The learning disabilities program at Children’s Home Society and Family Services

Kimberly was feeling overwhelmed. Her daughter, Maryam, a freshman in high school, was recently diagnosed with
autism. Her son, Salahalein, is an eighth-grader who struggles with dyslexia. The private school they attend doesn’t provide all the support services they need and shuttles them back and forth to public schools in the same district for certain classes. The arrangement had grown more complicated. Kimberly needed an advocate.

“I picked up these flyers from Children’s Home Society & Family Services and I said, ‘That’s it, I’ve got to call and find out what help I can get,’” Kimberly says.

“Kimberly was trying to put a lot on her plate, and she had no outside support system,” explains Brooke Freitag, Learning Disabilities Program specialist at CHSFS. Since September, Kimberly has been meeting with CHSFS for support navigating the school system and searching for better resources for her children.

Brooke helps Kimberly prioritize what actions to take on behalf of her children’s education. They complete paperwork to apply for benefits and enroll in programs, and attend school meetings together.

“We are the eyes and ears,” Brooke explains, “We want clients to advocate for themselves.” She notes that simply attending a meeting with a parent “often provides the extra confidence they need to speak up to be their child’s best advocate.”

This spring, Kimberly discovered that Maryam’s Individual Education Program had expired without the school notifying her. The IEP is a written plan outlining the services a child will receive and the steps that will be taken to help a child meet academic goals. Now Kimberly and Brooke are developing a new IEP. Brooke will join Kimberly at the IEP review meeting at Maryam’s school, too.

Frustrated by dyslexia, Salahalein would act out in class and find ways to avoid reading or writing. He began a special reading class at the public school instead, but it conflicted with the science class at his private school. “Kimberly didn’t want him to miss the science class, because he really enjoyed science and did well in that class,” Brooke explains. “She felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

At the end of a difficult school year, Kimberly is meeting with Brooke weekly to work on new IEPs and put things in place for her children to attend new schools next year so they’ll get the services they need to succeed.

“I can see Kimberly is more calm now,” Brooke observes. “We set weekly goals for the kids, and for herself. We work on getting anything to help Maryam and Salahalein be successful.”

Ten months into our current fiscal year, 104 families like Kimberly’s have received help through CHSFS’ Learning Disabilities Program—a 15 percent increase over last year. Of those families, 40 also receive support from CHSFS’ internal network of family support programs. Our staff cross-refers clients of Financial & Home Ownership Education, Parent Support Services, and Individual & Family Counseling to the Learning Disabilities Program. In a 2008 client survey, 74 percent of parents told us they are better able to communicate with their child’s school as a result of the services they received through CHSFS.

Support from CHSFS makes Kimberly hopeful. “Without CHSFS, I probably wouldn’t have pushed the schools—I probably would have given up,” she says. “It would be easy to say ‘forget it.’ But I want the best for my children. I want them to be able to go on to get college education and to do something with their lives.”

More about CHSFS

Children’s Home Society & Family Services knows that a child in a safe, nurturing home is a child who thrives. For 120 years, we have been serving families in Minnesota, throughout the United States and in more than a dozen countries worldwide. We help families stay strong and care for their children by providing counseling, financial education and quality early childhood care. We help children without families find permanent, loving homes through adoption. Our mission is to help children thrive; and to build, strengthen and sustain individual, family and community life.

In addition to the Learning Disabilities Program, CHSFS offers an array of services that support children and families including Early Childhood Care & Education, providing high-quality, developmental education for children at corporate- and community-based Early Learning Center sites; Parent Support Services, working with parents in crisis situations to prevent child abuse and neglect, and to support and strengthen families; Individual & Family Counseling, clinical counseling to help people dealing with a wide range of personal and/or family problems; Financial & Home Ownership Education, face-to-face debt-management counseling and educational workshops for first-time home buyers; Domestic Abuse & Anger Management, professional counseling to stop the intergenerational cycle of abuse; and Pregnancy Counseling Services to support women and couples experiencing an unexpected pregnancy.

CHSFS also provides Domestic and International Adoption services, and through the program for Minnesota’s Waiting Children, we find permanent homes for children in the foster care system. Post-Adoption Services offers educational programs and cultural events to support adoptive families as their children grow. Our International Child Welfare programs improve the lives of vulnerable children in 13 countries worldwide by investing in projects that build family permanency and community sustainability.