If it takes a village to raise a child, then raising a child with special needs takes a ….. gynormous village.
Sabrina’s school IEP team consists of her regular education teacher, special education teacher, instructional assistant, special education program specialist, speech therapist(s), occupational therapist, behavioral therapist, principal, adaptive physical education teacher, school psychologist. Some of these team members work with Sabrina on a daily basis.
Then there is her private team, the ones who work with her outside of school. Her speech/feeding therapist, music therapist, behavioral consultant, playgroup leader and case manager, her Alta Regional Center case manager, and her medical doctors.
As you can imagine, having a team of this size means that people will come and go. This was a hard lesson to learn when Sabrina was younger and each person leaving felt so personal, like a relationship was being stripped away from Sabrina. Now that Sabrina is 7, we’ve gone through enough exits and it’s gotten easier. Easier, but not easy. Sabrina’s a tough cookie to figure out, and the thought of “starting over” with someone who doesn’t know her is exhausting and can be frustrating. I often have to remind myself that it’s OK, that we’ve gone through this before, that change can be good, and that saying goodbye to people means opening the door and saying hello to someone else with a fresh perspective.
At the end of the last school year, I found out that a lot of Sabrina’s school IEP team would be turning over. I had a great conversation with her program specialist and felt very positive about going into the new year.
This week it’s been a little bit difficult to keep that positive perspective. School starts in less than a week. In the last few days I have found out that an important person on her school team will be moving on, and today I found out that 2 on her personal/private team are leaving.
Ugh. I hate these goodbyes.
It’ll be OK, I know that it will. All of this change will push me to be more communicative with her team, and it will continue to challenge me as Sabrina’s advocate and as her mommy.
And it means that we get to say a lot of hello’s and welcome’s to new people in the next week or two. And that’s pretty exciting.