ADD Awareness Day is on Wednesday, September 20th 2006. ADDA has a lot of great information that makes it easy and simply for ADDers to get involved to get the word out about ADD awareness. ADDA is “happy to advertise both your group and your event on our website”. ADDA’s ADHD Awareness Task Force is looking for volunteers to work on the committee that will now work year round to promote ADD awareness.
Think of it as your opportunity to educate people about ADD, especially those who say it doesn’t exist or it’s a drug company and space alien conspiracy etc. Doesn’t have to be a big event, can be as simple as a letter to the editor.
If people with ADD don’t start advocating for ourselves and our condition no one will do it for us.
Check out ADDA’s site for resources you can use for doing something in your neighbourhood for ADD Awareness day. They have done a lot of the planning and preparation, so it’s easy for you to pick something you’d like to do (see their What Can I/We Do For Awareness Day? for ideas. CHADD‘s website announces the day but has no activities planned an no suggestions on their website. Too bad.
John at Adult ADD and Money has some links to his favourite ADD articles
In Canada, unfortunately as usual we’re behind the US on this and nothing planned yet, sigh… maybe next year. If you live in Canada and want to know why we should have an Canadian ADD awareness day here see my article on my website about it.
Here’s a list of the Free Resources ADDA has to make it simple and easy to plan your ADD Awareness day event
* Press Release
* Organizing an Awareness Event – Strategic Planning Form
* Proclamation – Office of the Mayor of Naperville, IL
* Create a Local Splash! Slides to help you organize a high-profile AD/HD event Awareness Event in your area
* 15 Creative Ways To Build Local AD/HD Awareness
* Sample Letter to Libraries
* Sample Cable TV Letter and Press Release
* Sample Public Service Announcement
* Sample Letter to the Editor
* Example of Typical Proclamation Process
* National AD/HD Awareness Campaign Task Force Interest Form
* What Can I/We Do For Awareness Day?
* AD/HD Books – The Short List
* Essay Campaign Poster
* Awareness Day Poster
* AD/HD Fact Sheet
* AD/HD Fact Sheet en Espanol
* Awareness Day Event – Information Sheet
* Diagnosis and Treatment of AD/HD: Questions You Can Ask Your Physician
* Share Your Story of Empowerment!
Just thought I’d mention that Robert Cooper from the ADHD Foundation of Canada (http://www.adhdfoundation.ca) is working on getting a national ADHD Awareness Day in Canada. For reasons that I completely agree with as a working ADHD adult, the Foundation would prefer to have the day in March. You can read more about his efforts and his reasons for chosing March on the Foundation’s website: http://www.adhdfoundation.ca/goals/awarenessday.htm
Bob Davies, ADDult 🙂
Here in NYC, we’re hoping that the national Add Awareness day will lead to greater exposure of support groups like ours. We constantly get new people who come to us, expressing the frustration that they’ve had in not finding out about our group sooner.
Additionally, Add people tend to be very creative, and express their needs for different group formats.
We now hold a seperate open group discussion, in addition to speaker led meetings.
Having an ADD Awareness day will have our cause greatly.
The more people who advocate for resources, the faster the US Government will allocate additional funding to the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH). Funds could then be earmarked to do more research on the complex issue of how the brain really works.
With that infomation at hand, the pharmaceutical, medical & scientific community can come together & create medications that will really target the problem.
They are already aware that certain neurotransmitters
play an important role (in the brain) with respect to cognitive processing (deficits which trigger other problems, such as anxiety etc).
However, ask any doctor, and they will tell you that much more work needs to be done.
I wish I would have come across this website sooner-
Anyhow, I am a member of the group who is sponsoring an Awareness Day event in Chicago. This is the premier ad/hd event in the midwest. It’s being sponsored by Shire, ADDA, CHAAIN, in cooperation with the local support groups all over Northern Illinois. More than 300 people have pre-registered for the day, looking for awareness, advocacy, and education about ad/hd. At least have 12 guest speakers are scheduled with 15 workshops. I was surprised that we’re getting a ton of interest. If you are in the Chicago area, join us.Never too late! It’s free to the public. We’re so excited, we can’t wait until the morning of Sept. 16th. We’re going to have fun!
-Christina member of Naperville Adult Chadd and chaain.org