How does a person enter the ADHD education field?

[Anonymous]

First off (as I write this post) I am thinking of ways on how to better educate myself and use my knowledge at the college I am attending to help the many other people who struggle as I do. I am also thinking about why your site is new with no posts and what you can do to increase traffic. (ADHD at work here).

I am attending a college in the states and I find that the support structure that they have in place to help learning disabled people is inadequate. I as a result decided that I must help other people like me and am curious what educational fields I should pursue to help people on a 1:1 or small group basis? I am not really interested in large classroom teaching and I need to be free to allow my creativity and need for no restraints to help me stay focused in these settings.

I watched a few seminars done by Dr Barkley and I am just absorbed and intrinsically enthralled into the ADHD topic.

My counselor at he college wants me to come up with some job titles in these fields so we can come up with a career direction.

I can be a motivation speaker and an educational tutor but it must be stimulating intellectually to me and must provide me with the feedback and positive reward systems to keep me focused.

I will end this topic here. I tend to ramble a bit and get off topic.

Thanks

REPORT ABUSE

[purlgurl]

Speaking as a student in college finally having a successful semester, the Centre for Students With Disabilities (at Centennial College, Toronto, ON) has been a *huge* help for me. The two people I have had the most contact with are both counsellors (one of whom is identified as a “Disabilities Counsellor”), but I have also worked with an Assistive Technologist and Learning Strategist (neither of these people for very long, since I don’t use a lot of assistive technology, and the Learning Strategist works with people who have identified learning disabilities – lucky for me, I just have ADHD – but they are both really nice, and still check in with me to see how I’m doing

Even the office admin has been great, just to pop in and chat to, get favours from, and celebrate/brag my successes with. Also in the office is a Disabilities Technician/Assistant – I believe her role is to facilitate the use of tech recommended by the A.T.

REPORT ABUSE

[purlgurl]

Speaking as a student in college finally having a successful semester, the Centre for Students With Disabilities (at Centennial College, Toronto, ON) has been a *huge* help for me. The two people I have had the most contact with are both counsellors (one of whom is identified as a “Disabilities Counsellor”), but I have also worked with an Assistive Technologist and Learning Strategist (neither of these people for very long, since I don’t use a lot of assistive technology, and the Learning Strategist works with people who have identified learning disabilities – lucky for me, I just have ADHD – but they are both really nice, and still check in with me to see how I’m doing

Even the office admin has been great, just to pop in and chat to, get favours from, and celebrate/brag my successes with. Also in the office is a Disabilities Technician/Assistant – I believe her role is to facilitate the use of tech recommended by the A.T.

REPORT ABUSE

[purlgurl]

Oops – sorry for the double-post – I was typing on kind of a wonky computer.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Given that you are College students, the best place to provide ADHD education is to your fellow students. If you are connected to the Student Services departments of your institutions, sometimes the easiest strategy is to volunteer to run a group. Here is a typical group structure: a) someone is the timer/monitor, b) 10-12 people, c) pick a topic out of the hat. Now, each person speaks to the topic while the monitor allows everyone to speak for 5 minutes at the same time writing down the comments in summary. Then, when it is obvious that there is a common thread amongst the group, the monitor looks for solutions. Everyone gets 3 minutes to come up with a solution [ADDers are great at problem solving for someone else]. The monitor writes down the answers. Then the monitor reviews the answers, there is a short discussion as to which are good suggestions and then there is a vote. The best solution is the one everyone goes home and tries out. This is called Problem Focused Therapy and an interested ADDer can be a great service if they want to educate others. Of course, spread the word: TotallyADD.com is here for everyone too.

REPORT ABUSE

[Mike]

You can also use these Forums to learn more and practice giving and getting advice. I think this website should have some of those problem solving sessions like Dr. J. is talking about. How would we go about that?

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Wow, listening to you all I have a heightened respect for the Canada system. Since your counselor is looking for job titles you can use clinical psychologist, life coach (they now have licensing and specialization in ADD), school counselor or school psychologist, to name a few.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Mike, we will be setting up some Webinars soon and one of them will be about how to set up a Problem Focused Group that anyone can run in their little place. We will likely enlist about 15 participants and show how it works.

It’s fun and easy to do.

I always find that the best solutions come from the ADDers. Innovation and education!

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts