Poppy Ellis Logan
ADHD Advocate, Educator & Founder of @ADHDcampaign
Poppy Ellis Logan
ADHD Advocate, Educator & Founder of @ADHDcampaign
In 2017, at age 22, Poppy founded the #AttentionUK campaign against stigma and misrepresentation of ADHD in the UK. #AttentionUK seeks to raise awareness of the barriers and challenges facing adults with ADHD and calls for better media representation of people with ADHD using media guidelines and political resources.
Alongside her full-time job developing and delivering adult ADHD care within the NHS, Poppy is internationally recognised as an expert in this field despite her age, gender, neurodiversity and the stigma around ADHD. Looking back on 2018, Poppy is most proud of her contribution to the NICE clinical guidelines, the publication of which found that ADHD is often underdiagnosed in women. Poppy was also honoured to receive an award from the European Federation of Neurological Associations for her work on #AttentionUK, as well as the ‘Newcomer of the Year’ NHS award from the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust where she currently works. Poppy currently works as a Lecturer in Mental Health at Middlesex University.
“Being neurodiverse has shaped my career by making me passionate about empowering marginalised people, and particularly determined to fight ADHD stigma due to my own daily experiences of this. I’ve achieved a lot because I always have about 15 different projects on the go and lots of new and interesting ideas I want to try with each one of them. Having ADHD and dyspraxia means I can be impulsive and take risks that other people wouldn’t try, and most of them have paid off! For example, whilst attending a meeting in European Parliament earlier this year I somehow ended up presenting my Europe-wide strategy for better training of healthcare and education professionals about neurodiversity - but this was entirely unplanned at the time! My advice to other ND women is to accept and embrace your individuality, and to capitalise on the strengths that come with neurodiversity instead of getting caught up or feeling ashamed about areas of difficulty.”
