To everyone interested in ADHD,

I am writing this letter to let you know what is happening in the area of advocacy for ADHD. On Friday August the 27th thirty-seven people representing ADHD support groups across Canada attended an Advocacy workshop entitled “How to effect Change” There was representation from every province as well as from CHADD Canada. We spent our time learning how to advocate affectively, finding out how to unravel the motivation of government and discovering tools that we could use to effect change. Through questionnaires that were sent out prior to the workshop we were able to confirm that all areas across Canada are facing many of the same challenges: the general lack of recognition of ADHD as a legitimate disability or a Learning Disability, lack of adequate school support, a shortage of professionals to diagnose and treat ADHD and the problem of the media spreading false information, and promoting misconceptions.

The workshop proved to be very valuable as a networking experience and helped us  to come to the conclusion that a national advocacy organization was needed. One strong united  voice to clear up misconceptions, provide up-to-date scientific medical information and to advocate for the needs of children and adults with this disorder. At the end of the day, sixteen different individuals and  organizations were committed to joining and promoting this organization.

Dr. Umesh Jain presented the professionals' view of the situation and informed us of a national organization, the Canadian ADD Resource Alliance or CADDRA, that is being formed by professionals to advocate for ADHD. CADDRA will be first working on  Standards of Practice for diagnosing and treating ADHD and will then be tackling the training of doctors, the reeducation of the education system surrounding ADHD and advocacy of ADHD. CADDRA will be welcoming community groups to begin working with them later next year. We hope to have our national group up and running at that time in order to add a strong voice from those of us who have been supporting these issues for many years.

One of the topics that was discussed during our workshop was the issue of the new medications now available in Canada not being available for those on provincial coverage. This means that those on assistance would not be able to afford the new ADHD medications. Actually those on provincial coverage can only access the short acting Ritalin or Dexatrin without special application and the new once a day medications are not available to them at all. Unfortunately this leads to a great inequity of treatment for people with ADHD.  As one of Dr. Jain's colleague's put it “ For the first time as a doctor my first question when deciding on treatment for a child with ADHD is, 'Do you have a drug plan?'”.

Those of us that deal with children taking medication know the benefits of a once a day treatment: not having to take medication at school, not going through the fluctuations of going off and on the medication throughout the day leading to periods of non medication and the increased difficulty of abusing these newer medications, just to name a few. The ADRN with some members of other organizations will be attempting to meet with the Minister of Health George Smitherman on this issue.

There is a window of opportunity in the next few months because the ODB is currently reviewing these medications at this time. If you feel this is an important issue the best way to be heard is to write a letter to your local MPP or ask to meet with them personally.

If you are nor sure who your MPP is go to and then click on the arrow beside “Find Your Electoral District'. All you have to do is type in your postal code (with no space) and it will tell you who your MPP is. There may be two addresses. If so, you would want to use the contact information for the Constituency office. It is also highly affective to copy the Minister of Health George Smitherman on a letter to your MPP. His mailing address is:

Honorable George Smitherman
Minister of Health & Long Term Care
10th Floor, Hepburn Block
80 Grosvenor street
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 2C4

The ADRN will be running a workshop in January on all forms of advocating for ADHD: politically, in the public forum, in your child's board of education, in your child's school, and for your own child Once we have the details of this workshop I will be sending out another flyer, so stay tuned.

If you are interested in further information about the national group or contacting your MPP stay tuned to our web site , come out to our workshops or feel free to contact me at if the questions are urgent.

Regards,

Heidi Bernhardt