Questions To Ask Your Federal Candidates on ADHD

The Centre for ADHD Awareness Canada, CADDAC has developed a set of questions aimed at parties and their candidates addressing some of the issues that families and individuals impacted by ADHD have expressed are of concern to them.

The purpose of this set of questions aimed at parties and candidates is to:

• Build awareness about ADHD issues;
• Build relationships with candidates who identify themselves as being interested in these issues;
• Determine commitments for action on ADHD issues should the leader or candidate form the next government; and
• Move forward with actions that leaders and candidates pledge during the campaign when the next parliament begins.

CADDAC is requesting that families and individuals impacted by ADHD ask one or more of these questions of their local candidates. During the campaign, candidates will canvass their constituents door-to-door, on the telephone, and at candidates’ meetings and debates. Any connection with a candidate is an opportunity to ask one or more of these questions to build relationships, and determine commitments for action.

Background

Access to timely assessment and diagnosis of any mental health condition is essential for the successful treatment of that condition. When left undiagnosed, ADHD frequently leads to increased health care costs, academic failure, increased mental health disorders and substance abuse, more unemployment, more involvement with the justice system and increased socioeconomic costs. Wait lists for assessments and treatment are long. Access to multimodal, recommended treatment, is difficult and expensive. In many provinces ADHD is still not recognized as the risk to learning that research tells us that it is. Educators are not trained adequately in ADHD teaching strategies and many still wrongly think that these children are just behaviour problems.

• Will your party agree to develop a national task force to look at the far reaching socioeconomic costs of ADHD and what can be done to improve outcomes for those with ADHD?    

• What will your party do to ensure that primary care physicians, as well as paediatricians and adult psychiatrists, are adequately trained and compensated to diagnose and treat ADHD?

• Will your party improve access to essential treatment options for families impacted by this disorder?    

• Will your party ensure that students with only ADHD are identified as students with the right to receive special education resources and classroom accommodations?

• How will your party solve this lack of knowledge and understanding in educators, and train them on proper strategies and accommodations for these students?