THE ORIGIN
"They are not cars,
and they are not broken."
— The founding principle of Not Broken
Not Broken was built from years of frontline work with children and families — and the recurring experience of parents presenting children to be fixed. As if there were a malfunction. As if the solution were a different setting.
Children are not problems to be solved. They are mirrors — reflecting the world they are shown, the behaviours they observe, and the values modelled around them. In a digital age where that world increasingly includes algorithmically escalating content, the locus of responsibility lies with the adults in the room.
Not Broken is not a blame project. It is an invitation — to awareness, to honest reflection, and to action. Every informed, activated parent is a pebble. The community is the pond.
THE PERSON BEHIND NOT BROKEN
Kelli
Lawler
Owner - Driftwood Therapeutic Supports
Port Macquarie, NSW
Bachelor Psychological Science (UNE) - Professional Diploma TLSW (UK/Berry St) Certificate Guiding and Teaching Meditation and Mindfulness (ACMM).
"I have sat in the rooms where the hard conversations happen. I know what it looks like when a family is out of options — and I know what it looks like when something finally shifts."
Not Broken was built from more than a decade of frontline work across out-of-home care, disability, and complex trauma — and from the consistent recognition that the families who need the most help are the least likely to find it.
Kelli began her career in out-of-home care, working progressively as a Youth Worker, Case Manager, Co-ordinator, Therapeutic Specialist, and Complex Case Work Specialist. She then moved into disability, working as a Behaviour Support Practitioner before credentialing as an Advanced Behaviour Support Practitioner. Across both fields she has practiced Therapeutic Life Story Work, facilitated Meditation Groups for adults, and piloted a Mindfulness for Children program that ran successfully and will run again.
Kelli is a certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher through the Australian College of Meditation and Mindfulness (ACMM) and a member of Meditation Australia. She is an NDIS-registered Behaviour Support Practitioner and brings both clinical rigour and deep personal investment to this work as a mother of four, and as someone who has spent years sitting alongside children and families in some of their most difficult moments.
Her practice is anchored in Interpersonal Neurobiology — particularly the frameworks developed by Dan Siegel — and draws on trauma-informed practice, affect regulation theory, and current Australian evidence on technology exposure and child development.
The program exists because behaviour is not a problem to be managed. It is a language to be understood. And every child deserves an adult in their life who is fluent enough to hear what they are actually saying.
THE NOT BROKEN PHILOSPOHYFour principles that
change everything.
01
Behaviour is a language, not a deficit.
Every behaviour — including the most frightening, most exhausting, most relentless behaviour — is a signal. Something is being communicated. The question is not what is wrong with the child. The question is what the child is trying to say.
03
Technology changed the environment our instincts were built for.
Platforms and apps are engineered using the same neurological principles as gambling machines. Children's developing brains cannot resist what teams of neuroscientists spent years perfecting. The difficulty parents are experiencing is not a failing — it is arithmetic. A love and intuition versus a billion-dollar machine.
02
The first screen in every child's life is a face.
Before any device, children calibrate their nervous systems against the face of their caregiver. The quality of that original relationship — its attunement, its consistency, its safety — is the foundation that every subsequent intervention rests on. Connection precedes correction. Always.
04
Change starts with the adults.
Children learn primarily through observation — through what they see modelled around them, not through what they are told. The most powerful intervention is always targeted at the adults in a child's life. Not to assign blame, but because that is where the leverage actually is.
EVIDENCE BASE
Built on the shoulders
of serious thinkers.
Not Broken draws on a robust body of peer-reviewed research and clinical theory. The following are the primary theoretical and empirical foundations of the program. Full references are available on request.
Jonathan Haidt
The Anxious Generation (2024); social media and adolescent mental health
Haidt's comprehensive synthesis of research on how phone-based childhood has driven rising rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness in adolescents since 2012. Essential reading for understanding the population-level impact of social media on young people.
Dan Siegel
Interpersonal Neurobiology; The Hand Model of the Brain; Mindsight
Primary theoretical anchor. Siegel's frameworks for how parent regulation directly shapes child neural architecture are central to the Not Broken approach.
Bessel van der Kolk
The Body Keeps the Score; trauma and body-based responses
Trauma's long-term impact on behaviour, development, and the body — essential context for understanding many of the presentations Not Broken addresses.
Tristan Harris / Center for Humane Technology
The Social Dilemma; technology and attention
Applied analysis of how persuasive technology design exploits neurological vulnerabilities — and the population-level consequences for children.
Morawska et al., University of Queensland (2023)
Parental screen behaviour — systematic review
Five systematic reviews confirmed parental modelling as the most significant modifiable influence on child screen behaviour. This finding is foundational to the parent-first program sequencing.
Dr Kristy Goodwin
Raising Your Child in a Digital World; PhD — Macquarie University
Australia's leading researcher on the impact of digital technology on children's learning, health, and development. Dr Goodwin's evidence-based frameworks for healthy technology use in childhood are directly relevant to the Not Broken parent-facing approach
Allan Schore
Affect regulation; neurobiological foundations of attachment
The neuroscience of how early relational experiences shape the brain's capacity for regulation — and what happens when that foundation is disrupted.
B.J. Fogg
Persuasive Technology; behaviour design
The academic framework behind how digital platforms are engineered to drive behaviour — and why children's developing brains are disproportionately vulnerable.
eSafety Commissioner (Australia)
Online Safety Strategy; Australian research data
Australian government research on children's online experiences, exposure to harmful content, and the specific risks facing Australian young people. Not Broken is developed in alignment with eSafety Commissioner strategic priorities.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024)
Screen time guidelines for children and young people
The recommended maximum of no more than 2 hours recreational screen time per day for children aged 5–17 — and the evidence base supporting that recommendation.
This resource and the Not Broken program are developed in alignment with peer-reviewed evidence and current Australian policy frameworks, including the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022–2032 and the eSafety Commissioner's Online Safety Strategy. All clinical recommendations are made within the scope of the practitioner's registration and training. This program is not a substitute for individualised clinical support.
THE CLINICAL HOMEDriftwood
Therapeutic
Supports.
Not Broken is the education, training, and community program. Driftwood Therapeutic Supports is its home — the practice under which Kelli operates as a credentialed Advanced Behaviour Support Practitioner.
Kelli is an NDIS-registered Behaviour Support Practitioner. Families and professionals seeking direct behaviour support services will be connected with the appropriate registered provider. Contact us and we will point you in the right direction.
Location - Port Macquarie, NSW Service area - Mid North Coast/Hunter NSW +telehealthSpecial Interests - Trauma, OOHC, Autism, ADHDEmail - kellilawlerbsp@gmail.comPhone - 0456 360 604