Good morning Alison, and all you others in this (wonderful) world,
As you may have noticed, I am pretty ignorant about add or adhd - the
acronyms mean as little as the full handle to me. It was brought to my
attention by the manager of our respite centre in Rockhampton a couple of
days ago. A group of parents have banded together as the 'hidden handicap'
group, to try and get add and adhd recognized by DSQ (Disability Services
Queensland), a brand new state gov. agency, spun off a few months ago from
another department. I am inclined to think that in the 'old' department the
state of denial may have been 'gatekeeper driven' as disability in qld has
been vastly underfunde over many years, and even in this 'age of
enlightment' (?) is only funded at about 56% of the national average, which
is not flash either.
I hardly think that DSQ has had a chance to even look at add or adhd, let
alone form a policy. So this is a good time for the group to make a move. My
involvement is that I am a member of the Disability Council of Qld (DCQ,
which works with DSQ and advises the minister direct.
This is a rather long winded intro, but it may clarify the direction of my
curiosity. What are they, what assessment tools are used, are they classed
as disabilitiy, mental health or education problems, in other places than
oz, and who has what sort of policy in place, and does the policy actually
mean something or is it something that gets dusted off every five years.
Thank you for your help,
rgds John
----- Original Message -----
From: Alison Cocks <[log in to unmask]>
To: John Homan <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2000 2:04 AM
Subject: Re: attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyper activity
disorder
>
> John
>
> I don't know if this will be of any help but...
>
> a few years ago I was working within a local authority social services
> department in the Children with Disabilities team. there was constant
> unresolved debate about whether these children should be provided for
under
> the banner of 'education,' 'mental health' or 'disability'. our service
> manager at the time refused to allow any child dignosed add or adhd to be
> provided for within our team. this changerd later when we had a new
> manager, the point is that I don't think it was a clear policy decision
> but the action of service managers gatekeeping limited resources. What
> happend in reality was that a lot of children slipped throught the net
> because no-one recognised that this was within their remit.
>
> not great.
>
> Alison Cocks
> PhD Student
> Department of Sociology
> University of Surrey
>
>
> At 22:02 25/02/00 +1100, you wrote:
> > Good evening all, Can someone please give me a succinct rundown on
the
> >above, where they fit in the scheme of things, by what parameters they
are
> >being assessed, and if they are recognized 'mainstream disabilities', or
> >on the periphery with a tendency to being ignored by officialdom? Many
> >thanks rgds John
>
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