MISSION STATEMENT
YANA stands for “You Are Not Alone.” The passion behind this platform is to support families like myself who have children with learning disabilities and challenges. YANA serves to create a village around parents who sometimes have less access to resources or lack the skills needed to get proper support for their loved ones. The main objective is to ensure that this precious population of children and adults do not go ignored. It is aimed to further ensure that the quality of their lives be enriched with the utmost normalcy which will allow them to become productive citizens in their communities and beyond.
“Going Beyond Grown” is now available for purchase!
“Going Beyond Grown” is a story about how I managed to raise my amazing special needs daughter through numerous challenges from childhood to adulthood. This story is designed to highlight how I navigated through the structure of our educational system, residential living, and everyday life trying at best to work with others to provide the best quality of life I could for her along with the support of family and a few friends.
ABOUT ME
I’m a married mother of 2 children a son and a daughter both now adults and living away from home. I was an educator for 29 years and have recently retired. Raising my kids with my first husband as a stay at home mom for the first 5 years of their lives was the start of my first teaching experience. Little did I know that my work as an educator would help me to quickly observe the red flags I saw in my daughter’s development and assist us in getting the help for her that was needed. By the age of 2 I learned that my daughter had a learning disability. When we became aware of this it allowed my family to prepare for how life ahead would be for all of us.
Having a child with special needs changes and affects the whole family in ways you can’t imagine and without all the support systems that are available set in place the journey can become even more challenging. Along this journey we were able to make all the adjustment needed. For parents like us it can sometimes be a lifetime journey. It all depends on the functioning ability level of your love one and their individual needs. It differs for all of us.
My main goal is to provide moral support by sharing my experiences of how I managed to navigate the challenges of raising a child with special needs. Resources are out there, but the challenges of dealing with individuals who facilitate them are frustrating and often lacking the productive outcome you expect to see.
Hopefully, you will learn how my shared experience can best serve to assist you in making the most informed decisions for your loved one. My hope is that in some way this site can encourage families to build a stronger community of self-sufficient and confident members that deserve the same privileges and rights as any other human being. Through this website, I also hope to encourage others to provide all the love as well as support that one can give to make life ahead a well-adjusted experience that will serve to both enrich and fulfill all.
It is a huge task, but together we can do it!