezat & Ayesha, co-facilitated another enjoyable Knit & Sip event. It was so much fun & we can’t wait for the next one!

Here’s some feedback from the group: “Keep it Up! I was genuinely happy and the whole evening felt great 3hrs passed.”

“I really enjoyed myself. Thank you for creating this space.”

4th Anniversary Trip - The Barbican

We celebrated our 4th Anniversary with a theatre trip to the Barbican to see The Golden Stool/The story of Nana Yaa Asantewaa. It is an innovative piece of theatre that combines classical music with the history of Colonial Struggle. Thank you to all the babes who celebrated with us. Here’s to many more years being in community!

Here is some feedback we got about the event:

“Thank you for such a wonderful evening. I feel connected to a group, which has helped me find my place in the world as a young person.”

“Felt able to be myself before, during, and after. I love theatre but often can’t afford it. It feels like self-care.”

Founder’s Letter

Read some reflections on the last few months from our Founder, Vivienne!

Founder’s Letter

Our Blog

Spotlight:

Over the summer, we met to dream and theorise about what equity means to us as ADHD Babes. As we live in a world that prioritises harm over care; we wanted to think about what our lives would look like if we focused on our communal safety and sustainability. As an organisation, we want to understand how we centre safety, joy and our best versions of ourselves to ensure we are able to hold each other in community for years to come.

Firstly, we held a collective understanding workshop. Collective understanding refers to a shared viewpoint held by us as Black women and non-binary people with ADHD that is shaped by our individual and collective identities. At the workshop, we defined equity and started to think about what the world would look like if it centred care. For us, "equity is the practice of actively creating space for everyone to meet us as they are. Equity is a direct practice of care; we believe we have the agency to embody the world we want. It calls us to hold people who differ from us into space with us, in this way equity calls us to move toward community rather than converge away from it".

To read the rest of Veronica’s Blog, please click here.

Funding

Project Tallawah & National Lottery

We are delighted to announce we received funding from Project Tallawah and will continue forming a supportive relationship with them moving forward! We will use the funding to cover salaries and contribute to our system change project.

We also received a grant from the National Lottery Fund to continue our weekly body-doubling, support groups, workshops and wellbeing courses.

We are incredibly grateful and excited to continue our work throughout 2025 for our community!

Collaborations

Flown

Introducing our latest members perk: ADHD Babes has partnered with FLOWN, the ultimate virtual co-working platform designed for focus and productivity. FLOWN offers over 100+ hours a week of live deep work and body-doubling sessions that keep you on track with support from a fabulous community of like-minded people.

Whether you need a quick 20-minute boost to tackle that never-ending laundry pile or want to schedule weekly sessions to crush your assignments, FLOWN has your back. Their brilliant facilitators and diverse sessions make it easy to stay focused, motivated, and feeling accomplished.

FLOWN also offers sessions to help you kickstart your morning routine, guided meditation, journaling, and even sessions run by the FLOWN community.

Oh, and did we mention the perks? You can try FLOWN with a 30-day free trial PLUS snag 25% off yearly and monthly memberships, just for our ADHD Babes! Contact us directly or check out the ‘Members Perk’ page on our website for the discount code!

Black Queer Connect

We collaborated with Black Queer Connect this summer where we discussed the intersections of being Neurodivergent, Black and Queer. For more from BQC, Click the link here!

ADHD Wins

I was diagnosed with severe combined ADHD 2 years ago in my thirties, which was a massive shock.

It explains why I always massively struggled with and hated education.

I recently finished a Masters in Graphic Design and somehow got a first! I worked super hard the whole year, but I feel I had to work so much harder than others because of my ADHD, my disabilities and the countless hospital stays/visits. Luckily, I had the best professor and senior lecturers. They were incredibly patient, down-to-earth, supportive and adaptable to my needs.

If I’m honest, I have mostly seen my ADHD as a negative thing that made everything more difficult for me, but I now feel the need to acknowledge that when it comes to my Masters in Graphic Design, it’s been a massive positive.

I have a unique way of thinking, tackling briefs and seeing things others don’t. Also, the ability to think outside the box has been a massive plus.

For me, ADHD and creativity are the best combination that has led me to success.

~ Shereen

Join our Community or Support our Work!

We have reached a huge milestone with our membership and now have over 270 registered members! We are so grateful to the community for their collective contributions that allow us to put on our events for free while paying babes on the team.

If you are a Black Woman or Non-binary person with ADHD and you haven't joined as an official member yet, now is the time! Check out our members’ perks and information on our tier system below:

If you are an ally and want to support our work financially, you can donate or set up regular donations on our Paypal

Join our Membership Here!

Our Team Updates

Team Core Training

We held our first Core Training as a Team on Radical Mental Health First Aid facilitated by the brilliant Oumou. Here’s some feedback we got on the session:

“Thank you for finding such intentional people to support our development. It means a lot and feels expansive to learn this way.”

“Love this, thank you so much 🥰”

“You're awesome, thank you 😊”

“Loved it more, please!”

We are looking forward to our next Team Learning Opportunity.

Upcoming Events!

10/11/2024 - Journaling & Body Doubling - 7-9 pm GMT

13/11/2024 - Online Support Group (UK Time) - 6-8 pm GMT

20/11/2024 - US Support Group - 6 pm ET

07/11/2024 - November Social - Tate Modern - 3pm GMT

Thank you for being part of our wider community!
Lots of love

Vivienne - Director of Community Outreach & Wellbeing