Have you ever wondered what it takes to champion the needs of children with special needs in your community? Join us on the latest episode of Not an Island podcast as Amanda and Todd share their rollercoaster journey of advocacy, from Todd's spirited campaign for the local school board to the inspiring stories of parents making a difference. Despite not winning the seat, Todd's campaign was a monumental effort toward representing children in a district with the highest percentage of special needs students in Texas. Listen as we unpack the trials, triumphs, and the essential connections made along the way, all aimed at creating a better future for special needs education.
We're also shedding light on the incredible power of community support with tales from a 5k/10k run organized by dedicated mothers, and our groundbreaking initiatives for special education training. Discover how effective training for school staff, general education teachers, and paraeducators can revolutionize the learning environment for children with special needs. Hear about our passion for extending this essential training to churches and missionaries, ensuring global support for these children everywhere. Get ready to be inspired and motivated to become an advocate in your own community!
Have you ever wondered what it takes to champion the needs of children with special needs in your community? Join us on the latest episode of Not an Island podcast as Amanda and Todd share their rollercoaster journey of advocacy, from Todd's spirited campaign for the local school board to the inspiring stories of parents making a difference. Despite not winning the seat, Todd's campaign was a monumental effort toward representing children in a district with the highest percentage of special needs students in Texas. Listen as we unpack the trials, triumphs, and the essential connections made along the way, all aimed at creating a better future for special needs education.
We're also shedding light on the incredible power of community support with tales from a 5k/10k run organized by dedicated mothers, and our groundbreaking initiatives for special education training. Discover how effective training for school staff, general education teachers, and paraeducators can revolutionize the learning environment for children with special needs. Hear about our passion for extending this essential training to churches and missionaries, ensuring global support for these children everywhere. Get ready to be inspired and motivated to become an advocate in your own community!
Hi and welcome to our 13th episode of Not an Island podcast. We are that podcast where faith, family and autism meet. We're your hosts. I'm Todd, I'm Amanda, we're the Johnsons and we have a super fun episode for you today. We're giving an update on why we haven't had any episodes for a little while. I'm going to let Amanda lead us off on really what's going on, what's been going on in our family, in our life and, yeah, yeah, life's been crazy in the best way.
Amanda:
We started this podcast with the intention, obviously, to bring some hope and just some encouragement to families who felt isolated, because we've been through that season and I think this season of life for Todd and I and our family has just been one of great advocacy. There's been so many doors open up to us to be able to advocate and use our voice to make a difference for other children in the autism community, including our own, which is very important to us. But I just wanted Todd to share. One of the doors that opened to us was a whole campaign he just got through running for our local school board, the school that our son Ezra attends.
Todd:
Actually, yeah, I didn't make it so big. Spoiler alert, I wasn't the chosen one. But the whole reason I ran for school board. Well, I'll say the whole reason. One of the main reasons I ran for school board at this school is just because in the history of this specific school well, we were told this anyway in the history of this school, there hasn't been anyone on the school board who specifically represents or has first-person experience with special needs.
Amanda:
Yeah, isn't that crazy.
Todd:
Yeah, and so that's something that we wanted to push very hard is for there to be some changes made, not only at this school, but across our state, with, in regards to special needs, their services, really training for staff, for everyone, from top to bottom, you know, and we learned a lot along the way.
Amanda:
So it was such an incredible opportunity, I feel like, for us to really meet the community that we're in. Todd and I, um, are originally from this area, but from different towns than what we currently live in, Um, and a lot of you may not know this, but Todd was in the air force and we lived overseas for quite a few years of our marriage.
Todd:
Seven years.
Amanda:
Seven years. I got pregnant with Ezra overseas and then we moved back home and so we're it feels like we're new to this area, so a lot of people didn't know who we are in this community and I just thought it was a really, really cool opportunity to get to meet the community and to get to share what's on our heart. Regarding children with special needs, I know you. You know the exact percentage of special needs children within the school district.
Todd:
Yeah, based off a 2020 census, our region in Texas has the highest per capita we'll just say highest percentage of children in the public school system that have special needs. The Northeast Texas district does this region and our school district and I'm not going to say the name of the school district, but our school district specifically has the highest percentage of children with special needs. So it's it's so vital that they're represented well. And, like she said, we went to we, you know, during the campaign, I got to go meet people. I got to, you know, meet new people who I wouldn't have met otherwise, who really are movers and shakers in our community. People who um will be able to help us, regardless of if I made school board or not, be able to help us push this stuff, push this agenda and push these families into good representation, if that makes sense. Push the school to represent these children well.
Amanda:
And it's so important for us as a family of a son who struggles to communicate and the children who he goes to school with. Some of them, you know, are still nonverbal and there's no one you know to really stand in the gap and be a voice for them. And so I thought this was such an incredible thing, and, even though Todd didn't make it, I know that, um, like he said, we made these connections with vital people who can help us make a difference for these kids, even if it's at a local level, and the reason we're sharing this as well is we just want to encourage you guys to step into your advocacy season. Start going to events in your local town if they're having them, create events if they don't. This is so needed, and he just explained the percentages and how high the rates are here, and for the longest time, there has been no support, there's been no advocacy. There's there's been little to nothing happening in our, in our area, and so to see things begin to happen is just. It's just amazing.
Amanda:
Yeah, it really is. It really is and it's. It's amazing to be a part of it.
Todd:
Yeah, for sure. We um, I'll say this that that during the uh, during the campaign, you know it, it was eyeopening. First off, if you do want to do something like this, know this that a campaign is not just a couple of weeks and you're done. It may look like that to a lot of people on the outside, but it's a lot of work. It takes months. It takes friends who are saying, yes, I will back you. It takes people who will put their money where their mouth is, literally will give you money, donate to help push your agenda, whatever it may be. And if you're watching this, odds are, your agenda is to advocate for special needs, and that is a. It's a hard road to go down, but it's so worth it Because, like I said, we met so many amazing people and you know what A lot of these people. They have no firsthand experience with special needs, but their hearts are so big and we'll get into that a little bit more in this episode.
Amanda:
But when they hear your story and they see your eyes face to face and they realize even a portion of what you're going through, I think it does pull on their heart strings, it moves them. And I just wanted to add in this that it was Todd running, but our whole family was so involved. Ezra, absolutely. He was on cloud nine because we had to put out signs everywhere with daddy's name on it and he was the professional sign putter outer.
Todd:
Oh yeah.
Amanda:
He had the best time and we'd be driving through town and be like it's daddy's sign. You know, he's just so excited for it and, even though I don't think he has full understanding, it was just a really cool thing for our whole family. It was.
Todd:
Yeah, he, uh. Once the campaign was over, we had to collect our signs and this kid was putting signs all through our yard Like it was. It was over. Todd didn't win, but you could. If you came to our house, you would think I'm still running it was.
Todd:
It was a mess, but um, but yeah, it was, it was really good. You know, uh, during this, I guess some lessons learned during this whole thing is, like I said, people's hearts are big. For the most part, people are going to want to get behind um advocating for special needs. For the most part, there are going to want to get behind advocating for special needs for the most part.
Todd:
There are people here and there who may not advocate, but for the most part, I want to share this with you as a parent to a child with special needs. If that's you most people they don't have bad intentions. Most people, they don't know what they don't know and it's up to you to be the person to bridge the gap. And as a parent, you know, a lot of times we get defensive, we get into this clamshell mode where it's me and my little chickies. But the truth is there are people who just don't know but want to, and they want to help, and it's up to you to be that person to bridge the gap. Like I said, there's a quote that I heard the other day and it's you are the leader that you are looking for If. If you're looking for someone to lead in your community and advocating for special needs, well, to be honest with you, there's not a ton of special needs parents who have the energy and the strength to advocate.
Todd:
And I, we totally you're probably that leader, yeah, so uh, if you're watching this and you're passionate about it, odds are you have the passion to advocate. Here's your sign.
Amanda:
Yeah, for sure. But yeah, that's just been a part of what has been happening. The podcast itself began to open up doors for us to attend events and you guys have probably seen we set up our little table and we get to talk to people about what we're doing. But in that, the stories that we're hearing, just the things that people are going through, is just unreal, honestly, both good and bad, I think, learning that the majority, I think of children with special needs. They don't have what Todd and I have, they don't have mom and dad on board fighting for them, and sometimes it's single mom, sometimes it's a single dad, sometimes it's a grandmother or a great grandmother.
Todd:
Sometimes it's foster parents.
Amanda:
Sometimes it's foster parents, and we've met all of the above. We've met many children recently. They've been adopted at birth and you know their parents didn't know that they'd have autism or special needs, and so it's just, it's been an amazing thing to hear everybody's story and and to find you know the the void that needs to be filled For sure.
Todd:
For sure, and also we met a lot of resources.
Amanda:
That's what's crazy.
Todd:
Guys, we went to this 5k, 10k run and we want to have those people here, the people who put it together. It's amazing.
Amanda:
They're incredible.
Todd:
A quick story. It's five moms who got together and they and these are moms to children with autism specifically, and they said we need to advocate and how can we do this. So they put together a 5k 10k run and raised money for children with autism to receive therapies off of the funds that this run makes.
Todd:
So I'm telling you it's their 13th year doing it. It's in Tyler, texas. If you have the ability to go next year to Tyler in April, you need to do it. It's in Tyler, texas. If you have the ability to go next year to Tyler in April, you need to do it. We will be pushing for it. You will see us interviewing them, hopefully, um. If not, we'll definitely be putting links everywhere for it when it comes again. But um, it's their 13th year doing it and they had over 2000,. I think almost maybe over 3000 runners um the money they raised, and the, the, the.
Todd:
the big thing that really hit me, though, was the community. There was a whole parking lot of a church. It was a big parking lot full of booths and we were just one of them. There were booths from all kinds of places, from small businesses in the area that support to therapy centers all the way to full blown, like resources, like there's one a family to help your child with autism or any type of special needs for that matter. Achieve the things that God has put in your life, yes, life, so.
Amanda:
I think the most incredible part about that 5k is hearing from one of the ladies who helped start it and knowing that they this is not how it started their first year. You know the turnout was extremely minimal but they kept going year after year.
Amanda:
And the more people who they looked face to face and told their story to their hearts. Like we said, we're bigger than and what they knew and they just began giving and the sponsorship, uh, to put something like that on is just incredible, like the amount of money that goes into that and resources and everything, and yeah, we, it has us like let's have that in our town. You know, we want that for for the families that are here as well.
Todd:
Yeah, we'll see. Hopefully we can make it happen. But yeah, so we had that happen, we had the campaign, what else?
Amanda:
Yes, also, I wanted you to talk about this idea of working for a training.
Todd:
So with this campaign came one of the main things that I was going to be pushing for, which I talked to our superintendent about. I they're welcome to be there, but the training isn't geared toward them. The training is geared towards administration staff, general education teachers, paraeducators. So this is a cold truth, cold, hard truth. A lot of people who go to get their degree in education, administration, they only get a few chapters on special education. They get taught the laws, they get taught the rules and how things are supposed to go, but they don't really get much in-depth on how to care for these children.
Amanda:
And it's crazy because the law for the school is the least restrictive environment, which means most of these teachers have children with special needs in their classroom full time.
Todd:
And so they're kind of thrown to the wolves, these teachers, a lot of them, are thrown to the wolves, especially paraeducators. A lot of them are thrown into situations with minimal training and it creates what it creates, these horror stories that you hear about. Don't send your kid to this school special needs because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's not. Once again, it's not that people are treating children bad.
Amanda:
Well, in some cases it is, but we won't get into that.
Todd:
but yeah, Well, I mean, it's not that people are treating children bad intentionally, for the most part, they don't understand they don't understand how to work with these children. So we are creating a training, we've already been starting to do it and we have a few places that are willing to let us have it, uh, willing to host the training. And if you, as a parent, would like us to come to your school, if you're in the area, let us know, send us an email, not an island podcast.
Amanda:
We're creating a training from a parent's perspective, so it's an introductory to our child, you know, and I think that that is such a huge thing. Um, and then there's a lot of interactive things that he has ideas for, with a lot of interactive trainings and stuff for it.
Todd:
It's going to be fun. It's not going to be death by PowerPoint, it's actually going to be a blast.
Todd:
So, yeah, but we want, we want people to understand okay, a child's having a meltdown? Well, let's look back at the hour prior to it, or maybe just the whole day, like, what are the triggers? What are the triggers? What are the? What are the ways that you can see, okay, this kid's having an off day? We need to give them a little more attention than we normally would. Or, um, how can we get through communicatively if that's a word to this child who may be non-verbal? Like, everything is communication, all behavior is communication. How do we, how do we break through that? So we are excited to be doing this training. Uh, that was one of the main reasons I was running for school board was to implement that and to replicate it at other schools.
Amanda:
We already had this idea and we were already. You were already on the horn like trying to get a hold of people, um, you know, with some sort of power to make changes, to help bring changes to like, or funding to therapies and things like that. He was already just in this kind of thing when we were approached about running for school board and I think all of it has been wild, but it has just been so, so amazing.
Todd:
I'm so grateful for all of it and even though you didn't bring home the trophy, it really, at the end of the day, you still have their ears and I think that that's the most important thing that we wanted to accomplish, so for sure, and the coolest part about running for school board is that when I met the person who I was in competition with and it's such a harsh word, competition, the person I was in competition with, you know, when we met, it was really cool because she was pushing for very similar things, just not in the SPED community. And so when we got to meet and talk about why we're running, we looked at each other and said listen, whoever wins is going to help the other person push their agenda, so um such a beautiful thing I'm telling you this uh, the lady who who won, she is absolutely amazing and she is the right person for the job.
Todd:
So I'm just glad that, win or lose, we still got to get done what we were trying to get done and we still, uh, have the ears of our school. We still have the ears of our district, our region. And a little side note this training that we're wanting to push, that we're building, isn't specifically for school districts that are independent school districts.
Amanda:
Yes, I wanted to add that. I'm glad you remembered.
Todd:
Go ahead.
Amanda:
Go ahead. We're really passionate about also bringing this to the body of Christ, helping churches to learn how to navigate these children because it's such a real thing that there are parents sitting at home that cannot go to church because their child has such severe needs or is very overwhelmed and to have an environment where someone is understanding or can relate in some way, I think it makes all the difference. We also have been speaking with a really good friend of ours who is heavily involved in the school system for missions, and our heart is like, yes, we want to train missionaries with this too. This is not just a USA thing. Like all around the world, there are children going through these same things and and there are teachers out there on the mission field teaching who who need to know how to deal with these children as well and love them, rightly, you know, and just see them for the see the gold that's within them and pull it out.
Amanda:
And so, yeah, I, I think I'm excited to where there's no limits, you know, to where advocacy, advocacy could go.
Todd:
Yeah, yeah. So, with that being said, not just schools. If you are at a church and you would like us to do some training, it doesn't even have to be in person. We can do like, zoom, zoom stuff we can. We can send you the curriculum, the training that we're building and we can do some stuff over Zoom and you do the practical stuff with your church. We want to see churches rise up and accept these families into the fold because, as you know, as a parent with special needs and as we know, the life can be lonely and, once again, I don't think it's because people don't care, I think it's because they don't know how to care and uh, yeah if that's, you, go ahead and send us an email Like I said, it's not an island podcast at gmailcom.
Todd:
I'll leave it right down here for you, so yeah.
Amanda:
I just wanted to add to that that these children are so precious to the Lord and they are vital to the kingdom of God. They are and I know we've said that on another episode with our friend Christina, but it's the truth they offer something that no one else could, and God uniquely designed these kids.
Todd:
And.
Amanda:
I just want to encourage you that, just because your child is struggling socially or maybe they're having meltdowns when you're going into church, know that they're vital. They are and their life is going to teach other people so many valuable lessons and teach them the true love of Christ.
Todd:
So yeah, your child is not less than.
Amanda:
No.
Todd:
Your child is not misbehaving. That's not the core of what they're doing. They might have moments of misbehavior, but that's not who they are. Just lift your chin up and know that there are people out there who are trying to make a difference. Yes, and it really like we keep going back to it relies on you to help make that happen. Yeah, and we're going to need you to help make that happen. Um, and we're going to need you to help make that happen.
Amanda:
Yeah, we're just like a speck in, you know, in the grand scheme.
Todd:
But once, once, you know, once again, like we always say, our podcast is called, not an island. It's to let you know that you're not alone. Well, there are so many parents who still feel alone. With that being said, I mean share this podcast, just share any type of resources you come across that are related to autism. Share it with friends that you have that are affected by special needs.
Amanda:
Some of these resources are truly groundbreaking and life-changing for families and they just don't know. They're out there. Honestly, we didn't know that so many things existed, and it's amazing to know that there's so much happening For sure.
Todd:
Well, guys, that's what we've been up to for the past few months. We're sorry we dropped off the map.
Amanda:
Sorry, we've been MIA.
Todd:
But we will be jumping back on this bandwagon and sharing more. We have a lot of interviews we need to get caught up on.
Amanda:
And we are very, very excited so many local people who are involved in therapy and involved with special needs children in some way that we're going to start interviewing and I'm so excited to introduce you to people in our community who are making a difference.
Todd:
Yeah, and if you have a crazy awesome story or you are already advocating or you're representing people, we would love to get in contact with you. Once again, shoot us an email. We, we really are looking. We're looking for people to interview, we're looking for people to reach out to uh and we're looking for for resources for families to to to uh, glue to, if that makes sense to to pull themselves to. So, um, we would love to connect what you're doing with other families.
Amanda:
Yeah, so yeah.
Todd:
Yeah, but, uh. But once again, that's it for this podcast. We are Todd and Amanda, we're not an island podcast, and until next time, peace you.