Posted: March 23, 2015
Parents tackle obstacles in a wide variety of creative and unique ways. Parents of children with Cerebral Palsy face even more challenges to overcome for their child (and family), making their journey even more unique. When it comes to travel, depending upon the severity of the child’s Cerebral Palsy, it can be a nightmare for parents to find the proper accommodations, activities and more. One mom took this challenge head-on and did something quite impressive in the process with a company called Special Globe.
Meghann Harris has a child with Rett Syndrome and is well aware of the challenges faced by parents of children with special needs. After having the name ‘SpecialGlobe’ come to her in the middle of the night, Harris set to work binding her passion for travel with the challenges involved with having a child with special needs. While the journey began there, it has since come to include Harris’ childhood friend Jonathan Yardley and become a truly unique company.
Special Globe is a website and organization dedicated to helping parents of children with special needs book travel around necessary accommodations. Having traveled extensively, Harris used her own notes, trips and more to create itineraries that could best serve other parents looking to travel. The company has also paired with destinations to provide specials and more. Even more interesting, the site encourages families to contribute blog posts and tips for traveling all in the greater interest of making the journey less difficult.
Special Globe is important because it not only demonstrates a valuable option for parents of children with special needs that are looking to travel, but also the union of personal experience with professional desire. While the company is still in its infancy and has great potential to grow, it can also serve as a symbol to parents of children with special needs about what they might be able to do with the information they collect while parenting.
Like Special Globe, MyChild was born out of the union of professional experience with personal interest. Our founder, Ken Stern, had spent years working with children who suffered birth injuries and found a massive gap in the assistance provided to all children. Out of that came MyChild and CerebralPalsy.org, a merger of research and organizational efforts with a keen interest in helping children who live with Cerebral Palsy. Each team member of MyChild uses a skillset developed outside of the world of CP to help families each day.
You don’t need to create a travel company to utilize your amazing strengths as a parent of a child with special needs. Instead, we highly encourage parents to find a strength they can put to work to help others and themselves. Whether blogging, photography, art, music… who knows what wonderful idea you could develop by simply examining what you already do!
Congratulations to the team at Special Globe and we hope that their journey helps inspire you to find a new opportunity, however large, for you and your family!
If you have a child with Cerebral Palsy and are interested in finding out how we can help, please do not hesitate to call us at (800) 692-4453
(800) 692-4453 FREE or fill out our contact form at your convenience. Our resources are vast and may be able to help you in ways you never imagined!
