Direct Staff Meeting in Session!
I was asked to speak at the weekly direct care staff meeting at the Kennedy Donovan Center in Kingston, Mass. on the 18th of April, 2013. This touched near and dear to my heart because, those of you not familiar with the early intervention programs, they serve special needs children between the ages of birth to 3 years. I was actually a graduate of the program in 1985. They were some of the first care staff to provide me with physical therapy, speech therapy, and other basic services. I think that these programs are vital to helping families transition into the idea of special needs life. One of the messages that I wanted to get across to them as Ms. Wheelchair Massachusetts was that not all diagnosis are set in stone. Many of you have read my Cerebral Palsy Story and will remember that the outlook doctors gave my parents for my independent life was very bleak. Most of the milestones that a normal child would make I would never break. This was farther from the truth. Although I think it is very important that they should be realistic to parents. I wanted to spread a message of hope that you can overcome doctor's odds and as a graduate of the program I wanted to show them that I was living proof of this. This appearance was slightly different for me because as much as I can relate from a disability perspective I may never understand the parental perspective of having a special needs child. For this reason, I sprung it on my mother, Diane, after my speech that I would really love for her to relive her experience with early intervention for the staff members so they could hear a success story from the parent's point of view. Those of you who know my mom you realize this is a huge feat for her as I got my public speaking genes from my father and not from my mother. My mother is an amazing woman who I want to model my life after, however, her painfully shy genes is one that I am glad that I did not get. My mom took it like a champ and made OUR appearance extremely successful. For that I realize that sometimes Ms. Wheelchair Mass. cannot "Advocate, and Educate" alone.
Until next time my friends, "Advocate, Educate, and Empower."
