Weekend conference
Bonnie and I spent Saturday in Boston attending the Federation for Children with Special Needs' annual conference, located at the World Trade Center in the new seaport area in South Boston (home of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and right next door to the new ICA building).
This is the second year I've gone (third for Bonnie) and it's an interesting event for anyone invested in understanding the issues that parents of children with special needs face.
I admit that a lot of parents and other adults who attended this event have much, much more dramatic needs than our kids do. We're very fortunate to have children that aren't physically impaired or cognitively disabled. But it's amazing how many of us face the same challenges -- most notably, how to find services when we need them.
If there's one thing I could change about the way things happen now it would be to streamline the way that families find and get public help when they need it, whether it's running the gauntlet for MassHealth or qualifying for services through the Department of Mental Health. It's a quagmire, and it really requires a parent or guardian (or afflicted individual) to invest an enormous amount of time and energy into finding out what they're qualified for and how to get it. There isn't a single Web site you can go to or book you can buy or government document you can order that helps you wend your way through all of it. It's no wonder that educational advocates, attorneys and accountants have built up cottage industries around this, and it's really kind of sad, in a way.
Two of the three conference panels I attended were pretty good, which is about average for me. The two that I liked involved a recap of precedent-setting or otherwise noteworthy special ed court cases of 2007 and a discussion on wraparound services, something that's really close to our hearts, as it has made a huge difference for our family.
There was also an exhibitor's area -- a modestly-sized room (actually, the same room where my cousin Jennifer had gotten married in and had her wedding reception several years ago), and I got a chance to find some really interesting information, including estate planning for special needs kids, SPEDwatch (an activist organization) and software to help autistic kids develop speech and language.
Good stuff. Looking forward to 2009, for sure.