Families Helping Families of Greater New Orleans offers 3 Programs:
Peer-to-Peer Support
This is the #1 reason families call us. Everyone needs someone to talk to when they are dealing with challenges in their lives. Frequently parents of children with disabilities don’t have family or friends that understand these challenges. When new parents call us their first response is “wow, you get it.” As parents, we know firsthand what it’s like to raise a child with a disability. We understand the initial grieving process and the eventual amazement the child brings to your family. We provide peer to peer support several ways. Most people want to call us on the phone, while others want to come in our office for a more personal visit. Some prefer to connect on email and even social media. No matter how you contact us, our goal is to provide you with the support you need.
Information and Referral
Parents need to be provided with good information and connected with appropriate services. Rather than spending endless hours searching the internet for appropriate services, our staff has already done most of this work. We know what services are available through the state, parish and local systems. We’ve navigated these complex systems and know where the barriers to service exist. You don’t have to walk this road alone.
We can put you on the right path and make sure you end up where you are supposed to be. Additionally, we publish Exceptional Times, our monthly digital magazine, LAdisABILITY Talk is our closed Facebook support group where families and professionals come together to ask questions, provide answers and support to each other and share information, weekly reminder of all upcoming trainings and events, a robust website with lots of resources and self-guided trainings. If there is a resource you need and we don’t have it, we’ll help you find it.
Education and Training
Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for the rest of his life. This is our philosophy around education and training. We believe the best thing any parent or individual with a disability can do is empower themselves through education and training to advocate effectively. Nobody cares about your child or yourself more than you do. It is critical that you take this role seriously and learn as much as you can. Children with disabilities can achieve great things if systems don’t give up on them. Often the most successful adults with disabilities are the ones who were pushed by their parents who never allowed the “professionals” to tell them they can’t accomplish certain things.
Families Helping Families of Greater New Orleans offers an array of trainings. Some of those include Understanding the Special Education Process, Special Education Basic Right, Individualized Education Program (IEP) Planning, Early Steps, Transition from High School to Work or Post-Secondary Education, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Inclusion, Extended School Year Services, Communication Skills, Organizational Skills and more.
Every month we offer different trainings, but every month we offer a webinar on the Introduction to Special Education, Special Education Basic Rights, The Anatomy of the IEP, and The Importance of Inclusion.
We offer Mini Modules on specific topics on our website, in-person trainings, Facebook Live trainings and our most popular is webinars. We do our best in offering these at different times of the day and days of the week.
For a full list of all of our upcoming trainings, please visit our monthly calendar of events.
