Dear Parents, Friends and Colleagues:
Be assured -- this is not another COVID-19 newsletter to relay news of a business closure, cancellation or other disruption to your daily lives. I write to offer my support and encouragement to our families and community and to assure you that my Firm is here and open to help you navigate the challenges you are facing.
Last Friday, our special needs families began experiencing significant blows to their child's or other loved one's network of supports. School closures were only the beginning, as therapeutic day schools, therapies, adult day programs, day cares, and countless other services. The people who deliver these services are the bedrock of our child's daily lives and without them our children are lost. For some of my clients, these closures mean that they cannot see their loved one in residential care. Our usual go-to emergency support systems - neighbors, grandparents or sitters - are unable to help.
These changes are unexpected and inexplicable, two things that are particularly hard for our special needs clients to manage - to paraphrase an article by Sean Patrick Hughes (link below). Everyone's "mountain" just got a little bigger. As a parent of a child with special needs, I am experiencing these issues along side you.
I want to share an article I read recently that included a true sense of what it is like to be a "Special Needs Parent in the Age of Pandemic" by Sean Patrick Hughes. I hope you find it as insightful and hopeful as I did.
This time will pass. As both a wider and a special needs community, we will work together one day at a time to reach the other side of this crisis. We will regain our health and go back to our usual lives. Hard work is not new to us. Nor is the need to plan by day and for the long term.
If we can be of service, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will have regular office hours without interruption, and will follow the administration guidelines on in-person meetings. Phone and video conferencing are available.
Be well and stay safe.
Katie
