Political and Change Goals

Our political goals, the strategy to achieve them, and how to get involved.

We need positive change for ADHD in the UK

The UK recognised ADHD late, and we’ve a lot of catching up to do. ADHD was only formally recognised for children in the UK in the year 2000 and in adults in 2008. ADHD is hard to live with. That challenge is devastatingly described by the statistics that 1 in 10 men or boys and a staggering 1 in 4 women or girls with ADHD will at some point try to take their own life. For the first 2 years of ADHD UK’s existence, the majority of funds to the charity came from parents whose children had taken their own life. It continues to be a major reason for donation still today. There is more information in the site and especially on our About ADHD page, and for a succinct summary we recommend you look at our press briefing page.

We know people with ADHD can be amazing, that they can thrive, for the benefit of themselves and wider society.

We need change.

Lobbying to reduce wait list time and to increase post-diagnosis support. We’re targeting reducing wait lists for both diagnosis and treatment. Fight for the retention and expansion of Right to Choose. Providing support options in addition to pharmaceutical support. Learn more here.

ADHD in the next General Election. Ensuring positive change for ADHD in the UK is important in the upcoming general election. To not be part of the debate is to be forgotten and ignored. That means lengthening wait lists, reduced services, and losing Right to Choose. It’s essential the issues around ADHD be strongly voiced in the upcoming election. Learn more here.

Change Disability Monitoring and Reporting in the UK. Right now, we don’t know how well or badly organisations are doing in their goals of supporting people with ADHD or other mental disorders. “What gets measured gets done”. We need data to highlight the great organisations and to identify and then support and help change those that are failing people with mental disorders. Learn more here.

Change special educational needs reporting in schools in the UK. Currently, results and other special educational needs data is reported from schools as an average to the Department of Education. Individual conditions are not separated out with the exception of Autism where individuals successfully lobbied for it to be reported separately. If you have your head in the freezer and feet in the oven, your average temperature is OK. Reporting the diversity of special needs as an average is exactly as nonsensical. The individual figures for Autism have been highly successful in displaying differing outcomes, identifying needs, and providing an informed basis for strategic interventions and support. That successful strategy should be replicated across all special educational needs. Learn more here.

Built the Neurodiversity Alliance. Larger corporate organisations and public sector organisations prefer to work on their Neurodiversity strategy as a whole rather than individually. A strategy that can often make a lot of sense when you consider the cross-over populations. We’re building the Neurodiversity Alliance to meet that need and to more effectively lobby at the corporate and public sector level. Learn more here.

We need you to help us make change happen. National change happens at the local level. We’re organising into NHS areas – so you can lobby your area for change. You support our programmes, you have the option to attend monthly “ADHD UK Insider meetings” where we discuss our current programmes and future programmes. You can use those to influence and change our plans. You then get involved in lobbying at multiple levels in your area – your local NHS, your MPS, and your councils to create a successful pincer movement of compounding pressure on decision makers. Councils have particularly strong connections with their local NHS and are often forgotten in lobbying campaigns.

Local Campaigns are led by an individual, or teams of, ADHD UK Ambassadors. You can learn more about the Ambassador program here. If you’re not ready to be an Ambassador but would like to get support locally you can register to be an ADHD UK Change Maker here.