Laying Community Foundations: For Your Child With a Disability : How to Establish Relationships That Will Support Your Child After You're Gone - Softcover

Stengle, Linda J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0933149670 ISBN 13: 9780933149670

Publisher: Woodbine House, 1996

Synopsis

If you're the parent of a child with a disability, this book is of critical importance to you. Laying Community Foundations emphasizes the need to begin now to build a caring community of people who will provide emotional support and guidance for your child after your death.
Chapters discuss: how to assess your child's needs; how to foster long-term relationships for your child; where to look for relationships; how to ask people for a commitment; and independent living arrangements.

About this title

About the Author:

Linda Stengle holds a master's degree in human services from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. For nearly two decades, she has worked with children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families in school, recreational, employment, and residential settings.

Review:

One of the most frightening scenarios for parents of disabled children is the unknown aftermath of their own death - who will care for their adult children then? There is a long-term care crisis in the US for disabled adults, due to a variety of integrated factors: limited choices, expense, discrimination, to name a few. In Laying Community Foundations, author Linda J. Stengle, a long-term care consultant and former director of a private adult residential facility, provides a fresh workable plan for these parents. Surprisingly, Stengle says big trust funds designed to ensure long-term care offer no guarantee that an adult disabled child will be afforded a happy and productive life. The best way to provide that kind of life for your disabled child is to encourage and even demand that they form solid relationships within their communities, beginning with churches, neighborhood associations, schools and even businesses. "Obviously, if you have the financial resources, money can help make your child's life more secure after you die," writes Stengle in the book's Introduction. "However, it is all too easy to have those funds drained by the government to reimburse the cost of maintaining your child in a group home, or . . . to attach the money to a lifestyle that doesn't meet your child's needs." Chapters in the book address specific ways to help disabled children, teenagers and adults establish these crucial long-term relationships, offer insight into relationships with siblings, give general time frames for accomplishing the various steps in a long term care plan, and offer examples and checklists. One particularly enlightening chapter, 'What Have Other People Done In My Situation?' gives readers a peek into the lives of several disabled adults, who have, with the help of their families, established firm and rewarding ties with their communities. Laying Community Foundations is a realistic, yet reassuring guide to help parents let go with confidence, and their disabled children embrace the at once frightening and exhilarating possibilities of adult life. -- From Independent Publisher

About this edition

• Publisher: Woodbine House
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0933149670
• ISBN 13: 9780933149670
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 217