Phone and email help through the National Resource Center on ADHD Hot Line, a program of CHADD subsidized by government grants
The NRC is the only national resource where people can receive an individualized response from a Health Information Specialist knowledgeable in the full range of issues concerning ADHD. We receive inquiries from all over the United States and more than 20 countries. Our English and Spanish-speaking Health Information Specialists respond to queries Monday–Friday, 1–5pm EST. If you have a question or would like to talk to somebody about ADHD, call 800.233.4050.
You can also call 211 to locate services. They may help you appropriate treatment and agencies. There’s also a website if you want to search for yourself. ADHD, Learning Disabilities or Parenting classes yield good results. (Link works) Washington Information Network – 211
Washington State Nonprofit and State Organizations – A good collection of local agencies offering help for ADHD, Learning Disabilities, and Mental Health. – Find support groups, information, provider directories, educational advocacy, parenting classes, and low-cost services.
Washington State ADHD Treatment Providers – Note: ADD freeSources does not endorse or recommend any provider or services listed. Nor should NOT being included on the list affect your choice of provider. Most were chosen simply because they were associated with ADD Resources or local CHADD groups at some time and I could find their contact information.
Join CHADD – http://www.chadd.org/The leading non-profit national organization for children and adults with ADHD hosts hundreds of local support groups around the nation. They have an informative website, run the National ADHD Resource Center and publish Attention Magazine. FREE Monthly Ask the Experts Chats and/or Webinars. They’ve also got a great Facebook page! (Membership – Individual or family – $53, Student $41, Professional $130)
Get on their mailing list!
Join ADDA (Adults with ADD) – Membership is the key to access on-line support and personal contact through their ambassador program and peer support groups- http://www.add.org/ Must be a member to access their monthly Webinars, $10 for others, but they have top names presenting. Thier website and monthly email are FREE to all. ($55 a year for a family, $20 for students, and $50 for individuals) Can be paid monthly.
Has the quality of your life been changed by the services they offered? Maybe you found a treatment provider that finally understood? Perhaps you’re a parent who learned to advocate for their child who now enjoys going to school each day. Did you make a new friend or two – someone who understands the way you operate? Maybe you found a favorite book or listened to podcasts from their Members’ Library that helped you cope better with the challenges of ADHD. Did just knowing that you were not all alone make all the difference?
Your are the lasting legacy of ADD Resources. Won’t you please share a bit of your story?
Unrecognized, ADHD may damage lives and relationships. Diagnosis and effective treatment can bring understanding and healing. ADD Resources promoted ADHD awareness through their publications, website, and educational events. Yearly workshops taught teachers how to deal with ADHD in the classroom and the conferences helped other professionals learn how to deal with ADHD in their caseload. Through the ADHD Directory, they helped link you to the providers you needed. They also offered direct help to many people who’s lives are affected by ADHD. The opportunities for involvement, support, and education they offered through the years were numerous, especially to those of you who could attend a local support group and/or a special event they put on. Celebrate the work and/or people that made the organization special.
You may remember some of these Past and Present Group Leaders. Leave a note for them if you wish to thank them for their efforts. Happily, some support groups remain in the Puget Sound region. Find them here: ADHD Support groups in Washington State.Get on their mailing list if you’d like to be kept up-to-date.
Since 1994, ADD Resources was there to help you find the information, advice and help you need to cope with the many challenges of ADHD. One of the best things was being able to call up and get a helpful and caring person on the line. With the office closing down, here are a few other ways to find quality information and support for ADHD. It won’t be the same, but there are other organizations that can still help.
There’s much more to know about the History and People of ADD Resources. I’ve written an article and put together a collection of names of the many people we have to thank for their efforts in building and sustaining the organization for so long. Click here to read more.
Joan Riley Jager – If you’d like to leave a personal message, you can contact me at joanrileyjager@live.com.
In Memorium photo: “Image courtesy of winnod/FreeDigitalPhoto.net” Poster created on Canva
Again, Please leave a commentbelow or visit the ADD Resources’ Facebook page to leave a message honoring the work and/or people that affected so many lives.
( My Spam program holds comments for approval before they are posted. My apologies for the delay. I do monitor the site throughout the day. If this is a problem, Facebook may be the better option for you. )
Just after I graduated from college at forty, I found a note posted in the library about a support group for adults with ADHD. I’d just read “You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid?” by Peggy Romundo and Kate Kelly. Maybe ADD was one of the reasons it had taken 18 years to finish my degree. I thought I’d look into the group.
Within months, I’d begun volunteering for mailing parties and had been drafted to serve as a board member. Every meeting was a new opportunity for learning and each volunteer effort a time for sharing stories. I’d found a refuge where my talents were appreciated and my problems understood. I was not only getting better, I finally belonged.
Cynthia Hammer, MSW founded our first support group in Tacoma, WA in 1993. Established as a non-profit a year later as ADDult Support of Washington, Cynthia became the unpaid director. She and other professionals she’d approached to contribute compiled the ADDult ADD Reader to raise funds. In 1995, we started a quarterly newsletter, ADDult ADDvice, packaged it with the ADD Reader and an ever-growing lending library of books, tapes and videos as benefits of membership. We also began hosting public talks, professional workshops for treatment providers and teachers, one-day workshops for parents and others for on work and relationship issues for adults.
Many of our events relied on presenters speaking for gratis or at a discounted rate. For many years, all promotion, preparation, and hosting duties relied on volunteers and board members recruited by Cynthia.
2002 was a banner year. We merged with the Seattle ADHD Support group and changed our name to ADD Resources to reflect expanding our services to parents. By the following year, we’d opened an office, hired staff and hosted our first annual conference. I worked part-time in the office, taking phone calls and meeting new visitors looking for answers. A few became vital volunteers.
We also added additional support groups, 2 of them for parents – each with their own library. 2004 connected us to a wider audience with the new version of our website and the National Providers Directory. Cynthia wrote a monthly e-news. Just notes really, but always packed with new sources of information she’d found online. To provide support via the web, Cynthia approached presenters to provide free monthly podcasts. We soon added another each month. Over 100 are now saved in the Podcast/Webinar archives reserved for members.
Cynthia retired at the end of 2007. I left at the same time. Francine Lawrence replaced Cynthia, with Kathy Engle serving as the office manager. Kathy took over the reins as Executive Director a year later and managed the organization for 3 years. I returned to work with Kathy as a volunteer. The office was getting busier with more calls for help from further away. Making connections among the growing number of available providers and services available for ADHD showed how far the field had grown since the organization was begun. We started a Facebook page to serve a wider audience and opened an online bookstore which provided additional funding until Amazon began selling many of our titles at a better price.
Events were getting more professional but still depended on the kindness of local providers, both to present and promote. Board members and select volunteers provided hosting duties with the event facility providing basic services. Kathy Engle, Dr. David Pomeroy and other members of the Board of Directors also updated The ADHD Reader in 2011, seeking new articles on the latest information about both children and adults. Several new support groups were started, but keeping facilitators was a problem. We owe those who have served faithfully as group leaders a debt of gratitude.
Kathy’s departure brought difficult times. The duties of the director of a non-profit organization involve combining the support and efforts of many good people and transforming them into services that inspire and benefit many. Filling the position is not an easy task. For nine months, Steve Curry served as the interim director in addition to his full-time job. Brandon Koch worked part- time and we carried on as we were able. Thanks to hours of overtime, Steve pulled off the planned conference, but we had to close the bookstore and the lending library, and began using email and the answering machine to cover the hours when no one was in the office. Webinars also fell by the wayside. Many of the services we’d pioneered were now available elsewhere.
Laura Del Ragno took over in early 2013 but on a part-time basis. She had two months to plan, promote and host a workshop on relationships and we’d lost our office lease. Seeking to protect the membership section of the website, access to the many articles that had previously been public became inaccessible. Navigating the website became a frustrating experience. When Laura left, Brandon continued on, working with the office manager, Janice Tharp, and occasional volunteers.
Late in 2013, Megan McDonald was brought in as the new executive director. Due to the lack of continuity during the previous years, she and her staff have a steep learning curve. They need to recreate infrastructure, connect with old friends and supporters of the organization as well as redesign the website. Meanwhile, the board has been revitalized. They are asking for the help of volunteers and members to maintain and rebuild ADD Resources into a vital organization by providing both local support and information through web services.
We now host 6 support groups in Washington state including one for partners. Three more are planned to open by 2015. Working towards building the faith and loyalty of members whose support continues to drive the non-profit’s funding base will take time. But, with your help, those who work with and for the organization will be able to serve the ADHD community well through the coming years.
Editors note: Unfortunately, the organization was unable to recover financially and did close its doors in March of 2016. If you would like to share some way that the people or services of ADD Resources impacted your life, pleasevisit the Memorial page and leave a comment.
I retired last year. I still go the meetings every month.
Joan Riley Jager (2014)
Note: In the three years since retirement, I have curated a Pinterest page with over 15,000 pins about ADHD and related topics. I now have almost 10,000 followers. February 29, 2016
