Who am 1?

A bit about me:

I am first and foremost a mother of two wonderful teenage boys and to three wonderful step children.  Four boys in total and one girl...all right now who are teenagers!  Yep, it can get crazy in this house!

Now to why I am starting this blog...I have worked in the developmental services field as an employee or volunteer for nearly 25 years.  I began volunteering in a daycare with children with differing needs who required additional support to participate fully in their classroom environments.  After a couple years I began working part time at three different agencies and eventually moved up to full time and management.  Over the years I worked with families, self-advocates, schools, ministries and many other professionals and organizations.  My work also afforded me the honour of assisting a self-advocates group and to participate as an acting member of a family network support group.  It has been a rich knowledgebase for me and so very meaningful.

During my time working at various organizations, I also found love and married my first husband.  With him I had the two boys that I love so dearly. With my children came even more challenges when I found myself with a toddler and a baby and had a car accident that required I have outside help to take care of them (my husband at the time was a truck driver and gone a lot).  This was very challenging for me but gave me a different prospective from being the one taking care to be the one being taken care of.  Instead of giving support, I was receiving it.  What a different prospective!  I valued every minute of our nanny's time to help...they were just wonderful.  This time in my life also gave me some prospective on what families go through when they themselves cannot care for their loved ones.

Once my oldest was 3 we realized he had severe eye issues and required corrective surgery.  He also struggles with managing ADHD, social anxiety and OCD.  My other younger child around the same time was showing signs of low tone and sensory processing difficulties requiring both speech and occupational therapies to help him.  Let's just say I was happy to know where to turn and what resources I needed to reach out to.  I had worked in the field for over 10 years and had to reach out myself so finding supports was a fairly easy step for me.  But what if all these points in my life had not occurred?  Would I have known where to turn?  The answer is "probably not".

In recent years I decided to take a few more courses and received my Advanced Life Skills diploma and along with my partner (and twin sister) we began Twin Life Coaching & Business Services.  This has been a secondary business for both of us as we both still maintain our full time jobs.  For me, this was a great opportunity to use my professional and personal experience to help others.  I decided to start this blog in order to use my skillset and knowledge to help others find supports, learn what to ask when they do find it, how to prepare for your loved one's future, how to support yourself and develop coping strategies amongst other things.  I hope it will help someone who needs it.   Of course I will also share tools I develop along the way and hope to have some feedback too.  

Twinlifecoaching.ca is our website and the holistic life coaching page outlines one of my packages for providing similar supports in a holistic manner (no pressure but thought I would share).  I hope my blog will touch someone and perhaps make those "rocky" moments with your loved ones go a little smoother.

Barb

barb@twinlifecoaching.ca

.