Stories from the Family Support Training Project

My name is Svetlana. I got wonderful time when I visited TASH Family Support training. That meeting helped me see many things otherwise. Before training I felt loneliness. I spoke never about my child with others. Exception are family, which almost always prosecuted me that I gave birth to sick child, and they was ashamed that. World always dispensed powerless and discrepant, particular in my country. In the fall training I liked talk and talk about my life experiences, and I liked listen other stories too.

After training I reconsidered many of my actions and opinions. Relationship and understanding between my daughter and me much better. Also, most of the training I liked when we selected what are more important things were in parents family and in our family in present time. Very interesting observation: most of participants of the training didn’t have enough love and understanding in them parents families! That shocked me for some time, because I thought that in my case God punish me to give me unhealthy child, because I keep hurt in my heart from my difficult childhood…

In the future training I would like talk how I can do limit my mother’s guarding. I worry about my daughter overly. For example:

She wears warm or light?
She hungry or she is eating overly?
How she sleep at night (I am going to see)
Why she trust and like any people (that is dangerously)
She can fall down when she walking and running

I worry about any nothing by that I harass myself and her. In conclusion, I want tell my appreciated for all people who work in TASH and all participants. Be patience, have a hope, and love never leaves from you home! Good luck!

P.S. Sorry about grammatical mistakes, I try to study English.

Svetlana sent us this letter after participating in a TASH Family Support Training event in Seattle, Washington. We have posted this with her permission to share her story with others. The TASH Family Support Training project was held in 12 states and two U.S. territories with the intentional focus of bringing together participants of different ethnicities, cultural backgrounds and languages. Individuals with disabilities from diverse backgrounds experience disparities in education, employment and health. The TASH Family Support Training project addressed these disparities through guided discussions and interactive exercises designed to get people thinking and talking about their experiences. Participants in the training sessions were equipped with knowledge and skills to successfully advocate on behalf of themselves and their family members. The TASH Family Support Training project was supported by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities. To learn more about this project, e-mail Haley Kimmet at hkimmet@tash.org or call (202) 540-9015.