A few ways you can help us:

  1. Post about the campaign on social media using the hashtag #AttentionUK. Easy peasy.
  2. Call out a charity or a website that doesn’t recognise ADHD as a mental health condition by filling in the gaps in this email template: Please stop perpetuating ADHD stigma – template  and sending it over to the email addresses listed on their website.
  3. Find out whether there’s an NHS service in your area for adults with ADHD.
  4. Contact your local Healthwatch to ask them if they are aware of the national failure to support adults with ADHD, and what services are available to adults with ADHD in your area. Be sure to include a link to this website so they can find out more about the issue (and also means you don’t have to decide which points to include in the email!)
  5. Share pages like the FAQ with anyone who you think ought to know what ADHD is really like, be they a school teacher, your GP, someone who has ADHD themselves and wants to understand it better/is sick of having to answer these questions themselves, your son/daughter/mum/dad/granny/second cousin twice removed, the Daily Mail, people you work with, celebrities with ADHD or who advocate for it, and so on. Feel free to highlight any bits that you think are particularly important.
  6. Print and display this free a4 poster somewhere others will see it to raise awareness of adult ADHD. If you’re worried people won’t see it, try sticking them up on the cubicle doors in the loos at your work/school/university!
  7. Write articles about what it’s like to be an adult with ADHD in the UK, and link to the #AttentionUK campaign.
  8. Use this handy tool to write to your government representatives and ask them to start paying #AttentionUK. If you’re stuck for things to say, you could:

Ask them why the government has been ignoring advice about how to support the needs of the hundreds of thousands of adults with ADHD (including undiagnosed adults) who are being neglected across the UK

Ask them to form an All Party Parliamentary Group to ensure ADHD starts being discussed at a governmental level

Ask them what else they’re going to do to raise awareness of #AttentionUK and address the widespread public stigma faced by people with ADHD

Ask them what they’re going to do to make sure NHS provision for people of all ages with ADHD improves in quality and availability. Will there be better training about ADHD, so that GPs in particular can develop and maintain a medically accurate understanding of the disorder?

Ask them why everyone has been ignoring a huge opportunity to use NHS funding more effectively, address prison overcrowding and improve a large number of social problems which are a substantial burden on the public budget.

Ask them to show you what they will do to prioritise this in your area, and to also tell you how the party as a whole will commit to addressing these issues across the UK. For example, will there be a new policy that mentions these issues? Will the Five Year Forward plan for mental health provision in the UK be edited to include ADHD provision?

Whatever you do, be sure to link them to this website for more information!

Thank you so much for any support you can offer.