Happy New Year
The New Year has arrived! We survived the winter holidays and our children are back in school. Now it’s time to work on those resolutions. Here are some links to help you get started. You can also find these in our Resource section by doing a keyword search of resolutions. We have over a thousand disability resource links!
Realistic resolutions
Didn’t make a resolution? Terri Mauro, in her special children’s blog, gives a resolution for each day in January plus helpful links with each one. A must read for parents!
New Year quotations
Tired of making resolutions? Here are humorous quotes famous people in history have said about the New Year and resolutions.
Special needs trusts
There is no time like the present to set up a special needs trust for your son or daughter. In this comprehensive article, Richard Fee of the National Institute on Life Planning for Persons with Disabilities goes over different types of trusts and funding options.
You can also do a keyword search for special needs trusts in our Resource section for more web links.
Organize your child’s medical records
The Health Information and Advocacy Center in Minnesota has put together this fact sheet on how to organize your medical records using a three-ring binder system.
Organize your child’s special education files
Wrightslaw has a great article that provides detailed steps for organizing the mountains of paperwork that make up your child’s special education files.
One Place for Special Needs Tutorials
My resolution for this year was to write some tutorials to help everyone get the most out of this website. These are now up on your welcome page.
For Parents – What can I do at One Place for Special Needs?
For Disability groups – How can I reach families at One Place for Special Needs?
For Businesses/Service providers – How can I list myself in the directory?
When was the last time you thanked your disability group leader?
Disability group leaders are the unsung heroes in your neighborhood. As we start the New Year, take a moment to thank your support group leader, the moderator of your disability group site and anyone that has helped you navigate the special needs world. Their work is a labor of love and your kind words would be greatly appreciated. At One Place for Special Needs, we want to give these parent leaders as many tools as we can to help them in the community. Here are some new articles that are brimming with ideas to help disability groups become a valuable resource for families.
Communicating to your members
Promoting your group or disability organization
Writing press releases: It’s easy!
Parent leaders, if you want a place to get together and talk, we've created a group called The League of Extraordinary Parent Leaders. It's a great place to get and give advice on everything from finding volunteers to promoting our goals in the community. Just go to our Groups section and do a keyword search for League to join. Parents please pass this on to the groups that you belong.
Let’s get to know each other
I’d like to give you a resolution to fill out your personal profiles. It’s easy to do! After you log in, just click on Profile that’s at the top right of your screen. From there you can let people know about your interests, any topics you’d like help with or topics that you could help others with.
You can also add family information. Put in your child’s birth year and their interests. Help us make our community more person by adding a photo of yourself or your kids.
Did you know about Friends?
When you fill out your personal profile, a cool thing happens in our Friends section. You can search for similar families in your neighborhood. Do a search for other special needs families within 5 or more miles of your home. You might find a neighbor that knows exactly what you’re going through.
Your name and email address is kept confidential. Friends shows just your username and emails go through our One Place for Special Needs mail system. There is even a live chat feature if you and your friend are online at the same time. You can also share resources. If you add resources they appear in your profile.
Search by interests, diagnosis or age group. For instance, a parent might add "autism, trains" in the keyword search and a distance of 10 miles to find all families in that area who have children with autism who enjoys trains. This is a great way to set up play dates with other children who have similar interests. You can learn more about Friends and other sections of the website in your parent tutorial.
Dawn Villarreal
Special needs mom
dawn@oneplaceforspecialneeds.com
http://www.oneplaceforspecialneeds.com
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