Conference for parents of disabled kids
Parents of children with disabilities need to talk with each other.
On Saturday they can meet up at the first annual Niagara Children’s Centre parent conference, Exhale: From Surviving to Thriving.
It’s a free networking event for parents and caregivers of children up to age 21, with a physical, developmental or communicative delay.
Keynote speakers are Donna Thomson and Darren Connolly.
Thomson is a parent and author of The Four Walls of My Freedom: Lessons I’ve Learned from a Life of Caregiving.
She is a blogger and family adviser in childhood disability research. She will reflect on a variety of strategies for thinking about strength and resilience that worked with her family, parenting a child with severe cerebral palsy and medical complexity.
Connolly is a parent and president of Ontario Agencies Supporting Individuals with Special Needs.
He works with London Health Sciences Centre as a family adviser in the Children’s Hospital Paediatric Family Resource Centre.
He will share the story of his son’s journey and how families manage to find a new normal.
There are also workshops on blending mindfulness with a busy life, giving parents who face the challenges of raising a child with disabilities some manageable tools.
And parents can hear a panel discussion on integrating recreation and leisure into a care-giving lifestyle.
Sara Pot, parent of two children with disabilities, is the conference moderator. She is also an online support parent for the children’s centre.
The centre recently received a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to help parents connect and fight feelings of loneliness and isolation.
“Resilience and hope are engineered from the connections we make with each other,” she says. “When our families are connected and empowered, not only do our children thrive, but so does our region.”
Registration begins at 9:45 a.m. The conference runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Niagara Children’s Centre.
For more information on the conference visit the Niagara Children’s Centre, or join its online support group, Niagara Children’s Centre Parent/Primary Caregiver Online Support Group.