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Society for the Promotion
of ADHD Research and Knowledge President’s Report for
Year 2001SPARK was formed in late 2000 as a Society to promote
awareness and education of ADHD amongst parents, teachers
and the community at large, and with a longer term goal to
give support to ADHD students and parents. 2001 was our first
year of operation since SPARK was formalised with our first
AGM held on 31 March 2001. At that AGM we moved the motion
on the society’s fees : $25 for yearly membership, and
$200 for ‘live’ membership. To-date the Society
has some 52 paid up ordinary members, 13 of whom have signed
up for ‘live’ membership. We thank all members for
your support.
I am pleased to recap
for all our SPARK members our events and achievements for
the past year as follows :
1. SPARK Website
SPARK web site was launched on 1 April 2001, hosted under
the Learning Support Centre by staff and students of Ngee
Ann Polytechnic, as a community project for children with
learning difficulties and disabilities. We want to acknowledge
and give thanks in particular to Dr Pok Yang Ming and Mr Lee
Keen Kok, both from the Mathematics, Science & Computing
Division of Ngee Ann Polytechnic, who were instrumental in
getting the SPARK website started. The current SPARK website
address is http://mscweb.np.edu.sg/spark
2. Parents Group Meetings
We continued our series of monthly meetings for parents, which
are held on the 1st Saturday of each month from 2-5pm at Child
Guidance Clinic, Health Promotion Board. Some highlights of
these meetings for 2001 are as follows:
- Feb 2001 Meeting - Talk by Mr Sanath
Ee on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and how NLP methods
can enhance children’s learning.
- July 2001 Meeting - Talk by Mr Edwin
Choy from the Centre For Fathering on “How wives can
support their husbands in their Fathering role” and
introduction to Centre For Fathering (CFF) and its activities.
As a result of this introduction, a few SPARK fathers took
their children to attend the Father-Child Bonding Camp organised
by CFF in the Sep school holidays, and benefited greatly
from the special bonding of their time together.
- Aug 2001 Meeting - Dr Daniel Fung
from the Child Guidance Clinic spoke on “Heart of Parenting
ADHD Children”. Members can find Dr Fung’s presentation
material on the SPARK website.
- September 2001 Meeting - Presentation
by Ms Cheng Kah Kee (SPARK Treasurer and Projects Chairman)
on a talk she gave at the ADHD Seminar for Teachers and
Child Care Workers organised by the Institute of Mental
Health held in July 2001.
- Jan 2002 Meeting - We started the
Year 2002 with our first meeting on 5 Jan with a talk by
Psychologist Dr Victor Tai on “Emotional Intelligence
(EQ) for ADHD children”. Some 40 Members present had
a great time taking in Dr. Tai’ s humour and learning
what EQ is all about, and the importance of developing EQ
especially in our ADHD children who are typically underdeveloped
in social and emotional aspects.
3. Other Events
SPARK Exec. Committee members met up with MOE Officials in
the Education Programmes Division in May 2001, to introduce
the society to MOE, and to explore ways of collaboration with
MOE to assist ADHD students in mainstream schools. The meeting
was very fruitful and MOE Education Programmes Division is
very supportive of any private sector or volunteer organisation
initiatives to help children with special learning needs.
Some good suggestions were discussed for SPARK to get started
and funding avenues can also be explored in due course.
Ms Cheng Kah Kee represented the Society to speak at the ADHD
Seminar for Teachers and Child Care Workers organised by the
Institute of Mental Health which was held twice on 14 July
2001 and 29 Sep 2001. She spoke as a parent with an ADHD child
sharing her experiences on what has worked for her in helping
her child cope with the demands of school.
At the invitation of
MOE, Kah Kee also gave an in-house talk on ADHD organised
by MOE for school teachers. Some 50 teachers attended 2 separate
sessions on 9 & 10 Sep 2001.
By courtesy of Ms Angelina
Leong, who found subsidy for SPARK parents to attend a one-day
seminar by renowned speaker and psychotherapist from USA,
Mr Thom Hartmann, which was held in Singapore in April 2001
on “ADHD Redefined”. In this very enlightening seminar,
Mr Hartmann explained and amazed his audience with his theory
that ADHD is not a disease and that ADHD people are normal
people who happen to be “Hunters in a Farmer’s World”.
A video tape of Thom Hartmann’s seminar that was produced
by Angelina have been purchased for SPARK
library by courtesy of a few parents.
SPARK members were also
introduced to attend various other public seminars in the
course of 2001 that are relevant and beneficial to the parents
such as :
- “Managing Difficult Children”
on 5 May 2001 by Marco Nieuwenhuize from the Netherlands
organised by Mind Transformations Pte Ltd. This talk introduced
the Enneagram Personality Profiling System as a model to
understand people, and how this model has been used to rehabilitate
juvenile delinquents in the USA. This model can also used
to shed light on ADHD children and thereby identify the
environment required to better facilitate their learning
and behaviour modification.
- “Parenting Teens Conference” on
2 June 2001 organised by the Centre for Fathering.
- “A Family Learning Workshop on
Managing Life with ADHD” on 28 July 2001 and 25 Aug
2001 organised by the Centre
of Effective Living & Novartis Singapore Pte Ltd. This
workshop included a parallel workshop for the children (9-12
years age group) where the ADHD children learnt about themselves
and are given tips on how they can help themselves in their
daily living.
We closed year 2001 with
a Cycling trip to Pulau Ubin on 28 Nov 2001 organised by a
parent Ms Jenny Wong for SPARK parents and their children.
The response to this event, however, was poor.
4. Planned Events
/ Programme for Year 2002
For year 2002 the Committee has planned the following programmes
in line with the objectives of the Society :
- Monthly Meetings for the Parents Group
– to continue with these meetings with invited speakers
on related topics of interests as well as sharing amongst
members. We encourage members to come to these meetings
to share what they know and their experiences with others,
especially with the new parents who join us from month to
month.
- ADHD Awareness Roadshow for Schools
- Projects Chairperson Ms Cheng Kah Kee has prepared a presentation
and briefing pack on ADHD and Classroom Strategies that
teachers can use. This Roadshow to the schools is launched
from Feb 2002, and is meant to be delivered to teachers
during the time slot of the Teachers Contact Time hour.
SPARK Parents who would like to have this Roadshow taken
to the school of their child should do the connection with
the school and make arrangement with the school Principal
for a date. For a start the Roadshow will be conducted by
a small group of the Exec. Committee members representing
the Society. More details on this programme will be briefed
to members at the AGM to be held on 2 Mar 2002.
- Newsletter for the Society - A quarterly
newsletter is planned commencing in the 2nd quarter of this
year, to update members on the Society happenings, events,
talks, “success stories” of parents, and ADHD
related research and new findings in other advanced countries
etc. We welcome any members who would like to contribute
services, ideas or articles for this Newsletter. Please
contact or email Edmund Wee at email : Edmund@epigram.com.sg
- Events / Workshops for children of
SPARK parents - We plan to identify and organise some appropriate
learning programmes and activities for the ADHD children
that will help them to enhance their skills eg. in the areas
of social skills development, self management and confidence
building etc. We also would like to appeal for members to
come forward to help in this very important activity that
will bring great benefit to our children.
Please come and join
us in this exciting new year ahead ! What SPARK can do to
help our ADHD children and parents all depend on each and
every one of us.
Compiled and Reported by :
Bella Chin (Mrs)
SPARK President, 2001- Mar 2002
5 Feb 2002
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