A former teacher, trainer and college instructor, Joanne Norris has been a specialized ADHD &ASC Coach for the past 17 years. In addition, she was the President or Education Chair of ADHD, ASC & LD Belgium for 11 years, during which time, she brought experts from the US, the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands to share their expertise with parents, teachers, healthcare professionals, etc. about ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism in presentations, courses and at conferences in Belgium.

Joanne has given teacher training (in-service) in the European (Belgium and Luxembourg) and international schools in Belgium and brought specialist ADHD & ASC Coach Training and NLP Coaching for ADHD & ASC to Belgium through her collaboration between 2009-2014 with two UK based coaching companies specialized in providing resources for children with special needs using different methods. She trained as an NLP Practitioner herself in 2013.

She became a European Brain Ambassador in 2017 as part of a European Brain Employer initiative and has given Ambassador Training since then to coaches and healthcare providers in Belgium.

Joanne was an Executive Board member of ADHD Europe for 8 years, having been involved in its foundation from 2007 to 2009 when ADHD, ASC & LD Belgium was a Founding Member.

She is currently Education Advisor for ADHD, ASC & LD Belgium and is co-facilitator (with Donnalea Barber, ADHD & Life Coach, the original Founder of the organization in 2002) for the “Knowing Me, Knowing You” free online ADHD Support Group for women, thereby coming full circle. Once a volunteer, always a volunteer is their motto!

Donnalea is an ICF PCC-credentialed Life coach [Coaches Training Institute], specializing in ADHD [ADHD Coach Academy]. Her successful career is grounded in family and public health and health promotion. Her efforts in life multi-varied – beginning in Canada and ending in Canada – spending periods living, working and studying in places like Africa, England, France, Belgium and Singapore.

As an active coach, Donnalea brings a neuroscience-informed approach in supporting her neurodivergent clients’ better understanding about their unique brain wiring. While helping them navigate their specific challenges of ADHD, they learn to leverage their strengths and begin to accentuate their positives. When they become grounded in what’s strong within, they start living more balanced lives and finding the future they want.

Donnalea is Communications Director and one of the co-founders of Coaching Suicide Awareness. As well as working with the Humanitarian Coaching Network she is also one of two facilitators for the global Knowing Me, Knowing You peer-to-peer ADHD Women’s Support Group currently based in Belgium.

Bethan experiences and researches ADHD as a PhD Biomedical Sciences candidate based in Antwerp. She’s also founder of NEUROART, which encourages neurodivergent people to share their living experiences through art in collaboration with neuroscientists. Bethan is passionate about blurring the line between what it means to be a scientist and a living experience expert in neurodiversity issues.

This is Bethan’s latest project: http://neuroartexhibition.com/

My history with our organisation began in late 2019 when I started to suspect for the first time that I was autistic. Interacting with other autistic people in the neurodivergent adults meetings, my own research and finding a medical  expert with knowledge on the topic helped me foster my autistic identity so that I am now sure that I am on the spectrum. Being at the same time bipolar (only bipolar II but still) provides a mix of neurodivergence with many opportunities but also challenges. My core special interest is and always has been politics. After studying political science, history and european studies as well as being active in a variety of civil society organisations I started working for NGOs lobbying the European Union on social and education policy. Finding out about my own disabilites and the countless inustices and crimes committed against disabled people throughout history until today led to me to become a lobbyist for disability rights. In my full time job at the European Network on Independent Living I work every day with many other dedicated people to dismantle the many barriers preventing disabled people from participating in society, most of all confinement to institutions but also countless discriminations committed when it comes to access areas such as education, health care or employment.