What do we mean by “children with special health care needs?”

One of the most useful definitions of children with special needs is used by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Division of Services to Children with Special Health Care Needs.

“Children with special health care needs are those children who have or are at risk for chronic physical, developmental, behavioral or emotional conditions and who also require health and related services of a type and amount beyond that required by children generally.”

This definition is inclusive and recognizes the increased level of care required by parents and professionals.

Although InterActive Family Resources, PLLC has been operating for about ten years, we have decided to expand our services online so that we can reach a wider audience of parents, families, and professionals. While we continue to support parents learning together in groups, our resources now are accessible to parents who do not have proper childcare or who live too far away from a class. Now parents and professionals can learn on their time and in their own way. We are taking our resources to families and professionals rather than expecting them to come to us.

I’m looking for information on a specific illness or condition that my child has? Can I get this from your site?

If you are looking for specific information about your child’s health, we recommend looking at the links available on our resources page. Instead of directing our educational programs at a child’s particular “special need,” we focus more specifically on the parent’s experience raising children with special needs. Our services supplement and support your desire to find out all you can about your child so that you can advocate for her or him, but we also want to encourage you to discover all that you can about your experience too.

InterActive Family Resources created Raising Special Kids to encourage parents to explore their own very intense emotional responses to raising a child with special needs. We feel that any parenting program addressing the unique issues facing parents raising children with special needs must begin by recognizing that parents have to give up the “expected child” in order to be truly present with the child in their life. Because other parenting programs have been written for parents raising “typical” children, the curriculum rarely covers this difficult material.

How do I get a Raising Special Kids program started in my community?

We are currently investigating the best way to make our services available online. We will announce when we have launched of our online learning experiences in our e-newsletter, so please subscribe.