Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADD) (ADHD) will end up in the Island's jails unless Government takes steps to cater to their educational needs, parents claimed yesterday.

Two mothers at Juvenile Court said their ADD sons were given very little support from their public schools to deal with the condition, which prevented prolonged concentration and impulsiveness.

They said many ADD children, including their sons, had found themselves repeatedly suspended from school, expelled or thrown out of classes and given nowhere else to go.

They said their children were treated the same as children with behavioural issues when the problems were quite different.

And a third mother at the court said her son had suffered from ADHD and dyslexia, also leading to expulsion from school, but had found insufficient support in a Government residential centre and school.

They each said Government needed to provide facilities on the Island to deal with children suffering the disorders or provide financial assistance to enable them to get specialist care overseas.

One mother said her 13-year-old son had suffered with the condition since the age of two but claimed little had been done to help his situation.

She said: "I feel as though I just get passed over from one person to the other. They do report after report but nothing ever happens.

"I have been to all kinds of meetings with schools and it resulted in my son being kicked out of school last year. It's a real shame because he is very intelligent. He has ADD, but he has no learning disabilities.

"I think the Department of Education meets, does reports and starts programmes but it never keeps on with them.

"The schools simply suspend these children or send them home, when in fact, a lot of ADD children want to be in school. They just need a proper facility. What ever happened to in-school suspensions?"

And the second mother told the court she was desperate to send her 15-year-old son to a facility overseas because there was no alternative in Bermuda that could deal with his disorder, which was described as extreme.

However, she said with no funding from Government to assist her, she would have to rent out her home in order to raise the $17,500-a-year fees.

The single mother said:"I have asked that if Bermuda can't accommodate these children, can they (Government) help to send them away.

"If we don't do something to help them soon, we will have to build more jails."

And she later told The Royal Gazette: "My son has had ADD since being very small and we decided to return home to Bermuda nine years ago from the US because I thought it would be a calmer place for him to live with this disorder.

"But there are no educational facilities on this Island to cater to his needs. Children with ADD need a lot of attention.

"In the US, the public schools are more geared towards dealing with ADD. There is a greater understanding but in Bermuda, I feel the teachers don't want to know. My son wants to be in school and he wants to learn, it's just that the system here is not geared for him."

The mother said there were a lot of other children in Bermuda with ADD who were in the same situation as her.

She told the court that doctors had attempted to alter the medication her son took every day and had written to the child's school to ask teachers to monitor his progress.

And she said she had personally asked two teachers to watch her son's situation but, in both cases, nothing had been done. She said even a written request from his doctor had resulted in nothing.

The teenager was in court yesterday for stealing a bike earlier this year while on probation for similar offences.

But probation officer Melvin Simmons said the boy had since been suspended indefinitely from school for fighting.

He told the court: "The school system at (the school) is unable to meet the needs of people diagnosed with ADD.

"It's something the Government will have to address at some point because there seems to be increasing numbers."

And he said he had been informed that the boy's mother had gone to the school to ask if her son could be provided with coffee because it prolonged the effects of his medication, but no response had been given.

The probation officer said students with ADD tended to be very fearful of being in the same company as mainstream children, when they felt their inadequacies were amplified, and so avoided classes and walked the corridors instead, often getting into trouble.

The Education Ministry said yesterday that the label ADD was used quite commonly and may present itself differently in different children.

A statement said: "ADD is managed for some children by medication. Intervention strategies used in schools are used in conjunction with or without the medication to further assist the child. One of the techniques employed is that of helping a child to understand his ADD. This often helps him to develope coping strategies, which he can utilise in managing himself. Additionally, the teacher may use strategies, like placing the child at the front of the class or at the very back of the class where the child may have a little more room to move, as he or she may need to, without disturbing other students." The Ministry said, typically, students with ADD may be serviced similarly to students with behavioural issues, if they have the same symptoms, but where teachers felt they needed additional strategies, they could contact the Ministry through their principal.

The third mother at the court said she could not understand why Government could not afford to send her son overseas for schooling when it was already funding his residential treatment here. She said: "This is a child that has a problem. If (his school) can't help him, and I can't help him because they took him from me, then who can? Nobody seems to be giving me answers. I feel he needs more help than this Island can give him right now. He is 16-years-old and he is way behind."

One of the boys was put on probation for an additional two years for breaking his previous 18-month probation and stealing a bike, along with conditions.

And one of them was in court yesterday to report on his progress after admitting stealing four motorcycles earlier this year. He will be in residential care until 2004.