Community Resource Nights!

From figuring out a diagnosis to extra doctor’s appointments to understand and support to finding and connecting with resources, families with loved ones with special needs often have more on their plates. Many local public schools offer yearly Community Resource Nights where different resources – SSA, DRS, A New Leaf, Sooner Success, OKCares, yours truly - in the community will come and set up tables so that families have a one stop shop event to learn about the different available resources and be able to talk to people, yes people from the Social Security Administration too, from those resources, and perhaps most importantly, connect with other families supporting loved ones with similar needs. Jenks, Union, Tulsa Public, Broken Arrow, Owasso, Bixby, and most other surrounding public school districts have some kind of yearly Community Resource event and they would love for you to attend, even if your child doesn’t go to school in their school district. I’ll try to update this blog and my social media to let you know about upcoming events.

I often get a chance to attend these events as a community resource myself. I talk to people about what their options are when a loved one is about to turn 18 – is a power of attorney, limited guardianship, or guardianship the best option for that family? I also answer questions about different types of Special Needs Trust – first-party, stand alone third-party, and revocable trust with nested third-party provisions. When I go I try to talk to the organizations at the other tables and collect materials. I often have clients that are in the middle of estate planning and through the course of our conversation, I realize that they would really benefit from connecting with some community resources.

For example, a family may be doing estate planning for a loved one with a diagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar disorder. The family is primarily concerned with trust planning so that their loved one is supported by an inheritance, but can’t control the inheritance themselves. They mention that they’re struggling with whether or not to get guardianship over this loved one. While I can help this family create an appropriate trust as well as help them obtain guardianship, I cannot help them decide whether or not they should get guardianship. That decision is best talked through with a support group of people who also have a loved one with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder – that support group has likely wrestled with this question before and they can support the family in this decision in a way I never could.

So, I’ll be sharing materials I collected from last night’s Community Resource Fair at Jenks, as well as links to the different programs as a resource for my clients, but also as a resource for anyone that hasn’t been able to make it out to a Resource Fair, or maybe forgot to collect materials from a table, etc.