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Where Parents Are!


Composed by Helen Jones (former G.E.A.R. staff) through personal experience.

There are 30-31 days in a month. Here are 31 examples of everyday life for us, the parents of children with special needs!


 

  • Sitting in an emergency room or hospital with their child, waiting for a bed
  • At home by the phone awaiting a call back from crisis intervention
  • Exhausted from lack of sleep from being up all night with their child who doesn’t sleep most of the night
  • At home awaiting crisis workers to arrive
  • At a hospital visiting their child in treatment
  • At a hospital with their child who needed medical treatment
  • Out of state to be near their child in residential treatment
  • At home trying desperately to grasp the opportunity for some “quality time” with the rest of the family
  • At home overwhelmed by stacks of paperwork that need to be filled out for services, wraparound supports, SSI, Medicaid, etc.
  • At home with the children, waiting for respite so they can get out
  • At home tending their children who are too fragile to leave
  • At home yearning for the opportunity to have their voices heard
  • Making phone calls, only to get yet another answering machine
  • At home, not knowing who to call or where to start
  • At home in crisis with no phone or transportation
  • At home juggling a budget that doesn’t allow for much gas monies
  • At home, depressed, embarrassed to let anyone know their child needs help. Feeling inadequate.
  • In the hospital because they didn’t have time to care for themselves
  • At home, recovering from being in the hospital
  • Meeting with the child’s case manager
  • In a meeting to access in home supports
  • At a Dr’s. Appointment whether it is medical, therapy or other
  • At their school to a PET meeting trying to develop an IEP
  • At a meeting for supported work programs
  • At a meeting for supported living
  • At home with their child who has been sent home from school
  • At home with their child who can’t go to school
  • In court with their child who made a bad choice
  • In court filing paperwork for guardianship/conservatorship
  • Visiting their incarcerated child
  • Visiting their child who didn’t get services in a timely manner and is in foster care.