Introducing Springboard’s One Day ADHD Assessment. Appointments available for children, teens and adults. Learn more.

Our Approach


The Springboard Approach

You can’t switch off ADHD. It’s part of who you are — but only one part. We’re interested in exploring the rest. Instead of focusing on what you’re not able to do, we help you discover your hidden strengths and steadily develop your untapped potential. It’s a unique approach we call Discover your SELF.

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Our Services


Our Personalized Services

Springboard’s various services are anchored by a core commitment: we’re here to help clients discover their hidden strengths and live more rewarding lives. We take a holistic approach, guiding ADHD assessments with medical diagnoses as needed, and complementing personal coaching with more in-depth therapy when we feel it will yield even better outcomes.

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Our Team & Culture


A skilled team and a welcoming culture

When we opened our doors in 2009, Springboard Clinic consisted of three women: Dr Ainslie Gray; her daughter and co-founder, Laura MacNiven; and a business manager. Today we’re a diverse, multitalented and growing team of coach-therapists, psychologists, physicians and administrators — and the vision and passion that shaped Springboard remain as strong as ever.

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Learning & Resources

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Our Services

ADHD Coaching & Therapy

Our unique treatment model, Discover your SELF, defines Springboard’s overall approach to ADHD — and it guides our proven coaching methodology.

We’ve designed the process to help clients of all ages look past their specific ADHD behaviours to find their true selves.

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Your coach can call on colleagues’ psychological and medical expertise as needed.

At every stage, we encourage you to talk about your needs and priorities, along with your longer-term goals and dreams. And as we help you replace old habits with more effective ways of thinking — grounded in a deeper understanding of your own brain — you feel empowered to explore new directions in all areas of your life.

Already have an ADHD assessment?
At Springboard, you can go Straight to ADHD Coaching

If you’ve already been formally assessed as having ADHD, you can take advantage of Springboard’s unique Straight to ADHD Coaching service.

We still need to get to know you, of course, and understand where you are in your ADHD journey, as well as where you hope to go next. But because you’ve already gone through a professional assessment, we can accelerate our usual process and get you working with a coach to discover your inner strengths and true self.

 

To begin, we’ll ask you to share your assessment report with our Springboard Care Team. Our team will review your report to ensure it was completed within the past 5 years, clearly identifies ADHD as being part of the picture, and is signed by a mental health professional who is able to diagnose ADHD. 

 

And from there, it’s Straight to Coaching where your coach will meet with you to determine your needs for support and discover your strengths. In your first Straight to Coaching appointment, your coach will offer you psychoeducation about ADHD and together, you will explore all aspects of your ADHD experience: your challenges and frustrations, as well as your treatment goals. We talk about stress, anxiety, mood, sleep issues and all the other ways that ADHD can affect your quality of life. Working with your coach, you will make a plan for amplifying your strengths and setting priorities for the future: not what others think you should be doing, but what you want and need to do. The focus is on analyzing and removing obstacles that have been holding you back as we refine your priorities for the future. And with that foundation in place, we settle on the right frequency of coaching sessions moving forward. As always with Springboard, you’re in control of your treatment and set the pace for the path forward. This initial session lasts 90 minutes for adults and 120 minutes for kids and teens. Follow-up sessions are typically 50 minutes, taking place either weekly or biweekly.

 

As you experiment with what works best for you, count on your coach to be supportive, empathetic – and relentlessly hopeful. We’re here to talk you through the rough days and be your cheerleader on the better ones. And we’re ready to help you find answers to the questions that matter most: What are the day-to-day impacts of my ADHD, both negative and positive? What do I want more or less of in my life? What blocks me from tapping into my strengths, and how do I push past those barriers to become my best self?

 

What if your existing ADHD assessment doesn’t fit our criteria or your needs aren’t able to be met by our current treatment team? Sometimes assessment reports are no longer valid or don’t have sufficient information for us to green-light Straight to Coaching. If this happens, don’t be discouraged; you’ve taken an important first step by seeking help. We can arrange an ADHD/mental health reassessment or recommend external sources to get you back on track and receiving the support you need.

We offer ADHD coaching and therapy for everyone.

ADHD affects people of all ages, as well as everyone around them, from partners and family members to friends, classmates and colleagues. Springboard offers a wide range of coaching and therapy services tailored to the needs of individuals and groups:

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Kids

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Teens

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Post-secondary students

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Adults

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Parents

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Partners

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Couples

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Families

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Groups

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Our ADHD coaching for children starts with creating a safe, comfortable space where kids can talk about their feelings and discover their hidden strengths.

Our coach/therapists boost kids’ self-awareness and understanding of how their brain works. We help them find a language for all the positive attributes they have to offer. And together, we create strategies for navigating difficult situations at home and at school, forging alliances with teachers to reinforce the collective effort. The goal is simple and life-changing: to find your child’s spark and help it burn brighter.

For some kids, we recommend play therapy. Through highly interactive, in-person sessions, we invite children to express their thoughts and feelings. We then help them develop effective coping strategies and learn to prevent or resolve various psychosocial challenges. Play therapy can have a very positive long-term impact on your child’s self-esteem, self-regulation, focusing ability and academic success, as well as on relationships with family members and peers.

If you’re a teenager with ADHD, we don’t pretend to know what you’re going through, and we’re not here to tell you what to do. We’re here to listen.

If you think something is important, then so do we. We offer a safe, non-judgmental space to explore what makes you happy, angry, interested, bored, frustrated, stressed – and every feeling in between. We help you understand better how your brain works and learn to separate your true self from your ADHD.

Together, we find ways to break out of patterns that are holding you back right now, along with strategies for achieving your longer-term goals – at home, at school and wherever your dreams lead you.

Making the transition to college or university can be pretty overwhelming when ADHD is part of the story.

Suddenly finding yourself away from your usual support systems, adjusting to an unfamiliar environment, building new relationships, juggling academic demands – it’s a lot to unpack and navigate through. You can count on Springboard’s coaching and therapy team to be there for you. We listen as you try to make sense of things. Provide trusted guidance or a nudge of encouragement when you need it.

Explore the big questions about your evolving identity and how you want to show up in the world – along with smart everyday routines to keep you healthy, rested and fit. And underneath all that, we just believe in you and know what you’re capable of.

When attention and focusing challenges have shaped so much of your life, it can be hard to distinguish who you are from your ADHD traits.

Our coach/therapists begin by listening closely, encouraging you to work through the moments that have been pivotal in your story so far. We help you identify and examine the impact of your unique brain mechanics. And together, we evaluate your life across every dimension of wellbeing: physical, emotional, social and professional.

The ultimate goal is to have you feel more in control of your ADHD, leveraging your hidden strengths and talents – while retaining what is uniquely you – in a journey of hope and possibility. You lead, and we walk alongside you.

We know how much energy it takes to raise a child with ADHD. Springboard’s parent coaches have your back, providing thoughtfully tailored services and support.

We help you develop strategies that build on your child’s strengths while addressing areas of need. Together, we look at your parenting philosophy and approach to resolving problems, as well as the household dynamic and communication patterns – evaluating what’s working and agreeing on what needs to change. Then we help you set new goals and map out a plan to reach them, whether that means evolving everyone’s expectations or simply becoming more adept at picking your battles.

It’s a rigorous process but a rewarding one: parents consistently tell our coaches they feel more confident in their roles and experience far less day-to-day stress as misunderstandings give way to mutual respect.

Life as the partner of someone with ADHD can be challenging, perplexing, tricky to navigate – and at the same time, an endless source of spontaneity, even fun.

Your partner’s journey shapes your own as you try to be understanding and supportive while also asserting your own need to be heard. This is where Springboard’s partner coaches help. We work with you to deepen your understanding of ADHD-related issues and their emotional impact on loved ones, especially when it comes to communication.

Among the strategies we explore together: avoiding the “parent-child” relationship trap, practising healthy self-care, creating a respectful home environment and finding space for joy. We bring psychological insight to what you already know: it’s all about building (or rebuilding) and sustaining a relationship anchored by trust.

We also provide coaching to both partners in a relationship, helping you better understand each other and the role ADHD plays in your shared journey.

It’s an opportunity to examine each partner’s emotional needs, actions and interactions from the other’s vantage point – and in the process, peel away layers to reveal the essence of who you are together.

Strategies your coach may guide you through include affirming your partner’s value, techniques for communicating in conflict, how to offer a meaningful apology and learning to express love more effectively. We help you strengthen and fine-tune your relationship to balance a key factor that sets it apart: ADHD.

We also provide therapy for families, helping you better understand one another and your unique situation through an ADHD lens.

Our coach/therapists provide a safe, supportive environment in which your family can consider how ADHD influences communication patterns, roles and behaviours. We explore practical strategies for managing conflict, sharing feelings and responding to one another with compassion – all to help strengthen unity within your family dynamic.

Joining a small community of people affected by ADHD can be a powerful source of insight, affirmation and positive energy.

The Springboard Care Team helps bring together diverse groups of individuals with life experiences in common, from moms and partners of people with ADHD to artists and entrepreneurs who face attention and focus challenges in their work.

Contact us to find our what groups we’re currently coaching. Or suggest an area you’d like to explore in a future group session.

Featured FAQ

Where does psychotherapy fit in?

We offer therapy to Springboard coaching clients who are experiencing emotional distress, symptoms of mood or anxiety disorders, and/or interpersonal difficulties. Our therapists take an integrative approach, adopting components as needed from a range of evidence-based interventions. These can include cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, emotionally focused therapy, mindfulness training, attachment-based interventions, internal family systems therapy and solution-focused therapy, among other approaches.

Our specific therapeutic strategies vary with clients’ individual needs. A therapist can help examine the interactions between thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Sessions may focus on identifying core beliefs, values and automatic thoughts. Others may explore early life experiences and coping strategies developed over time, as well as current triggers and responses to stressors. In short, psychotherapy can help people with ADHD better understand and process their emotional responses and behaviour patterns. And it can point the way to developing more effective coping strategies and improving emotional wellbeing.

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