A very Happy New Year to everyone and hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. 

Our second Annual General Meeting was held on the 3^rd November and we have now reformed a committee of members with clearly defined roles.  Already we are reaping the benefits of this.  So that committee members can be regularly updated, a ‘telephone tree’ has been set up to facilitate all round communication especially for those who do not have access to email.

We have now managed to have our new volunteer flyers printed.  Picture shows front of leaflet.  These are currently being distributed in a variety of locations likely to attract volunteers.  Plans will be made to encourage and mentor anyone who applies.  We have already had our first helper come forward.  We hope this will be the first of many more. 

Recently an article was published in the ‘letters to editor’ page of a local newsletter which directed a great deal of criticism towards parents of youngsters with ADHD.  The writer implied that ADHD was simply a label which gave parents a medical excuse for their child’s bad behaviour.  The writer also implied that the main cause of the problem was due to bad parenting and suggested that children were being kept under sedation with the controversial drug Ritalin to solve the resulting difficulties.  These sweeping statements were extremely distressing for everyone in the group.  An excellent response from one of our parents was published in a later edition dispelling a lot of these biased opinions and appealing for everyone including teachers to recognise the condition and spend a little more time thinking about ADHD as a real special needs issue in the same way as Dyslexia.  Hopefully this will help to educate the general public about this very misunderstood condition.

Moving on – Lighthouse Group members recently enjoyed an outing to the local ten-pin bowling centre – a great favourite with the youngsters.  Also a trip was arranged to see Aladdin at the Gatehouse Theatre in Stafford on Tuesday 30^th December.  Everyone had a wonderful time and the youngsters were given the opportunity to meet Aladdin backstage after the show.  This make them feel very special and certainly gave them something to boast about to their friends. 

We have more events for the children in the pipeline.

More news on networking – we have recently been in contact with Sara from fellow ‘Pitch Your Project’ winners – Autonomy, also commended at our local Trust’s Celebration Day for Service Users and Carers.  Hopefully, Sara will be joining us at our next meeting 28^th January.  We are looking at the possibility of a joint venture involving other groups and the local Health Trust too – maybe a conference mainly aimed at addressing gaps in awareness/provision for both ADHD and ASD in Staffordshire and Shropshire.