About me
Over the past 15 years, I've worked across some of the most demanding frontlines of support services, mentoring young people in alternative education, running youth development programmes, and coaching adults through mental health and addiction recovery. Looking back, it's clear I've been a coach and mentor throughout — I simply didn't use the title.
What I didn't have a title for either, in those early years, was the framework I was developing. The Dream SMART Framework is what emerged from everything I witnessed and learned across those roles — a neurologically grounded, evidence-based approach to goal achievement built specifically for people whose brains don't respond to conventional systems.
The turning point came while training adults to become peer mentors in mental health and addiction recovery. A pattern became impossible to ignore: the most persistent barriers to wellbeing, recovery, and progress were rooted in ADHD or neurodivergent traits. People knew what they wanted. They had goals. What they lacked was a system designed for the way their brains actually work.
That recognition sent me deeper — into ADHD neuroscience, motivational psychology, and the research on what actually drives sustained behaviour change. What I found is that conventional goal-setting frameworks are built around neurotypical executive function. They address structure. They don't address emotion, dopamine, time blindness, task initiation, or the internal saboteurs that derail progress before it begins. Dream SMART does.
The Dream SMART Framework integrates six evidence-based layers: a vivid, emotionally resonant Dream Vision; Values-based Cornerstones that anchor motivation in what truly matters; Momentum-building Micro-Actions designed to work with — not against — the ADHD brain's dopamine system; Saboteur Awareness drawn from Shirzad Chamine's Positive Intelligence research; Strengths-based countering of those saboteurs; and structured Reflection to adapt and grow. Each element addresses a documented gap between how the brain functions and what conventional goal-setting demands of it.
I became a certified ADHD Coach to deepen the specialist knowledge underpinning this work. Now I offer 1-to-1 and group coaching designed to help adults with ADHD build the kind of purposeful, structured momentum that feels both achievable and sustainable.
My clients tell me they leave sessions feeling more confident, more focused, and genuinely optimistic about what's possible. They describe feeling more connected — in their relationships, in their work, and in their sense of self. If that's the kind of shift you're looking for, I'd love to hear from you.
Training, qualifications & experience
Waldo brings over 15 years of hands-on experience in coaching, mentoring, and supporting individuals with complex needs across mental health, education, and recovery services. This background is not simply a precursor to his coaching work — it is the living laboratory from which the Dream SMART Framework was developed and refined.
Where Dream SMART Began: Working at the Frontline
As Peer Mentoring Project Coordinator at OpenDoor Thurrock, Waldo worked directly with more than 100 young people, helping them build social, emotional, and personal skills around goals they themselves identified. Crucially, he built working relationships with SENCOs across 15 schools in West Essex — giving him direct, sustained exposure to young people with neurodevelopmental needs in real-world educational settings. This is where the seeds of Dream SMART were planted: watching capable, motivated young people fail not because they lacked ambition, but because the systems around them were built for a different kind of brain.
The framework's emphasis on emotionally resonant Vision and Values-based Cornerstones traces directly to this period. Waldo observed that goals set by young people themselves — goals with genuine emotional meaning — produced entirely different levels of engagement and follow-through than goals assigned from outside. The neuroscience now confirms what practice revealed: the limbic system, not the prefrontal cortex, drives sustained action.
Developing the Framework: Structure, Reflection, and Strengths
At Gateway Connect, Waldo trained staff in emotional support and behaviour analysis, led a team delivering personal and social development to disengaged young people, and provided reflective supervision to social work students. He delivered Level 1 and Level 2 qualifications, quality-assured outcomes, and developed tailored schemes of work for individuals with varied learning profiles.
This period shaped two of Dream SMART's most critical elements. First, the framework's Momentum-Building Micro-Actions layer — the recognition that change must be designed to fit existing lives, not require wholesale lifestyle overhaul. Working with disengaged young people taught Waldo that the size of the action is far less important than its consistency and fit. Second, his reflective supervision practice deepened his understanding of Reflection as an active skill rather than a passive afterthought — the engine that allows clients to adapt what's working and dismantle what isn't.
Refining the Framework: ADHD, Recovery, and Saboteur Awareness
Across roles at Thurrock and Brentwood Mind and Turning Point DAWS, Waldo developed and delivered accredited training programmes, supervised peer mentors, and personally carried a coaching caseload of over 50 service users. It was here — training adults in mental health and addiction recovery — that the Saboteur Awareness layer of Dream SMART came into sharpest focus.
The same internal patterns appeared repeatedly: the Avoider hiding behind procrastination, the Hyper-Achiever tying self-worth entirely to outcomes, the Restless brain jumping from goal to goal before momentum could build. Understanding these not as character flaws but as identifiable, nameable patterns — grounded in Shirzad Chamine's Positive Intelligence research — transformed how Waldo approached support. Naming a Saboteur weakens its grip. Pairing that awareness with Strengths-based countering — drawing on the VIA Institute's scientifically validated character strengths framework — creates the conditions for genuine, lasting change.
Qualifications & Professional Training
Waldo's professional training provides direct theoretical grounding for the neurological, emotional, and behavioural dimensions of ADHD coaching and the Dream SMART Framework:
• Certified ADHD Coach
• Diploma in Education and Training
• Mental Health First Aid
• Trauma Training — Steve Winfield
• Behaviour Intervention — Dr Chris Sullivan
• Organisational Dynamics — Dr Chris Sullivan
• Family Constellation Work — David Hampson, Psychotherapist
Taken together, these qualifications mirror the layers of the Dream SMART Framework itself: understanding the neurological basis of behaviour, the emotional architecture of motivation, the organisational dynamics that shape context, and the relational dimensions of sustainable change.
The Coach Behind the Framework
Waldo's self-described professional traits — reflective, patient, precise, calm under pressure, and committed to reliable outcomes — are not incidental. They are the qualities that clients with ADHD consistently need most: a steady, non-judgmental presence who can hold the vision clearly, name the saboteurs without judgement, and help build momentum that survives the inevitable hard days.
Dream SMART is not a motivational concept. It is the distilled output of 15 years in the field — built for brains that conventional systems have repeatedly failed.
Member organisations
EMCC UK is part of the Europe-wide European Mentoring & Coaching Council. Together their aim is to promote good practice and the expectation of good practice in mentoring and coaching across Europe. EMCC is an independent, impartial and non-profit making organisation.
Areas of coaching I deal with
Other areas of coaching I deal with
Understanding Communication styles based on your DISC profile
Photos & videos
Fees
£75.00 per session
Free initial online session
Additional information
I am Currently developing a CPD training programme based on my Dream SMART Framework to support individuals in their personal and professional lives.
