Third New Zealand ADHD Conference returns to Takapuna's Westlake Girls Event Centre on 22 August

The New Zealand ADHD Conference - Auckland returns for its third annual edition on Saturday 22 August 2026, running 10am to 4pm at the Westlake Girls High School Event Centre, 2 Wairau Road, Takapuna. The organiser's event page states doors open from 8.30am, with registration and the exhibitor floor open for 90 minutes before the first session. It is a single-day, single-stream conference built around six speakers, and the organiser describes it as a "neuroaffirming" event combining evidence-based clinical content, lived experience and applied strategy.

The aggregator listing that flagged this event carried no venue. The organiser's own page and the TryBooking ticketing listing both confirm the Westlake Girls High School Event Centre in Takapuna as the venue, and both confirm the 22 August 2026 date and the 10am-4pm running time.

Who runs it

The conference is produced by My Spirited Child, a neurodiversity events business operating across Australia and New Zealand. According to the organiser's About page, the company grew out of a support community for families raising neurodivergent children and now runs in-person and online conferences, seminars and classes in both countries.

The conference series has a long runway behind it. The organiser's FAQ states the format was first held in Victoria in 2019, ran again in Victoria and in Queensland in 2021, added Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales in 2022, and North Queensland and Tasmania in 2023. New Zealand was the series' first international market, with Auckland and Christchurch editions staged in 2024. The 2026 Australian calendar published on the organiser's upcoming events page runs through the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Adelaide Convention Centre and Hotel Grand Chancellor Hobart - which places the Auckland edition inside a genuine multi-city conference circuit rather than a one-off. A Change for Better, a New Zealand diagnostics and mental health provider, is listed as a partner on the Auckland event page.

Who it is for, and the programme

The organiser positions the day for parents, carers, educators, allied health professionals, students and ADHD adults aged 14 and over. Children under 14 are not permitted, which the organiser attributes to insurance requirements and adult-pitched content. Educators are called out specifically as a target audience. All ticket holders receive a certificate of attendance, which the organiser notes can be used for professional development purposes, and a conference workbook is offered as a separate ticket inclusion.

The published agenda on the organiser's page and the TryBooking listing runs as follows. Ashley Cairns, chief executive of A Change for Better, opens at 10.05am on "The Hidden Rules Nobody Explains: Why the World Feels Harder for Neurodivergent People"; her speaker biography notes her work on Lotus, an AI-assisted diagnostic platform, and a TEDx Women talk. Lauren Quirke, neurodevelopmental consultant and founder of the neuroscience-led practice Somente, follows at 11.05am on communicating with children who are not responding. Perth-based paediatric occupational therapist Zoe Horner, founder of Little Treasures Therapy, speaks at 11.50am on occupational therapy approaches. After the main break, Auckland employment law specialist and workplace investigator Jaime Rose-Peacock covers ADHD workplace rights and responsibilities at 1.20pm; the organiser notes her board roles with the Employment Law Institute of New Zealand and A Change for Better. Occupational therapist and ADHD coach Yvonne Moy speaks at 2.05pm on parenting strategies, and psychiatrist Dr Dianne Grocott closes the programme at 3.10pm on optimising ADHD medication. Grocott's biography records 30 years in public and private psychiatry and co-founding the Victorian Adult ADHD Interest Group in 2015. The day closes at 3.50pm.

An exhibition component runs alongside the speaker programme, open during registration and all breaks. Exhibitors named on the event page include Telepsych Network NZ, the Davis Method Pacific hub, OT4You and Aszo Apparel, with the organiser stating further exhibitor details are to come.

The venue and delegate movement

The Westlake Girls High School Event Centre is a school-owned commercial venue on Auckland's North Shore, roughly 10km north of the CBD and directly off Wairau Road near the Northern Motorway. According to the venue's own facilities site, the auditorium holds about 1,000 people in total - 700 on the ground floor with flexible seating and 300 on the mezzanine - which makes it one of the larger non-purpose-built conference rooms available on the North Shore. The ground floor is wheelchair accessible, the auditorium has 11 unisex bathrooms including two accessible, and the stage measures 20.8m by 8.75m with a green room behind it.

Technically the room is better equipped than its school setting suggests. The venue lists a D&B Audiotechnik sound system with a Midas M32 console, wireless handheld and lapel microphones, a full LED lighting rig, and three projectors covering left, right and centre screens - relevant for a six-speaker slide-driven programme. Hire includes exclusive use of the auditorium, foyer and green room. The foyer, which is where an exhibitor and registration flow of this kind naturally lands, is rated for 60 seated or 100 standing.

Catering is the practical constraint for planners studying this venue. The venue states hirers must self-cater and bring in all tables, tableware and glassware, with "very limited" preparation space on site; alcohol requires a liquor licence. Consistent with that, the organiser confirms food and drink are not included in the ticket and recommends delegates bring a packed lunch, noting eateries nearby and on site.

For out-of-town delegates, Takapuna is the accommodation cluster closest to the venue, with the Takapuna beachfront and the surrounding Wairau Valley commercial area both within a short drive; the Auckland CBD hotel stock is the fallback, connected to the North Shore by the Northern Busway. The venue sits close to Smales Farm, one of the busway stations, which matters for a Saturday event drawing a largely domestic, self-driving audience. Auckland Airport is roughly 30km south, on the far side of the harbour crossing - a factor for the conference's Australian speakers rather than for most attendees.

Why it matters in NZ MICE

The event is a useful marker of a fast-growing category: consumer-professional hybrid health conferences that sell direct to individuals rather than through institutional delegate budgets. It fills a 1,000-seat school auditorium on a Saturday, brings trans-Tasman speakers into Auckland, and carries a paid exhibition floor - a full conference product operating outside the traditional convention-centre circuit. Its parent series also demonstrates the reverse-direction flow that Auckland and Christchurch increasingly benefit from: an Australian organiser rolling a proven state-by-state format across the Tasman, with New Zealand now a fixed stop on an eight-city annual calendar.