Helping the ADHD Foundation become a national voice on ADHD reform

Following the Australian Government’s response to the Senate Inquiry into ADHD, public attention was high, but there was still significant uncertainty about what the response would mean for people with ADHD.

The ADHD Foundation is a volunteer-run, community-funded health charity working to improve the lives of people with ADHD through advocacy, education, and support.

It needed to respond quickly, keep ADHD-specific issues visible within a much broader health and policy conversation, and explain why gaps in access and support still mattered.

The challenge was to turn a complex policy response into a clear public position that could land with policymakers, journalists, and the ADHD community without losing the nuance behind it.

Hyde & Seek worked with the Foundation to turn complex policy and clinical issues into clear, defensible messages that journalists and broader audiences could understand.

The strategy connected lived experience with evidence-based commentary, giving the Foundation a clear position on access, equity, and reform while making its expertise easier for media to use.

Rather than treating the government response as a one-off news moment, we positioned the Foundation as an organisation journalists could return to as the national conversation around ADHD continued.

That meant identifying the issues where the Foundation had something distinctive to contribute, preparing spokespeople for media engagement, and moving quickly when ADHD policy and access entered the news cycle.

The engagement helped strengthen the ADHD Foundation’s position as a credible public voice on ADHD reform and created opportunities to put its perspective in front of policymakers and national audiences.

Earned media included The Daily Aus, a live interview with 2GB, and extensive commentary in the Australian Financial Review.

• National media coverage across digital, radio, and business media
• Direct engagement with government stakeholders
• Stronger positioning for the Foundation as a source on ADHD access and reform
• Clear messaging the organisation could continue using beyond the immediate news cycle

The issues at the centre of the campaign did not disappear with the news cycle. Access to diagnosis, prescribing, and appropriate ADHD care continued to develop as a policy issue across Australia.

From 1 December 2025, Queensland expanded prescribing rights so specialist GPs could initiate, modify, and continue psychostimulant treatment for adults with ADHD, a change designed to reduce referral bottlenecks, waitlists, and barriers to care.

Policy reform is shaped by governments, clinicians, advocates, communities, and many other stakeholders over time. We do not attribute that change to a single communications campaign. What the engagement did was help ensure the Foundation’s perspective on access, equity, and ADHD-specific care formed part of the broader public conversation as those issues developed.

Engagement: Hyde & Seek Communications. Scope: policy messaging, media strategy, spokesperson positioning, and earned media outreach.