Starring the renowned Teresa Kellerman, FASworld coordinated a full day FASD workshop for parents here in Toronto in September of this year. Teresa created a unique program that was informative and splendidly interactive. She modified the lyrics to a number of Beatles' songs and had everyone sing along with her at intervals in the program. The response, according to our follow-up survey of attendees was very positive with an over 60% response rate. We are happy to share the survey results with anyone who is interested -- just let me know at brian@fasworld.com.

The conference was supported by CAS Toronto, The Children's Mental Health Fund of the Ministry of Children & Youth Services, FASworld Toronto, St. Michael's Hospital and our special friend, Richard Ilomaki. A special gift came to us for all of the attendees, courtesy of the Monteith Correctional Centre (near Timmins, ON) in the form of their own invention: FAS Knot pretzels. They were sweet and delicious and a tribute to the volunteer bakers who contributed their own time and efforts to create yet another version of the FAS Knot to help getting the FASD message across.

These are my remarks at the conclusion of the day:

"I'm so lucky -- my daughter Colette who helps us with our FASD work, my wife Bonnie who is my inspiration and booster, our beloved Teresa who has enriched all our lives so well...

"When you fall -- as all of us must do from time-to-time, remember to fall forward. For every mishap, every failure is an opportunity to learn and to grow. Our challenges are great but we can meet them as we continue to evolve as caring beings who can continue to discover some of the important reasons why we are who we are. And who we are is never a constant. As we meet each of life's difficulties we can build new skills, new techniques that will help us to help our loved ones even more. I honour the greatness in you. Namaste.

When you get immersed into FASD issues you certainly learn a lot of new words. Many parents of difficult, acting out children are either confused or frustrated or both when confronted by professionals who identify their children with terms describing behaviours but not recognizing root causes.

When you have more than one identifier of a child's behaviour (e.g. attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, radical attachment disorder, seasonal affective disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and so on), that does not necessarily mean that a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is excluded. These comorbidities, as they are called, only recognize that there is more than one behavioural anomaly occurring coincidentally and there should be no assumption that these diagnoses are the definitive answer to the reasons behind your child's behaviour.

A diagnosis of any one of these comorbidities, occurring alone or simultaneously with any others, should be a signal to investigate further into the reasons behind the behaviours that are delaying the healthy mental development of your child.

Let's acknowledge that fetal alcohol can cause virtually any kind of physical or mental damage to the developing fetus, up to and including death. Share your knowledge of the dangers of alcohol in pregnancy with every person you know. Every child deserves the best start possible in life and no alcohol during pregnancy and planning for pregnancy must be the rule. We are told by doctors that 50% of pregnancies are unplanned, so if a woman is sexually active and not using contraception, she is planning a pregnancy. As Dr. Christine Loock has said many times, "FASD is the most common, most expensive, yet most preventable of all mental disorders in the industrialized world."