Lighthouse Group Update

On Thursday 23^rd October we were presented with our award by Mike Brereton, Chairman of The University Hospital of North Staffordshire at one of their special drop-in public consultation days on its plans to become a Foundation Trust. The event took place at The Gatehouse Theatre in Stafford. The media were invited for a photo opportunity and interview opportunities with the Hospital representatives who sponsored the Staffordshire Dragon’s Den event and The Lighthouse Group and an article was published in the Stafford Express and Star.

The smiles on our faces show how honoured and delighted we were to receive our prize.

Now we have the funding, we are raring to move ahead with our plans to develop and provide a better service. One of our main priorities is to attract the volunteers we desperately need and hope that the leaflet we have designed, (which happily we can now afford to have printed), will be fruitful.

In the meantime we are working on our present agenda. As well as other topics, one of the purposes of our next meeting is to form a proper committee which will allow participants to share responsibilities, improve the performance of the group and provide a forum for examining issues in greater depth.

The theme of our last meeting held on Thursday 23^rd October was ‘The educational implications of ADHD and what support is available to parents.’ We were very fortunate to have as our guest speaker a Senior Practitioner Educational Psychologist from the Stafford and South Staffs District Office. It proved to be a very informative and interactive session.

On 15^th November, we have arranged some fun for the children at the local tenpin bowling centre. This is an activity that the children have greatly enjoyed in the past. It will give them the opportunity to meet up again and promises to be a good outing.

A further meeting has been arranged for Tuesday 2nd December. Again we are fortunate to have a guest speaker, a specialist registrar who will be talking about ‘The medical aspects of ADHD and how doctors can help’. This will be a lunch-time session at our usual meeting place. Parents will have the opportunity to ask questions and the doctor who is speaking has pledged to research any issues she is unable to answer.

NETWORKING

We are currently working hard with the Wolverhampton ADHD Support Group to strengthen links between our parents in Staffordshire and theirs in the West Midlands and good progress is being made. We were recently invited to one of their meetings and despite the distance, two of our parents travelled there to attend. They found it very helpful and came back full of enthusiasm. The Wolverhampton Group will be joining us in Stafford on 28^th January. The theme of this session will be comparing experiences. It will be a getting to know you type of session, discussing topics such as diagnosis pathway, support available, local activities etc. Hopefully from this we can get ideas of what works best in each area to lobby for improvements in all local patches. We have also been in contact with a new group that has recently formed in Lichfield and have sent out an invitation to them hoping some of their parents will be able to attend also.