Families taking care of children with disabilities face many unique challenges. Something we hear often from the families we serve is they are unsure of what resources are available for their children and how to access them. Although Google is a powerful tool, it can also be overwhelming to decipher the results and determine what applies to your family’s needs. To lend a helping hand, we have compiled a list of 10 resources for parents and caretakers taking care of children with disabilities in Georgia.
Parent to Parent of Georgia (P2PGA)
P2PGA is a non-profit organization offering support, information, education, and leadership development to Georgians with disabilities or special health care needs from birth to 26 years of age and their families.
SGF was blessed to host P2PGA at Spring in the Valley 2023 as one of our nonprofit vendors. One of the best parts of having them at SIV is the P2PGA representative is one of our SGF moms!
Their Special Needs Database also houses almost 7,000 resources in over 200 categories, and SGF is proud to be a part of this database. We are so grateful to P2PGA for what the difference they are making for special needs families of Georgia.
Learn more here!
Marcus Autism Center
As one of the largest autism centers in the U.S., the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta provides comprehensive services for children with autism. They offer diagnostic evaluations, behavioral therapy programs, learning programs, and support services for families.
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) took notice of the difference this center was making, so in 2008 Marcus Autism Center became a part of CHOA. Collaborations such as this have had a tremendous impact on the lives of children with autism.
Several of our Gifted Families have praised Marcus Autism Center and how they jumped into action to help guide them through their child’s diagnosis and setting them up with early education programs.
Learn more here!
Tools for Life
Tools for Life is Georgia’s Assistive Technology Act Program, offering resources and support to individuals with disabilities. They provide assistive technology assessments, training, and demonstrations to help families identify and access the tools that can enhance their child’s independence and quality of life.
Learn more here!
Georgia Department of Education’s Special Education Services
The Georgia Department of Education offers a wide range of special education services, including Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), assistive technology support, parent training, eligibility categories with contact information, applications, special need scholarship information, and much more.
Learn more here!
Friends of Disabled Adults & Children (FODAC)
FODAC is an organization that provides refurbished, durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs, walkers, and hospital beds, and services to individuals with disabilities. They offer equipment loans, donations, and assistance in obtaining necessary equipment for families who may not have access to insurance coverage or financial resources.
Learn more here!
Families of Children Under Stress (FOCUS)
FOCUS offers wraparound programs of support to families of children, teens, and young adults who are medically fragile or have developmental/physical disabilities. Programs include hospital support, workshops, adapted day and overnight camps, adapted swim teams, parent share groups, family camps and activities, grants for critical medical equipment, and more.
Learn more here!
Amongst the different programs they offer, one is the equipment grant program. This program provides grant assistance for van-lifts, ceiling lift and stair lifts, material for ramps for home access, custom bath equipment not covered by Medicaid/insurance, patient care lifts, and more. For more details on this specific program, click here.
Georgia Parent Mentor Partnership
The Georgia Parent Mentor Partnership is parents and professionals working together to improve outcomes for students with disabilities by enhancing communication and collaboration between families, educators, and the community.
Parent mentors work with families of students with disabilities on a daily basis providing them with tools, resources, and strategies that they can use to support their children at home, at school, and in the community. Mentors provide information on a variety of topics through telephone calls, letters, emails, and face-to-face meetings.
They assist parents in identifying funding sources for specialized equipment, locating medical and therapeutic services within the community, obtaining resources that parents can use to help their children in reading and math, and much more.
Learn more here!
Assistance Dogs International (ADI)
ADI is a worldwide coalition for nonprofit programs that raise, train, and place Assistance Dogs. Within their site, they offer a member search where you can filter by state. This search will then generate an extensive list of facilities and programs in Georgia for guide dogs, hearing dogs, and service dogs.
When most families first consider the addition of an assistive dog to their family, they are overwhelmed by the cost. Within the list of ADI’s members, several of these organizations offer low-income, grant, and other financial assistance options.
Learn more here!
Georgia Medicaid
The Georgia Medicaid site provides a comprehensive list of services offered through the Georgia Department of Community Health. It administers the Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids programs which provide access to health care for children, pregnant women, and people who are aging, blind, and/or disabled.
This site provides many different types of programs with links and descriptions for each, including TERFA/Katie Beckett, waiver programs, Children’s Behavioral Health Services, Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) services and more.
Learn more here!
Disability Resources in Georgia
This last one is a larger resource list that is broken down into specific categories and services, including Georgia Disability Agencies, blind services, birth defect services, long term care, respite care services, and much more.
Learn more here!
Resources for Parents Continues to Grow
We are so thrilled to see more and more resources available for parents caring for children with disabilities in our communities. Although there’s still so much needed, it’s a blessing to see more organizations and communities getting involved.
SGF is currently working on a resource database for our new website that will serve families from all over. Beneficial resources are built into our mission, so we are proud to develop this crucial function of our program and cannot wait to share it with you! In the meantime, we hope this short list of resources for parents and caregivers at least gives you a place to start.
What is Specially Gifted Foundation?
Specially Gifted Foundation (SGF) is a Georgia nonprofit organization benefiting families caring for children with disabilities by providing them with a special gift or opportunity, beneficial resources, and a sense of community.
SGF was founded in 2020 by Breann Kernion Lanham and Macey Price Belter. With Bree’s experience as a sibling of a child with disabilities and Macey’s professional background as a therapy facilitator and involvement in the special needs community, they recognized a need and turned it into a mission to serve these families.
Mission Breakdown
Special gift or opportunity: When families apply, they provide us with a gift request based on what would benefit their child and family the most. Our mission serves the whole family, so we prompt families to address their needs as a whole and not only their child. SGF gifts eligible families up to $5,000 towards their gift request.
Since our founding, we have gifted family trips to Disney, adaptive bicycles from Freedom Concepts, medical debt relief, therapy equipment and sessions, backyard fencing, downpayments on handicap accessible vehicles, financial assistance with accessible home renovations, and much more.
Beneficial resources: Parents have often expressed their feelings of being overwhelmed when trying to find out what resources are available to them. Although the list is always growing, families don’t always have the time or energy to keep up with what’s available and more importantly what services and programs are specifically designed to meet their needs.
This is where our mission and connections come into play. We have embraced the opportunity to partner with other organizations to provide resources for the families we serve. Whether that is through our resource blog posts or another organization like Parent to Parent of Georgia and their resource database.
We also receive inquiries from families with specific needs, so when we are not already aware of an organization or program to help them we use that opportunity to dive into our connections to see what resources are available to share. These opportunities often lead to new partnerships, which is an overall win for our mission because it helps to grow our impact.
Sense of community: This crucial part of our mission plays a huge role in how SGF sets itself apart from other organizations. Our work goes well beyond the gifting experience, because when we welcome new Gifted Families that’s exactly what they are – our SGF family.
Most parents can agree that having a community is important, but when you have a child with disabilities it can prove to be difficult to build this community. As a strong advocate for these families, SGF strives to help build these connections between other families.
Sometimes that looks like an SGF Mom’s Coffee Date, partnering with other nonprofits like The Sweet Cocoon for community events such as the annual Halloween event, or providing a community group discussion exclusively for our SGF Gifted Families to connect with one another outside of SGF events.
Our annual Spring in the Valley Festival has also turned into a huge community event, thanks to our SGF Kids Game booth designed and run by therapists to ensure everyone is able to participate in the fun.
As we continue to grow as an organization, so does the impact of EACH part of our mission.
If you are looking for ways to get involved and make a difference with SGF, start here!
If your family or a family you know could benefit from our mission, apply or refer a family here!
