Sometimes you don't need another professional telling you what to do.
Sometimes you need another parent who understands.
My journey as a special needs parent began in 2008, when my son regressed into autism. Suddenly, I found myself navigating a world I had never expected to enter—therapies, doctors, biomedical approaches, schools, IEPs, insurance, benefits, government programs, providers, advocacy, conferences, research, paperwork, acronyms, waiting lists, and an endless stream of decisions about what might be best for my child.
I did what so many special needs parents do.
I learned everything I could.
Over the years, I became deeply involved in the autism community, attended conferences, connected with practitioners and other families, explored a wide variety of approaches to supporting my son, and began helping other parents navigate the same overwhelming landscape. I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book with Team TMR (Thinking Moms' Revolution), and mentoring and supporting other parents became an important part of my own journey.
Today, my son is an adult, which means I've also traveled through something parents of younger children don't always realize is coming:
the transition from raising a special needs child to supporting a special needs adult.
The questions change.
School services become adult services. Pediatric providers become adult providers. Conversations begin around Medicaid, Social Security, waivers, employment and day programs, independence, guardianship and supported decision-making, housing, transportation, finances, caregiving, and what adulthood might realistically look like for your particular child.
There is no single roadmap.
Special Needs Parent Mentoring is peer-to-peer support, grounded in lived experience.
I'm not here to tell you that I know exactly what your child needs. You know your child in a way no provider, teacher, therapist, caseworker—or mentor—ever will.
What I can do is sit beside you while you figure out what comes next.
Maybe you've just received a diagnosis and don't even know what questions you're supposed to be asking.
Maybe you're drowning in information and need help sorting through your options.
Maybe you're preparing for an IEP meeting, researching services, trying to understand benefits or waivers, approaching the transition into adulthood, or simply trying to figure out which problem needs your attention first.
Or maybe you've been doing this for years.
Maybe you're tired.
One of the hardest lessons I learned through my own journey is how easily a parent's identity can disappear into caregiving.
You become the researcher. The advocate. The scheduler. The driver. The case manager. The person filling out the forms. The person remembering the medications. The person making the phone calls. The person fighting with insurance. The person lying awake wondering what will happen to your child someday when you're no longer able to do all of this.
And somewhere underneath all those roles is still you.
Mentoring can also be a place to talk about that.
Not because loving your child is a burden, but because caregiving can be extraordinarily demanding—and acknowledging that reality doesn't diminish the love you have for the person you're caring for.
Sometimes what you need most is simply a conversation with someone to whom you don't have to explain the whole world first.
I want to be very clear about what this service is and isn't.
I am a parent mentor, not your child's doctor, therapist, attorney, benefits specialist, or caseworker. I don't diagnose, prescribe treatment, provide legal advice, or make decisions for your family.
What I bring is lived experience, years of navigating systems, a willingness to share what I've learned, and the ability to help you identify questions, organize possibilities, locate resources, and think through your next steps.
When I know something, I'll share what I know.
When I don't know, I'll tell you that too—and we can work on figuring out who does know and what questions you need to ask them.
You don't have to become an expert in everything overnight.
You don't have to have the next ten years figured out.
And you don't have to navigate every part of this journey by yourself.
Sometimes we just start with:
What's the hardest thing right now?
And we go from there.