The Parent To Parent Handbook: Connecting Families Of Children With Special Needs

The Parent to Parent Handbook: Connecting Families of Children With Special Needs

If you are a parent of a child with special needs, perhaps you have also felt lost and wished you knew someone in a similar situation you could turn to for support. If so, you're not alone. Across the country, parents are providing emotional and informational support to other parents through a national network of Parent to Parent programs. In this comprehensive book, the authors share with you the ins and outs of developing and maintaining a strong, local Parent to Parent program that individually matches "veteran" supporting parents with those who are new to the challenges of caring for a child with a disability. Drawing on research about Parent to Parent groups and best practices in program development and training, you'll get the basics of setting up your own program, including guidelines for finding, preparing, and matching supporting parents with newly referred parents, ideas for organizing and incorporating your program, and evaluating its effectiveness, tips on accessing funding and promoting your program throughout the community, and useful forms and extensive lists of contacts and resources to get you started .No one should go it alone! With The Parent to Parent Handbook, you'll discover how to get (and give!) much-needed support and provide the best care for your child.Review...a book that will help all families whose children have special needs. -- Polly Arango, Executive Director, Family Voices...testimony to the strengths of families as pathfinders, and the spirit and generosity within the Parent to Parent movement. -- Nancy DiVenere, Executive Director, Parent to Parent of VermontAbout the AuthorBetsy Santelli, M.Ed., received her master's degree in special education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and certification in parent and family education from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. Her professional experiences include teaching in special education, facilitating parent support and education classes, and training early childhood special education teachers. Since 1988, she has directed the Parent to Parent projects at the Beach Center on Families and Disability at The University of Kansas. Her research with and for parents who are participating in Parent to Parent programs has added to the descriptive and evaluative information that is now available on Parent to Parent. In addition to her research on Parent to Parent, Betsy also serves as a national consultant for those who are interested in starting or expanding a local or statewide Parent to Parent program in their area and as a facilitator for representing and meeting the national needs of local and statewide Parent to Parent programs and others with a commitment to comprehensive family-centered family support services. Although neither of Betsy's two daughters has a disability, Betsy had a very close relationship with her cousin, Jamie, who had epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Jamie's friendship and his special needs helped to determine Betsy's professional career path.Florene Stewart Poyadue, M.A., is an award-winning master teacher, counselor, registered nurse, and mother of four children-one of whom, Dean, has special needs. She founded Parents Helping Parents, Inc., a nonprofit family resource center now recognized by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau as a national model. Parent leaders and professionals from foreign countries have consulted with her about developing Parent to Parents programs in their homelands. With Kaiser Permanente as partner, she developed a method for cultivating family-centeredness in managed health care. An internationally acclaimed keynote speaker and consultant with more than 25 years of experience, she also has traveled through the United States of America and Canada, helping others solve problems and create service systems. Her alma mater, Santa Clara University, awarded her a doctorate in community service before she delivered its 1993 commencement address; an