Joan describes how her early life and the values and lessons she learned from her mother impacted her experiences of having children with special health care needs and how the birth of her twins with cerebral palsy shaped her subsequent life course.
A parent’s life course before the arrival of a child with SHCN sets the stage for the impact on her life story and on the trajectory of the child’s life course. Let’s hear from Joan about how her beginnings set the stage for the birth of her twins with cerebral palsy.
Please click on the arrows below to hear audio of each story.
Introduction | Introduction |
Background | Joan’s own childhood and her family influenced her values and how she approaches life. |
Twins JC | When Nicci and Eric were born, Joan’s life course took a new direction that she could not have imagined before. She had completed law school and was working and studying for her bar exams, when her life course took an unexpected turn. |
Career Path | In the end, Joan’s career path was shaped by combining her professional skills and her lived experience as the mother of two children with special health care needs. |
Educational Systems | At times Joan found that here role as a mother and advocate overlapped with her work role as an advocate. |
Joann talks about her role as wife | Joan, like most of us, has played many roles in her life. Those roles, and the joys and responsibilities that go with them, coexist with her roles as a mother to children with special health care needs and a lawyer who has had a career in advocacy. |
Support Mom | As a daughter, Joan has been part of the “sandwich generation.” Joan’s mother had lived with her and her children. As her mother aged, Joan took on the role of care taker, while still actively participating in her daughter Nicci’s care and support. |
Niccis Future | Joan’s children with special health care needs, Nicci and Erik, are now adults. Let’s learn about how Joan’s life is still impacted by her role as their mother. |
Healthcare System | Both Nicci and Joan's life courses are impacted by the continuing difficulties in health care transition for children and youth with special health care needs. |
Own Future | So where does Joan see her life course taking her next? Hear about her vision for the future and how Joan’s life course continues to be intertwined with Nicci’s. |