Don
Meyer writes from Seattle to Bulletin readers -
The Sibling Support
Project is pleased to announce that we are now scheduling
workshops for autumn 2008 and 2009. Please share this announcement
with families you know and training directors, conference
planners, and coordinators of family services from appropriate
agencies.
Many agencies wisely
value the families they serve and are committed to providing
family-centered care and services. However, even the
most family-friendly agencies often overlook brothers and
sisters. Brothers and sisters are too important to ignore,
if for only these reasons:
§
Siblings will
be in the lives of family members with special needs longer
than anyone. Brothers and sisters will be there after
parents are gone and special education services are a distant
memory. If they are provided with support and information,
they can help their sibs live dignified lives from childhood
to their senior years.
§
Throughout their
lives, brothers and sisters share many of the concerns that
parents of children with special needs experience, including
isolation, a need for information, guilt, concerns about the
future, and care-giving demands. Brothers and sisters also
face issues that are uniquely theirs including resentment,
peer issues, embarrassment, and pressure to achieve.
§
No classmate
in an inclusive classroom will have a greater impact on the
social development of a child with a disability than brothers
and sisters will. They will be their siblings’ life-long “typically-developing
role models”.
The Sibling Support
Project is the United States’ only national project dedicated
to the concerns of brothers and sisters of people with special
health, developmental and mental health concerns. We specialize
in providing lively, family-friendly, and highly-rated workshops
on sibling (and father and grandparent!) issues to audiences
of parents, service providers, university staff and students,
and siblings of all ages.
We’ve conducted workshops
on sibling issues in all 50 states, England, Canada, Ireland,
Japan, Guatemala, and New Zealand, England and have helped
establish over 200 replications of our award-winning Sibshop
program in eight countries. Our books for families include
Sibshops, Views from Our Shoes, Living with a Brother or
Sister with Special Needs, and Uncommon Fathers and
our new book for teen sibs, The Sibling Slam Book.
And our work and publications have been featured in
newspapers (Washington Post, New York Times), magazines
(Exceptional Parent, Sesame Street Parent, Reader’s Digest),
professional publications (JASH, Journal of Pediatric Psychology,
The American Academy of Pediatrics News), and television
(ABC News’ 20/20, Nightline & World News
Tonight and Brazelton on Parenting) across the
United States.
We’d welcome an opportunity
to present at your agency or your next conference or training
event. We’ll show you how parents and providers can decrease
siblings’ concerns and increase their opportunities, how to
create “sibling-friendly” services, and even how to start
your own Sibshop.
Addressing siblings’
concerns benefits everyone: brothers, sisters, parents, agencies,
taxpayers and especially the family member who has special
needs. In many important ways, brothers and sisters
ARE the future--and are too important to ignore.
If you would like to
learn more about our workshops, seminars, and keynotes please
call or contact us by email and we’d be happy to send you
more information. Our schedule is beginning to fill
up, but we still have openings.
Don Meyer
Director, Sibling Support Project
A Kindering Center program
6512 23rd Ave NW, #213
Seattle, WA 98117 USA
206-297-6368
donmeyer@siblingsupport.org
Sibling Support Project website:
http://www.siblingsupport.org/
Sibling Support Project online training calendar:
http://plus.calendars.net/sibshop
Our brothers,
Our sisters, Ourselves
