Origins of our project started with research/training project with Zero to Three: 

Cross-Sector Work in the Prenatal to Age 5 Workforce

https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/2215-findings-and-recommendations-for-cross-sector-work-in-the-prenatal-to-age-5-workforce

My clinical practice/foundation started in part with the research/training with Child Steps: MATCH/UCLA in 2010. This is the article of the findings from their study.
Chorpita, B.F., Daleiden, E.L., Park, A.L., Ward, A. M., Levy, M. C., Cromley, T., Chiu, A. W., Letamendi, A. M., Tsai, H. H., & Krull, J. L. (2017). Child STEPs in California: A randomized effectiveness trial comparing modular treatment with community implemented treatment for youth with anxiety, depression, conduct problems, or traumatic stress. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 85, 13-25.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SewMamii?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Maria Carrillo, B.F.A. (Co-Founder of Puzzling Stories that Make Sense) is a partner and integral part of Puzzling Stories that Makes Sense Project. She is the Graphic Design Manager of this project. Maria attended Sanford-Brown College in Henderson, Nevada.  She gained her B.F.A; and Majored in Fashion Design.  As a creative, out of college Maria realized creating her fashion collections was not just a manual labor, but she had to further enhanced her skills in Graphic Design.  She is self-taught in adobe CAD programs.  She believes the world doesn’t communicate in just one way. Therefore, she strives to continue to enhance her creative communication base via digital and offline techniques.

https://www.drchristine.org/

United States, California

Dr. Rivera has been an amazing support to this program with her support in editing several therapy tools on our Teachers pay Teachers store, this training, and leading presentations created by this program to other graduate programs. We are so thankful for her support, wisdom, guidance, and collaboration in this project.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YJFhF5oGHjvEIwvKtT9aw

Argentina

Dr. Porrá has helped create multiple therapeutic tools for this project and supported the editing and translation of the Living the Dream Series in Spanish with the original packets created in 2019.  Dr. Porrá also created the wonderful video presentations of our packets. Dr.  Porrá  has been a great support and addition to this project by enhancing and creating original works that were integrated into this series. Thank you for your motivation and support in keeping this project going.

Recipient, ASHA's Honors of the Association

Amazon bestselling author Love Talk Read to Help Your Child Succeed

ASHA Board Certified Language Specialist

https://lovetalkread.com/

United States, California

Dr. Roseberry-McKibbin has donated over 200 pamphlets/books in English and Spanish to help support this project and the families we serve. She is a continued support and provides guidance with different projects while collaborating with us to provide Lectures to her graduate students to help them understand the emotional changes that parents experience when their child is diagnosed with a disability. Dr. Roseberry-McKibbin is a mentor and an inspiration to us all.

Ivana has helped with multiple translations in Tagalog with resources available on our Teachers pay Teachers store and helped me create a power point presentation to educate families about their child's sensory support needs. We are so grateful to have Ivana's expertise to further enhance this project and trainings.

Luisana is one of our parent contributors with her personal story. Luisana will also be joining our team as group facilitators for our future parent support groups that accompany this training. We are very grateful for your trust, support, and expertise that will help support the families we serve. 

https://www.facebook.com/lovepersonified.autismmum.ke/

Kenya

Maria is one of our parent contributors by having shared her own personal story. Maria has also written several reflection pieces for our parent training. Her gift to tell a story and bring us into her world comes alive in every piece she writes. We are so lucky to have Maria share her life experience to help us explore our culture, thoughts, experience with grief, and teach us about resilience with hope and strength.

Canada

Hong Kong

We are so thankful to have the amazing support and expertise of Janice in translating our material into Simplified Chinese. She brings expert and insightful support to help ensure we are being culturally sensitive and supportive of providing our tools to our families that need these resources in this language. Thank you so much for the support and collaboration in this project Janice.

Jamie-Lee and the Brogan family helped start our project by trusting me with sharing their family story and picture of their hands joined together. This image became the face of our first packet and journal.  I am so grateful for their support, continued friendship, and continued advocacy to build awareness of the amazing life and love that comes with having a child with Down Syndrome or any other diagnosis.  

China

We are so thankful to have the amazing support and expertise of Grace in translating our material into Simplified Chinese. She brings expert and insightful support to help ensure we are being culturally sensitive and supportive of providing our tools to our families that need these resources in this language. Thank you so much for the support and collaboration in this project Grace. 

Phillipines

Shiela is one of our amazing parent supporters and contributors. She has supported our project in many ways. She is an amazing friend, collaborator in creating Teachers Pay Teachers packets with a translation in Tagalog, and collaborator with other give-a-ways worldwide. We are so thankful for her support and having her in our support circle.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCViDCJCYkrbsd--Di1m1u2w

We are so blessed and thankful to have Jasmine and her amazing son as part of our growing family.

Helping Families Through Changes Training: Presents 

"The Roots of a Dream - My Daily Journal"

With this journal, workbook, and training, I offer you a chance to add some tools to your toolbox to help lift you up, normalize your experience, and give your thoughts and feelings a safe place to be experienced connected with raising your amazing child. 

It is by my own personal experience of being on this journey, raising my own amazing child, with very specific needs, that I found a need to create a parent and provider companion to support our own emotional needs. 

This journal features an original story and design by myself, Teresa Rodriguez. 

In collaboration with the amazing artists, Raven Chalk and Maria Carrillo. we created these original images to accompany our story while adding quotes, weekly goals, and journal pages to motivate you and accompany you on your journey. 

Other activities are included for increased family engagement (5 Love Languages, Bookmarks, Feeling Thermometers).

I have always been fascinated by autism. I've had a thing for it long before my sonshine was born. I found myself reading and watching programs about it. "Touch" was the first series I got addicted to. I watched it on replay. It was beautiful and sad in equal measure. I felt sorry for Jake's Dad because I can't imagine spending a day without cuddling my child. There's something about how he went above and beyond to understand his child's mode of communication using numbers and objects. It still beats me to date how a kid who can actually talk chooses to remain silent. Turns out, God was slowly preparing me for the journey ahead as a mother to an autistic child. I was able to pick up on his autistic stereotypes based on part of my training on children's learning disabilities and the interest I had in autism. The journey from diagnosis, to seeking second opinion, occupational therapy, sensory integration and finding a suitable school for him hasn't been easy.  Through it all, we'll love him until all the pieces of his puzzle fit. Being a parent to a special needs child requires you to grow a thick skin. You'll get stared at when your child has a meltdown in public. People will howl insensitive comments at you, mostly out of ignorance.  However, how you treat your child determines how the society will treat them in return. Don't exclude them from the world. Resist the urge of stopping them from exploring the environment around them. Let your kids be kids.  Invest in your child's sensory play toys. You'll be amused by how much they increase their level of concentration and coordination.

In this house we do AUTISM.  We do meltdowns and avoidance.

We do tears and frustration. We worry and stress.  We also hope for a better day. We preserve and we pray because in this house, we don’t go down without a fight!

My son calls me his "Best friend," and says, "We make a great team." I fully agree! We have experienced many setbacks and multiple regressions together. He has shown me that we can bounce back from any regression and move forward together.

The first one I noticed was when he was 18 months old following his first diagnosis of Autism. Many other diagnoses followed after that. Having the appropriate diagnosis helped us understand his unique needs, get the right authorized specialty care, and ultimately give us the support we needed (medically and financially). It is only by having these individual diagnoses for each separate condition that we have been able to get the needed services in place. 

The second regression I noticed was around 3 years old following his school vaccines and the start of school. It was hard to identify the root cause of the problem due to all the changes and overwhelming amount of services: school, Home ABA, OT, PT, Speech, and the many other medical appointments that followed. 

I think the last regression, followed by the Covid Vaccine in early 2022, is the one that really broke me. My son was not the same and he lost much of his speech along with developmental gains. I dropped everything that was work and school related to make a move that gave us the support we needed for his unique needs at home. The hardest thing for me, was letting go. 

Letting go was something I feel was already in process after his second episode of regression at 3 years old. It took many years to have all the services of support in place that we have now with In Home Support Services, Medi-Cal Insurance with a Regional Center Waiver, the right supportive doctors, mental health services for us both, and taking a break from other therapies. Services were all cancelled with Covid, so this made it easier. Teletherapy was not normal for him, and not the right fit, for us both.

I started to home school my child while having signed up for the state private school affidavit. Thanks to IHSS being a provider that qualifies for the Public Service Forgiveness, I was able to complete my years of public service to have my student loans forgiven, for good!!

I am feeling better about owning my worth and working hard on lifting myself up. We moved to a whole new area that supported the individual needs we had along with sensory regulation support and increased space for us both. Not knowing what services were available was a little scary but we had faith that God was going to provide. I let go of trying to do it all myself and placed my complete faith in God and trusted His direction on our journey. 

I let go of so much to be able to fully embrace the beauty and amazing work I had before me in raising the amazing child that I have. I returned to this very training that I started creating after my child's second episode of regression out of a need to make sense of what was happening to me, again, emotionally, and to find the support I was needing. I let go of the expectations I had of myself and my child while on this journey. 

I learned, and re-learned, to just take each day as it comes, not worry too much about long term goals (even though we do create them on paper for our organizational purposes), and just enjoy each moment, together.

This new outlook has freed me from the stress I had. I feel a lot more productive, now, with what matters the most. I see it in my child, and he sees it in me. We have found a new place to call home, a renewed faith and relationship with God together, and a stronger bond with the people that we have met on our journey that are also walking this path. We may all have different situations that lead us here, but we are all working hard to do what we can for our children to see them grow and live their best lives. 

I wish I could go back to give myself advice when I first started on my journey. I would tell this anxious, tired, and scared mom that it is going to be OK. I would tell her you are going to find yourself and become the best version of you that you have ever been and with the best companion by your side. I would hold her tight and just remind her to hold on to her faith, don't take no for an answer, and be fair with herself along with those that come her way. This journey is not going to be easy, but you will learn, speak up for yourself and your child, and ask God for the things that you need. I would remind her to let God take the heavy burden and trust in Him fully. I would also give her the training packet and journal that we created to serve as a daily journal and remind her that she is not alone. 

So, I leave you with this FREE training and journals as a support, hug, and the love that I have for you all while you find your way on this journey. You can do this!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCViDCJCYkrbsd--Di1m1u2w

After his diagnosis, it changed our lives. It took a toll on me emotionally. Mentally, it became hard to go on outings with his sensory and anxiety always so high. Having to go from just a regular mom to becoming a full-time teacher, therapist and caregiver was life changing. For Dominik, not being able to voice his needs or wants got harder as time went on. Daily tasks became difficult for us both. Learning to tolerate table time activities was also difficult and we had to teach him how to follow one step directions all over again.

I did not want to give up on my son. So, after his diagnosis, I fought for all the services he qualified for.  I had to make nonstop phone calls and basically bug the insurance company to send out referrals and authorizations. They kept giving me the run around and excuses, so I had to make sure I was on top of them. To get his diagnoses was not that difficult. I had to go through my insurance which took a while. Once it was done, I had to wait for The Regional Center to do their evaluation. This was a quick process for the evaluation but a long wait for the report.  I couldn’t get any services until I had the report from The Regional Center which took longer than expected. 

I didn’t have much support during this process by anyone except my Nana. She was with me for every evaluation. She was the one that suggested me to get him evaluated. Once we were able to start services, we were approved for speech, occupational therapy, social skills, 12 hours of ABA, and mommy and me classes. I have learned from this to never give up on fighting and I realized who my real friends and family are. My son is with me all the time. We try to get breaks in between our busy schedules by going outside and playing and while he gets screen time, I try to do some arts and crafts. I have no support or help from my family. So, we try our best to make the best of each other.

On bad days It’s overwhelming for us both. I get emotional. I am usually emotionally and mentally drained by the end of the day from blocking him from self-injuries, sensory issues, and from stemming. My son needs to be supervised at all times so I cannot step out of the room if needed. It’s overwhelming most days which makes it challenging. I don’t really have time to cope. I usually just keep going on with our days that turn into long nights. 

Till this day I have my good and bad days about his diagnosis. On good days we are both happy. I think about how far he has come since his diagnosis and how blessed I am to have a son that looks at me as his protector. Seeing him smile and hug me makes me fill all the love and reminds me that we can overcome all obstacles together. 

It's hard to overcome at times but I never let that interfere with the love I have for my son.

I focus on the good moments and progress of my son. Some examples of his good moments are when he follows a one-step direction or using his sign language or wanting to just sit with me. 

I am proud of him always and I support and encourage him in everything he does.

I hope to grow and become part of this circle of wonderful women, share my story, and learn their story, and be the best support for them also. 

All of our journals and the workbook will be provided for FREE as an individual download from now on.

Why?

We want to give back to our fellow parents and community.

We are so blessed to have the support by the State of California with its established support programs that provide the needed resources for us to thrive, grow, and learn. We have support from:

• In Home Support Services

• Medi-Cal Insurance

• San Gabriel Pomona Regional Center/Inland Regional Center

• UCLA Children's Clinic and Loma Linda University Child and Family Clinic through SAC Health

• United States Veterans Services

• And the amazing community that we have created online and in our physical community.

We want to make sure that you have access to a journal in your language to explore your thoughts, feelings, needs, and create a safe place to hold those emotions.

We have this journal in English and Spanish.

We are so grateful for the parents, providers, artists, and partners that are continuing to work with us to create more journals.

God Bless You All,

Teresa Rodriguez

What I do remember is that our gender reveal quickly turned into one of the saddest days of my life, followed by the birth of my daughter, where I was only able to hold her for a second before, she was rushed to the emergency room - leaving me all alone in that hospital, with physical and emotional pain that no words could ever describe. My head filled with so many thoughts, some good, but most of them were of anger because why would God do this to me or any human being?

After one month of NICU, sleepless nights, and many hospitals and doctor visits, I lost track of time. Until it became apparent to me that I had not been present for the first three years of my daughter’s life; I was everything to my daughter, except her mother.

So, I left everything; the doctors, the therapies, and the hospital visits - to hug, kiss, and love my daughter for who she is right now. No more meeting developmental goals, no more forcing her to go to therapies. Instead, we replaced those therapies with more time with mom, baking cupcakes, singing songs, and exploring nature.

Doing that finally allowed me to have the connection with my daughter I've always wanted and one she had also longed for. It was like falling in love with my daughter for the first time. Everything changed for us after that. 

My daughter immediately began developing more rapidly. Sometimes I wonder if she realized that the tired and broken-spirited woman that stood beside her every day was a mother waiting to love her.

Some days are a bit rough, but I trust my love for her will overcome it all with God's strength.

Today, she is in Recreational Therapy (which is more like play therapy), and out of 23 doctors, we only visit 2 to 4 doctors a year.

We are making memories we’ve never dreamed of. 

By Yolany

We are so grateful and thankful to be able to add Yolany's story to our family stories along with Amari's Free Coloring and Activity packet on our TpT page. 

You can reach Yolany at: yolanywinters.com

She shares wonderful resources and personal interests.

Providing a network of support for LA County.

• Mental Health
• Individual Therapy
• Autism Assessment for Child
• Crisis Management

• Get help now: LACDMH 24/7 Help Line (800) 854-7771 or
• Contact Crisis Text Line (“LA” to 741741)

• LACDMH Help Line
  Crisis and emotional wellness resources
  (800) 854-7771
• “I’m having thoughts of suicide” (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention)
  Crisis mental health services
• Suicide Prevention Resource Center
  Effective prevention resources and programs
• LA County Suicide Prevention Network (LASPN)
  Mental health professionals, advocates, survivors, researchers and representatives
  • 11th Annual Suicide Prevention Summit virtual conference and events hosted by LASPN
• National Suicide Prevention Week 2021 (Sept. 5 – 11)
  Information and resources to empower individuals, organizations and communities to take action
• 2021 Suicide Prevention Activation Toolkit (Each Mind Matters)
  Tools to help with planning and implementing suicide prevention awareness initiatives

and mother nature.

She has taken part in successful exhibitions at the National Museum of Kenya, Movenpick Hotel, The Collective restaurant, Kenya Railway Museum, and Village Market, Karen Village; just

to name a few. She has had numerous newspaper and magazine features, and also the Kenya Art Diary.

and mother nature.

She has taken part in successful exhibitions at the National Museum of Kenya, Movenpick Hotel, The Collective restaurant, Kenya Railway Museum, and Village Market, Karen Village; just

to name a few. She has had numerous newspaper and magazine features, and also the Kenya Art Diary.