Disability and Progress-December 26, 2024- Easterseals!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: KPI.org. [00:00:18] Speaker B: It. [00:01:00] Speaker C: This is KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis, and kfai.org a different radio station every hour. This is Disability in Progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. My name is Sam. I'm the producer or host of this show this morning. Thank you so much for tuning in. I want to just to set a couple reminders that you may be on our email list. If you'd like to be on that, you may email me at disabilityandprogressamjasmon.com that's disabilityandprogressamjasmid.com or you can suggest guests to be on as well or topics for the show. We always welcome that. Thanks so much for joining me. Charlene Dahl is my PR research person. Hello, Charlene. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Good evening, everybody. [00:01:57] Speaker C: Whichever it is, good day or something, Miguel engineers this episode. Thank you, Miguel. Erin is my podcaster. Thank you, Erin. This week we're speaking with Kendra Davenport. Kendra is the president and CEO of National Easter Seals. And we're also speaking with Jen Zephyrman. Zev. Jen is the vice president of programs for Easter Seals Florida. Greetings, people. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Nice to be here, Sam. Thank you. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Thank you for having us. [00:02:31] Speaker C: Thank you for your time. We'll be talking about Easter Seals today and also about the holiday release of the sensory gift guide that you guys have going on. But first, I'd like to start with Kendra and Jen. Would you please just take a minute or so and give me a little history about you and how you got to Easter Seals? [00:02:55] Speaker B: Sure. This is Kendra and I have been working in the nonprofit sector my entire career, which I'm a little embarrassed to say is pretty long, 36 years. I came to Easterseals three years ago, and I like to say my entire career helped prepare me for this role. Easterseals empowers people to live full, independent lives. And we have served the disability community for more than 100 years. We make a difference, a lasting difference, in the lives of about 1.5 million people each year providing essential services to children and adults with disabilities, older adults and veterans. And Jen is one of the members of the teams of our 70 affiliates nationwide. She'll talk a little bit more about what she does, but it's really the affiliates throughout the country who provide programs customized to meet the needs of each community we serve coast to coast. [00:03:55] Speaker C: Jen, how did you get here? [00:03:58] Speaker A: Sure. So, yes, my name is Jen Sifferman, and I have been with Easter Seals for a little over 11 years now. And I started my career as Actually a classroom teacher specializing in early childhood development. Specifically, I was certified teacher with the state of Florida for many years until I stepped away to have my own children. And then when I launched back in, I knew nonprofit, I knew the world of early childhood. That was definitely something I wanted to be a part of. And I was connected with Easter Seals, fell in love with the mission and what I could bring in terms of early education, early intervention, and my background just drawing from my experiences in working in the education system for many years. So through my time with Easter Seals, we have been able to grow programs and connect families with services throughout the state of Florida. And we are just eager to continue doing so with the programs that we have in place. [00:05:07] Speaker C: Thank you. Well, Easterseals has been in for. Been around for a long time. I mean, you hear various things about them all the time, but I feel like they do a little bit of. A lot of things. Can you tell me a little bit, give me a little history on Easter Seals and their mission? [00:05:27] Speaker B: Absolutely. We, we do several things and it is difficult. I think it's sometimes a double edged sword because it can be difficult to tell people and really, really illustrate the impact of all we do. We provide disability services to help people with disabilities lead independent lives and empower people to manage many aspects of their health which can improve their quality of life and create more opportunities to thrive. We help people have the freedom to make the best choices for their well being and security. And we do a lot in early childhood and we always have helping children start life strong. Easterseals gives children across the country quality early childhood education and developmental support. And our Child Development center network is a leading provider of child care in the United States. Serving more than 25,000 children every day in many cities, Easterseals delivers early education services and care through our Early Head Start programs. [00:06:34] Speaker C: There you go. [00:06:35] Speaker B: We sorry. We also help parents help their children. Easterseals supports parents with expert advice and resources to confidently champion their children's success. And we help seniors. We help seniors thrive by putting them to work, back to work in many cases, giving them training so that they can go back into the working world. As you know, many adults are living longer lives and some are outliving their means. So going back to work helps them make ends meet, but it also puts them in touch with community. And then lastly, I'll say we work with veterans and we have since the end of the Second World War, we've helped veterans transition out of military service into private sector jobs. We empower them to get jobs that are fulfilling not just jobs that pay the rent. We also help them with their mental and physical challenges. And we help their families, children, and spouses and partners. So we do do a lot. [00:07:38] Speaker C: Yes, you do. And you covered a lot there. Can you talk a little more about the development centers? Like, what kinds of things do you feel like? Why do you feel like your centers are more special to help children with disabilities? [00:07:56] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Our early intervention services, and I'm sure Jen can add to whatever I say, but they include physical, occupational, speech, and nutritional therapies, as well as autism services, and they're delivered to children attending our early education programs across the country. These services have helped millions of infants, toddlers and young children with developmental delays or other disabilities achieve cognitive, social, social, emotional, communicative, and physical development. And whether it's occupational therapy to help an infant learn how to hold their bottle or a physical therapy to help them learn how to roll over, or speech therapy to help them learn how to eat or speak, Our early intervention specialists work together with parents and caregivers to help children achieve critical developmental milestones. And all studies point point to the fact that the earlier interventions like these take place, the better children thrive later on in their educational journey. [00:09:01] Speaker C: And when you do early interventions like this, do you feel like, I always was curious about this, like, is it that the parents just are struggling with how to assist in the early development? Or do you feel like there are special ways that you teach that help the parents? [00:09:27] Speaker B: Jen, you can probably speak to that better than I can. [00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I would love to. Thank you. So supporting families and supporting the overall health of the family is important to our mission. We want to make sure that the family unit is set up for success as they navigate the waters of a recent diagnosis or going through the process of a diagnosis and really working with the families on those social, emotional and human development connections which are only going to assist the child as they move forward. So in our affiliate specifically, we have center based programs that help families with this, but we also have community based programs that go into the home and provide that those therapies for the child with the caveat that the parent needs to be part of that process. So they're working alongside our therapists and consultants to learn the techniques that the therapist is bringing in the home and they can continue those while the therapist is not there. That is a large part of what we offer. We want to provide those wraparound cares and a lot of our programs also are center based and then wraparound cares outside for families to continue those services. We believe in. I'm sorry. Go ahead. [00:10:59] Speaker C: What kind of disabilities, children with disabilities, do you work with? Like what. What. What are your specialties with which disabilities you work with? [00:11:10] Speaker A: So it varies. Honestly, we work with just about all children and varying disabilities. It could be some feeding issues. It could be both cognitive or neuro. It just varies. But in our local area, we accept and work with children with all disabilities. [00:11:38] Speaker C: So I'm curious about if you can describe the Easter Seals, like, how you collaborate with the families and design individualized programs. So, like, how does somebody get involved with you? Do they have to sign up? Do they. What happens when they feel like they have a child that needs some extra assistance and they want to get involved? And how do you design that online? [00:12:04] Speaker B: We have an online screening tool called make the first five Count that parents can access free of charge. Many times parents might have an inkling or a feeling that their child might need help, but they don't know what help their child may need. They can take the screening, and then Easter Seals can put them in touch with facilities or resources in their own community who can better address the needs their child has and do assessments. And Jen and her team know all about that. It really varies from affiliate to affiliate. Not all of our affiliates do provide early intervention or early education services, but many do. And if there isn't something in their community, Easterseals is always compelled to find services or identify other resources for families so that no one goes without. [00:13:03] Speaker C: You know, a lot of times you see schools or situations where they're trying to integrate the children with, you know, all the other children. And so I'm presuming you're talking about this is early intervention, when maybe you guys would be much stronger than a regular daycare center. [00:13:30] Speaker B: You want to speak to that, Jen? [00:13:33] Speaker A: So we have. We in our physical locations that we have, we have. We work with both. So we are very much inclusive. So we have typically developing children in our care, or we have children that may be struggling with developmental milestones but not yet have achieved a diagnosis to. So we're working with interventions to try to bridge that gap for them and whatever delays they may have. And then we also have children that have diagnosed disabilities, whether it was something that happened at birth or whether it was something that, through the transition of development was diagnosed, maybe a spectrum disorder. And we're working directly with the child in the facilities and the families themselves. So we very much, in our facilities have an inclusive program in the younger years for early learning and intervention. Easterseals Florida also has just Opened specifically the School for Limitless Learning which serves children pre K through second grade. And in order to be a part of that program, diagnosed disability is required. But what we found in our community specifically is a lot of special needs schools that are targeted to work specifically with families don't begin until third grade or above. And there was a gap in services where we didn't want to see children falling through the cracks and not receiving the much needed early intervention that they needed in the early elementary years. So we've done a lot of research and just recently opened in September the School for Limitless Learning which focuses on DIR floor time and it specific to social emotional development and working with the families on creating those connections. And the teachers work on creating those connections in the classroom as well. [00:15:55] Speaker C: I wonder if you would talk a little bit more about your school. You were just got done talking about the Limitless Learning. How long has it been open? What are the qualifications to get in it and how. What's your current population in the school? [00:16:15] Speaker A: Sure. So we just recently opened in September of 2024. This was a project many years in the making though. We did a lot of market research in our local community to find out what the need for services was for early learning. And then we did a lot of market research in determining the best location to serve families who wanted an alternative to education. So our School for Limitless Learning is open to children with diagnosed disabilities for kindergarten through second grade. We want to make sure we capture children who may be recently diagnosed or and not want the public school setting necessarily as their form of education. We believe in a play based program where we're getting on the child's level and working with their individual growth and development wherever they are to promote learning and learning based on what their individual needs would look like. [00:17:30] Speaker C: So does that entail that the child might have more severe disabilities that they may not fit into a a quote? It could. [00:17:44] Speaker A: Right now our focus is on children who may be on the spectrum, but we do have children with other forms of disabilities, down syndrome, cerebral palsy and some other disabilities along with a neurodisability. So we're working with children that may have multiple diagnosis. Our school is designed to be small in ratios so that we can really concentrate on the child's individual development and goals, all done through play, which is how research has shown us children learn best anyway. [00:18:29] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:30] Speaker A: And we work specifically with the DIR Floor Time model which is based on Social emotional development by Dr. Stanley Greenspan. All of our staff are working towards certification in the DIR Floor Time Model. [00:18:47] Speaker C: So I don't think I know the DIR floor time model. What does that mean exactly? [00:18:51] Speaker A: So DIR stands for development, which is understanding how children process individual differences, focusing really specifically on those social emotional differences, and then building relationships and connections, working with whoever is in that child's life to build those connections, which will then help the children develop and grow as they go through whatever their individual plans are for learning. We see a lot of children who may have behaviors as a result of their diagnosis really respond well to play based therapy. And that's what this is. DIR floor time is getting down on the child's level and interacting with the child in whatever is of interest to them and then creating connections based on that. And one of our wraparound services is that we're really connecting with families so that they can continue to implement this at home. Something else that is unique about DIR floor time is it's not just for children. DIR floor time actually spans the lifespan. And this social emotional based connection can be done at any age. [00:20:22] Speaker C: Wow. Huh. Okay. You have. You do autism screening. How does that work? [00:20:34] Speaker A: So our program specifically does not do autism screening, So I don't know if Kendra can speak directly to that. [00:20:40] Speaker B: No, I think many of our programs do, but that's not something that's in my area of expertise. [00:20:46] Speaker C: Ah, okay. All right. I was just wondering if they had forms. They did. And you talked about the forms that they can fill out. When a parent comes in and fills out the form, I presume that generalizes and tells you what the parent is seeing with the child. And then might you have a physician or something evaluate the child so they can better understand what the needs are or how do you do that? [00:21:17] Speaker A: So a lot of our programs work with within a system of care. So it's a network in their local communities where we work together for the best interest of the children and the families that we serve. And we work very closely on a referral network. So we do screenings which may indicate whether a child is delayed or in some area. And we can refer out to appropriate programs for diagnosis. And on the flip side of that, some of the physicians and specialists that we work with or early intervention specialists that we work with will have diagnosed the child and then refer them to our services for continuing care. [00:22:08] Speaker C: You spoke about possibly having people come out to the home to assist parents. How far does that reach? As far as what happens to people? And sometimes they can be in pretty far away towns from where a center might be. How does that work with you guys? [00:22:32] Speaker A: So with our specific affiliate, we do offer community based care. And I know many of the other affiliates also offer that with one of our programs, the Play Project. It's specific for children on the spectrum or children who are going through the spectrum. That is a statewide program in Florida. I know many other states also have the same program through the Easter Seals affiliates. That program can be done via telehealth. So we're able to connect with families who may not be located near a physical location. [00:23:09] Speaker C: Excellent. Yeah, that telehealth stuff, isn't that just kind of amazing that we just. I think people have always knew it could happen or thought about it, but there was always that fear around that you would never be able to do as good of a job as you could in person. And now it's just kind of the. The thing that people do. It really is a lot of telehealth. [00:23:36] Speaker B: I think the online screening tool is similar in that it can identify children's needs, including autism. But then screenings for diagnosis and interventions should really be done by healthcare providers and we can help refer parents to that. So regardless of where they are in the country, Easter Seals can help and really be with them every step of the way as they access interventions for their children. And as Jen said, it's getting them connected with the services and supports they need that really goes a long way to helping their children. [00:24:11] Speaker C: What kind of training does your staff or therapists have to meet in order to have all such a diverse to understand how to serve such diverse needs of children? [00:24:30] Speaker A: I think it's going to depend on the individual program as to what specific training they have. For most of our programs, they have some sort of therapy degree or education background for early intervention. And then we provide them with the very program specific training that they need depending on the model that we're using. [00:25:02] Speaker C: You just not too long ago released a holiday gift guide. What inspired Easter Seals to create such a sensory holiday gift guide like that? So it's been just your first time doing it? [00:25:18] Speaker A: It actually is. And. And we're not done. We. We launched the first three. But sensory. Sensory gift guides was something that we knew we wanted to put out based on inquiries from parents when they see the tools that we use in our classrooms or in our community based programs that help guide children in their development. Again, what we use is all play based. So we wanted to be able to provide families with some suggestions of things that they could incorporate in their home or give as gifts to children who may need those sensory diet items in order to just regulate their own systems. So we worked to put out these sensory guides. And specifically what we launched was the auditory, tactile and visual sensory guides. It was important for us to distinguish between those because everybody's sensory needs are different from adults and children. So what is in our guides is not specific for children. Adults also could use and work with some of the things that we put out, but it just depends on what kind of sensory input an individual is needing. And it varies because if you have someone who becomes very overstimulated visually, you probably don't want to give them something with visual stimulation. You want to work towards something else that they may respond better to. And in doing so, what was important for us was that families recognize that not all sensory processing is the same. And we wanted to be able to break that up for families. [00:27:30] Speaker C: How are the items selected? [00:27:34] Speaker A: A lot of items, as I mentioned, are things that we use. A lot of items, for me specifically were items that I used with my children. One of my daughters has a sensory processing disorder, and they were just tools that she responded really well to. They were tools that our therapists use as part of regulating our sensory processing kiddos. So it's just tried and true practiced items. [00:28:10] Speaker C: Can you give some example of some of the sensory toys listed in the guide? [00:28:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. So children who are auditory learners really hone in on sound, and it's a way of calming and regulating their systems to have those auditory senses stimulated. So working with sound machines, which can have a variety of different types of sounds, from rain to whale noises, to maybe some background instrumental music, all of that would be stimulating to an auditory learner and actually help ground them. Rain sticks are another great one. Or egg shakers. Any sort of instrumental tool would work really well for an auditory learner. There's also something called a tubaloo phone, which works as a phone, but it magnifies their own voice back to their ear. So they're creating their own stimulation there. [00:29:24] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [00:29:25] Speaker A: And for tactile learners, it's going to be anything that is touchy, feely, anything that gives that stimulation through senses and touch. So a lot of thinking putty or sensory bins that have a lot of material that they can manipulate with their hands, play foam shaving cream, even. [00:29:54] Speaker C: Things. [00:29:55] Speaker A: That you could easily do in a bathtub with a child that then has easy cleanup associated with it. And. And then anything that provides resistance for a tactile learner. So something that would suction on a table or anything that would create that resistance tactile wise, or things that they could feel. And then for visual Learners is just input through the eyes. So things that they could see. We have a variety of items listed on our gift guide that provide that, such as glow sticks. There are something called Lumi pets, which offer just a variety of soft lights that could change colors. One of the things that we have in all of our classrooms is for our visual learners are projectors that project the night sky onto the wall. And we use those during nap time in certain areas of the classrooms. And again, putty, thinking putty that have material in them for them to seek and find would be another one that we would include. [00:31:21] Speaker C: You know, honestly, I feel like I've used some of those toys with my own kids, and I feel like these are good regardless of if you have a sensory issue or not. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. [00:31:36] Speaker C: A lot of the time you see the term expert approved. So toys listed can get expert approved. Like experts suggest these talk a little bit about, is there anything to that? Like, what does that mean? What experience do the experts have? Do they sit and play all day? How do we know? Like, how do they approve these? What's that standard? [00:32:04] Speaker A: So with our guides, we absolutely would ask that you follow the manufacturer's guidelines for age limits. Regarding those, that's important to mention because not all of the items are going to be appropriate for the type of disability or the age associated with the child. But in terms of expert approval, I would say that these are items, again, that we use in our therapy programs and in our classrooms. So we know that these work to providing the kind of sensory regulation that the children that we work with would require, whether they're lacking in sensory stimulation, whether they're seeking or whether they're avoiders. That matters as to the type of tool and how you respond to their reaction to it. So all of these items that we have on our gift guides have all been used by our therapists and our classroom teachers. [00:33:18] Speaker C: When you have a list of gifts, suggestions, like, do you have any tips or ideas in the guide for families on, like, how to use their. Their gifts, like how they. What kind of things they can do to play with their kids and interact? [00:33:38] Speaker A: So with some of our descriptions in the gift guides, we offer how you can use it. So I'm going to give you the example of the egg shaker, which is part of our auditory gift guide. The egg shaker allows for auditory stimulation through movement. So you would use this through movement. It's perfect for little hands with adult supervision. Great for working on fine motor skills as well, because it's something that they have to grip and Shake. So it works on your fine motor skills and your auditory processing skills at the same time. And that is something that we would work with with a therapist in home or in a classroom if that was the child's needs. So we do try to give a little snippet of how you would use this. We've also done that on our Facebook page where we'll give little tips and tricks along the way as what you can do with particular items. [00:34:39] Speaker C: It would be cool to see a section that had like little games that you might be able to play with the child. I feel like sometimes as good intentioned as parents are, and I think a lot of us are, we lack imagination or we just kind of feel like, okay, how do we, how do we actually start something with this? So I think there's some amount to be said about giving some independent free play. But also teaching a person how to interact can sometimes be very, very bonding as well as teaching. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you know what, that's a great suggestion that we will absolutely follow up on. I will say through our community programs when we speak about supporting families, this is exactly what we do. So we'll bring these items in and often we'll leave families with items so that they can practice for the week that we're not there on how to use these items specifically to help their child's development. [00:35:50] Speaker C: And in this way though too, it could also guide parents who might not be using your services. So I'm curious, are the toys bought through you or through a company? [00:36:04] Speaker A: No, they're not bought through us specifically. Some of our gift guides that we've put out we've linked to Amazon as a way that they can easily access what we are recommending here. But it's not something that we specifically have. [00:36:23] Speaker C: So how can listeners or people who are interested access the gift guide? And is the gift guide free? [00:36:32] Speaker A: The gift guide is absolutely free. It's linked on our website@easter seals.com Florida. It's under our School for Limitless Learning. We have a guide button that's called Sensory Friendly Gift Guide. I believe it's also available on our Facebook page which is easterseals Florida School for Limitless Learning. [00:37:01] Speaker C: What do you feel some of the common challenges are for that families face during the holiday season with children with disabilities? [00:37:15] Speaker A: Sensory overload for a child is big around the holiday time. There's a lot of unfamiliar things that are happening. Foods that they may not be used to travel that's outside of their normal routine, family that they may not be around on a regular basis. So there's just a lot of stimulation that's outside of their normal routines. So we actually put out on our Facebook page last week, I believe just some holiday tips for families that they could use during these high sensory times. And overall the takeaway would be just try to maintain a regular routine as much as you can and try to bring in aspects of the child's normal everyday life whenever you can. Make sure your child has some downtime away from stimulation, bring familiar items if you're traveling, make sure you have familiar foods at the holiday table that they can draw on if they need to and just be responsive to what you see their needs. Might be. [00:38:44] Speaker C: Some overall good advice. Yeah, because you know, families, they want to, they want to do they want to be able to get together too and but the best without too much turmoil, hopefully. Sometimes I realize that could be hard. So do you have thoughts of any future initiatives or programs that easterseals is planning to support with early childhood development? Are there any inclusion, any new ones coming up? [00:39:25] Speaker B: Well, I don't know about new ones, but we know that the need for intervention across the country has never been greater. And I think one of the things that Easter Seals affiliates, just like Jen's in Florida have done so effectively over decades is innovating, creating a toy guide, looking for ways to better support families not just during the holidays but all year long. And I think it's wonderful that regardless of where you are in the country, you can go to easterseals.com and either use our screening tool to better help identify, you know, what your child's needs might be and then access services in your community, maybe through an easterseals affiliate or with our assistance in finding other resources if they're not available. One of the things, and I'm sure Jen can speak to it, that I think we do exceptionally well is around inclusion and Jen touched on it, making early intervention services as inclusive as possible so that children, regardless of the challenges they face or the disabilities they may have, can engage in an experience, an educational experience that's meaningful and fulfilling and fun. [00:40:48] Speaker C: I am curious to know, I think, excuse me, some of the difficulty or harder things could be when you have a child with a disability in a multi child family. And depending on the disability it could make it harder for siblings to know or understand how to interact. I'm wondering if you do any kind of education and if anything to parents or get in there with the all the siblings and kind of teach them ways that they can interact and play with the child. [00:41:31] Speaker B: Absolutely. In Many of our affiliates, the entire family is engaged in services, supports, and programs, including siblings, is very important. And many of our affiliates identify ways of bringing families together for the reasons you cite, so that children without disabilities can play and enjoy relationships that are meaningful with their siblings. Actually comes very naturally to most children. But the other thing I think that's really critical, especially around high stress times like this, is respite services for families, for parents. I know of affiliates that offer respite services so that, you know, mom or dad can maybe go and actually shop without children in tow, you know, or maybe they can just have a few hours to themselves. Several of our affiliates offer respite services such as that. And I think for families, that really helps, especially when there are children involved without disabilities. Giving mom or dad an extra hour to be able to focus unimpeded on them while not caring for their child with disabilities is really helpful. But I'm sure Jen can speak to this too. [00:43:00] Speaker A: Yes, we actually do offer with our affiliate sibling support programs specifically. It's not a service area that I currently oversee, but we do offer it within our network of programs in Florida. It is a sibling support program specifically for children who will learn how to interact with their siblings in a positive and engaging manner. We also offer family support programs. One of the programs that I do oversee is called the Incredible Years, which is a nationally recognized program for supporting families through mental health and social emotional issues. And it works in a group therapy setting where the children and the family and the parents come together for a common goal. But that just goes to support the whole family, including the siblings as well. [00:44:02] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I just have a little story I wanted to share because I. I really feel passionate about this because I feel like, you know, you talked about kids, it being kind of natural for kids to interact, but I do think sometimes it's difficult and kids watch the parents. And so if the parents don't do well or have problems with it, the kids will too. And this overflows because kids bring friends to the house, and then the friends treat, you know, the child with a disability. However, their siblings, you know, it's a teaching moment. Right. So I. I remember growing up and knowing a family who had like six or seven kids. It was a lot of kids, and one of the children was deafblind. And I don't know how she did it. I commend her now as an adult, thinking back, but she. Each one of the kids, like one or two of the kids, would be responsible for taking a half hour of their day out. So she would assign one or two children each day to take a half hour and play with that child. And so that child was always included at some point every day of the week. And then the parents, you know, had their time. And I feel like that was so amazing. And I don't think that that happens a lot. And so anyway, that was just a story that I of a family that I knew growing up that I felt like did an exceptional job with including their child. And I. I just can't stress enough how that is like a daily thing, not just a couple times a week or when you feel like it. But I'm wondering if you have any stories of how, you know, early childhood intervention or whatever has affected kids with disabilities or done some great things for them. [00:46:12] Speaker A: So I will say recently, within our own school, we have a child on the spectrum who is non verbal and becomes easily frustrated when trying to communicate. And her message is not getting across. So our staff has been working very closely with her and our on site play therapists to figure out what she responds with. Well, and maximizing on that. And we have a lovely story of where one of the other children in the classroom who is verbal was just observing and watching. And about a month into school, the little girl was becoming agitated and she walked over with one of the sensory balls that we use to provide gentle pressure for calming and she started rubbing it on her back. Oh, and it was such a good story, Such a sweet connection moment. The only thing that prompted that is she's observed our teachers doing it and she observed how it worked and she was able to help her friend regulate. [00:47:42] Speaker C: See kids, yeah, kids really do watch adults. So all you parents out there who think that the siblings aren't paying attention or kids, they totally are, they watch what you do, they watch how you deal with things and they emulate that. I'm wondering, how can people support easterseals mission and programs throughout the year? [00:48:07] Speaker B: Sam, thank you. Thank you for this time too. They can go to easterseals.com for information to access the screening tool or to find support in their area. We're happy to help any parent. I just wanted to build on what Jen, the story Jen just told because I think it's important. Easter Seals has a relationship with Cherry Lake Publishing, which creates books that encourage acceptance and inclusion. And they're really for children grades two through five. They can be accessed on our website, easterseals.com and in fact, one of the children who's featured in our television commercials, you may have seen Jackson actually authored a book. Jackson is a young man who has cerebral palsy, and he authored his own book. I think these books really are helpful both to children, to your point, to make them more comfortable around children with disabilities, but also to parents in terms of how they educate their children about children with disabilities, differences and similarities. And I couldn't agree with you more that children do what they learn, and if parents are equipped to talk to them openly and honestly about disability, then they give their children a level of comfort in engaging with other children who might have disabilities. So, again, just go to easterseals.com to either support us or to learn about services and supports for your children or anyone with a disability. [00:49:48] Speaker C: Ladies, I'm wondering if there's anything else you'd like to leave us with before we wrap it up. [00:49:54] Speaker B: Sam, this is Kendra. Again, I just want to thank you because I think conversations like this beget other conversations. Easterseals is all about empowerment and inclusivity and education about what disability is and what it is not. And the sooner we learn, in other words, the earlier, the younger we learn how to treat people with respect and dignity and be inclusive and be equitable, the more empowering we can be of all people with disabilities. So really appreciate your opportunity to shine a light on the toy giving guide that Jen and her colleagues at easterseals Florida have produced and on Easter Seals writ large. [00:50:40] Speaker C: Anything more? [00:50:41] Speaker A: Jen, I just want to thank you for the opportunity and the time that we can share. For us, sometimes navigating the world of services can be challenging with a recent diagnosis at a young age with a child. And we want everyone to know that Easter Seals is here to support them. And if we can't do it ourselves, we will find community members that we can absolutely connect them with. They're not alone. We are here to support the family. [00:51:17] Speaker C: Thank you both for being willing to give your time and beyond. And this show works because people like you are giving your time and I really appreciate it. So thank you very much. I hope you guys have great holidays and a long, long lasting future for Easterseals. Thank you. [00:51:37] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thanks, Sam. [00:51:38] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:51:41] Speaker C: You are tuned to KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis and KFAI.org this is disability on Progress. We bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. The views expressed in this show are not necessarily those of KFAI or its board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the producer of this show. Charlene Dahl is my volunteer person and PR person. Miguel is the engineer for this show. Today. Erin is my podcaster. Special thanks to KFAI for allowing me to do this program. Without them, this would be harder to do and not as easy to reach as many people as we are a global program. Also want to remind you that if you'd like to be on my email list, you can email me at disabilityandprogressamjasmin.com we're speaking with Kendra Davenport. Kendra is the President and CEO of National Easter Seals. And Jen Zephyrman, who is the Vice President of Programs for easterseals Florida. Thanks so much for listening. Goodbye KPI.