September 14-20th, 2008 is National Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Awareness week in the US, ADDA, CHADD USA and ADDitude Magazine are sponsoring ADHD Awareness Week activities.
Unfortunately up here in Canada, we’re 5-10 years behind the US when it comes to dealing with ADHD and adult ADHD. We still haven’t had a single ADD Awareness day yet, and this is the 5th one in the US.
ADDA has some free teleclasses on ADHD going on that week, here’s their press release on the event.
Here’s the US Senate Resolution (S.R. 649) that has been passed making September 18, 2008 National Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Awareness Day.
If you want some ideas on what you can do to help, ADDA has some suggestions here
This year CHADD USA has some info about the event on their website, if my memory serves me correctly, they didn’t have anything on their website last year. They have a nice media toolkit if you want to help get information on ADHD out to the media (lord knows we need more accurate info on ADHD out there).
Tara has an ADHD Awareness Marathon going on from September 14-20, 2008. ADHD experts will answer your Attention Deficit Disorder related questions for free if join her ADD teleclass business, ADDClasses.com (lots of interesting teleclasses there). You can ask your questions by phone, webforum or chat room.
Maybe one day people with ADHD in Canada and their familes will help to create a Canadian ADD Awareness day, but I’m not too hopeful.
The BC govt and children’s hospital closed down the only provincial Adult ADHD clinic based at BC children’s hospital because it was too popular and had a 1 year wait list for an entire year. Wait lists are embarassing for the BC govt because the media hammers them for it, so they closed the clinic so no political embarassment. Sent out press releases to nearly every media organization in BC, only got coverage from global news.
Most local people with ADHD and their families didn’t bother protesting or organizing against it. More than a year later there still is no replacement. I continually get calls and emails asking for Vancouver area medical professionals that can diagnose ADHD in adults or children and horror stories of people who’ve suffered for years because of a lack of diagnosis, but no one seem willing to do anything about it. Quite frustrating.