CADDRA’s mission is focused on education, training, research and advocacy in the field of ADHD. CADDRA relies heavily on the contribution of its many volunteers – (Board, Advisory Council, committee and organization members) – who donate considerable time and expertise to the organization.
CADDRA’s activities – which include publication of the Canadian ADHD Practice Guidelines, an annual professional conference, training programs and eLearning portal and advocacy – are funded in a variety of ways. Funding is obtained through membership fees, conference and training program fees, and sales of guidelines and toolkits. In the past we have also received financial support for educational programs in Thunder Bay and online videos from the Forrest Group. As many medical organizations do, we also receive some funding from pharmaceutical companies through sponsorship of our annual conference and educational grants for specific projects proposed to the funder by CADDRA.
Funding is not conditional on incorporating messaging that benefits the company or promotes their products – in fact this is strictly prohibited according to the Rx& D Stakeholder Relations Collaborative Partnership Guiding Principles available on the Rx& D website. Conference sponsors have no input into the accredited conference program or schedule. CADDRA stipulates in all agreements with corporate, or any other type of funders, that the organization has full control of content and messaging in proposed projects. No outside funding is sought or accepted for development, review and publication of the Canadian ADHD Practice Guidelines. CADDRA continues to work towards diversification of its funding base to obtain financial support for education, training and advocacy projects from a variety of private and public funded sources.
CADDRA was founded in 2003 to fill a void at the national level for an organization that could develop Canadian ADHD practice guidelines, facilitate the development and implementation of training standards and guidelines, share information among stakeholder groups, advocate to governments, teaching environments and employment organizations on ADHD and take a leadership role in ADHD research in Canada.
CADDRA remains committed to ensuring individuals with ADHD are provided with a high standard of support and care with the assistance of our hard working members. We will continue to do this work in a variety of ways as long as unconditional funding sources remain available. CADDRA would like to acknowledge the generous support of Purdue Pharma, Janssen and Shire Canada of our annual conference. In addition, we received a funding grant for filming and upload of our annual conference presentations to ADHDLearn, our eLearning portal.