Neurodivergence doesn't exist in a vacuum. How it's experienced, expressed, and understood is shaped by culture, context, family, migration, and the systems we navigate every day. Yet so much of our clinical training has been built on frameworks that centre a narrow, Western lens — frameworks that can miss, misread, or pathologise the very people we're trying to support.

This webinar invites you to look differently.

Designed for practitioners working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, Rethinking Neurodivergence offers a grounded, practical, and genuinely reflective space to explore what culturally responsive and neuroaffirming care actually looks like — from first contact through to assessment, formulation, and ongoing support.

We'll examine how dominant diagnostic norms can inadvertently overlook neurodivergent presentations in diverse communities, explore the intersections of ADHD, autism, and related differences with culture, stigma, family systems, and help-seeking behaviours, and look honestly at how our own training and assumptions show up in our work.

You'll leave with practical tools, sharper clinical thinking, and a clearer sense of how to show up more inclusively and ethically for your clients.

This webinar is for you if you're a psychologist, counsellor, allied health professional, or educator working with neurodivergent individuals in culturally diverse settings — and you're ready to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to care.

What you'll walk away with

By the end of this webinar, you'll be able to:

• Understand how neurodivergence is experienced, expressed, and interpreted across different cultural contexts

• Identify the limitations of dominant Western diagnostic frameworks when working with CALD neurodivergent clients

• Reflect on your own assumptions, biases, and training, and how these shape your assessment, formulation, and intervention

• Apply culturally responsive and neuroaffirming strategies across engagement, assessment, and therapeutic care

• Adapt your communication style and clinical recommendations to better align with clients' cultural values, family systems, and lived experience

• Recognise systemic barriers — including delayed diagnosis and inequitable access to support — affecting culturally diverse neurodivergent individuals

• Integrate cultural humility into your everyday practice to build rapport, strengthen ethics, and deliver more inclusive care

Meet Anushka Phal

Anushka Phal is an Educational and Developmental Psychologist and the Founder and Managing Director of Umeed Psychology — a Melbourne-based, culturally responsive and neuroaffirming psychology practice and social enterprise.

Anushka has dedicated her career to reimagining what inclusive, ethical, and community-centred psychological care looks like, particularly for multicultural, neurodivergent, and LGBTQIA+ communities. Her work sits at the intersection of clinical practice, community development, and systemic advocacy — and she brings all of that to her training and professional development sessions.

A TEDx speaker, co-author, and recipient of the Victorian Honour Roll of Women (2023) and the 7News Young Achiever's Award for Social Impact (2025), Anushka is known for her ability to make complex clinical concepts feel accessible, relevant, and immediately applicable.