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Information and Support for Your Family

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You many find that you need to look beyond your health care provider network for information and support. Talking with families who are going through similar experiences can often help you to address concerns and cope with your child’s disability and your family’s needs.

Parent to Parent

Parent to Parent is an organization that provides emotional support and information to families of children with special health care needs in Washington State. Local county coordinators organize parent volunteers who also have children with special needs.

Using their own experience and knowledge and specific training from Parent to Parent, these volunteers can assist your family with:

Emotional support
Current information on disabilities
Information on community resources
Parent and sibling support meetings
Educational workshops

You may also sign up for the Parent to Parent monthly newsletter and attend trainings to become a Parent to Parent volunteer. In additional to supporting individual families, Parent to Parent organizes and conducts presentations to parent groups, professionals and other organizations. To learn more about Parent to Parent, visit their website at www.arcwa.org or call the Family Health Hotline ASK Resource line at 1-800-322-2588 to contact your county coordinator.

The Fathers Network

The Fathers Network provides current information and resources to assist families and care providers involved in the lives of a child with special needs.

The Network advocates for and provides resources to support fathers in caring for their special needs children through:

Father support and mentoring programs
Printed educational materials
Local, regional and national conference and workshops that encourage the participation of fathers
Informative newsletters
Curricula designed to enhance the involvement of fathers in the home, at school and in health care settings.
Technical assistance to organizations, making their services more “father friendly’.

Visit the Fathers Network at www.fathersnetwork.org for more information and for a listing of local programs.

Washington PAVE

Washington PAVE is a parent directed organization that works with families, individuals, professionals and community members in all walks of life with all types of disabilities.

PAVE’s resources include:

A FREE lending library of books and video tapes
A quarterly newsletter (PAVE Pipeline)
A toll-free telephone number
The “You are the Expert’ Conference
Bi-lingual /bi-cultural staff
Free and low cost materials in a variety of formats and languages

To learn more about PAVE visit their website at www.washingtonpave.com or call 1-800-5-PARENT (v/tty).

Family to Family Health Education and Information Center

The Washington Family to Family Health Education and Information Center is directed by families who have children with special health care needs and a committee called the Washington Family to Family Network. This program provides support to families who have children with special health care needs age birth to 18 years old, and information about health care.

The Washington Family to Family Health Education and Information Center operates a list serve for families who have children with special health care needs to provide information on:

State and national health care
Health and wellness
Resources for families

Families can join the list serve at FVW-F2F@yahoogroups.com or send an e-mail to our list serve coordinator Andrea Sheehan at cwpave@nwinfo.net

For more information please contact Cassie Johnston, program director at 1-800-572-7368 (v/tty) or E-Mail: washingtonpave9.com