FND DADVOCATES Welcome Packet

Dadvocates is a network of dads that promotes the involvement of fathers in the lives of their children with disabilities. This program is intended to help provide father-to-father support throughout Florida. We can provide your group with specific workshop topics or you can just meet for:

• Father-to-Father networking
• Community outings
• Information and resources
• Help with personal coping
• Sense of unity

What if your child was found to have extraordinary skills in a sport? Recruiters were telling you “your child could really be someone awesome in this sport.” Wouldn’t you do everything you could to make sure they got all the help they needed to be great? You would practice with them making sure they had the best coaches so they could become the best ball player ever. It is important that our children hear from us that “We believe in them and they can do it.” All parents want the best for their children.

But what if they have special challenges? Wouldn’t they need all the help we could give them? Wouldn’t it be even more important that they got all the coaching they needed? Wouldn’t it be even more important for them to hear their dad say, “I believe in you and you can do it?”

It is clear that no one has greater potential to speak into a child’s life and to help shape their identity than their father. If your child is struggling, you as their father can have one of the greatest impacts on their lives.

So how would I know if my child might need some extra help from me? Often times a pediatrician (child’s doctor), or the school may identify where your child might be struggling. They may recommend that your child be evaluated for a physical1 or developmental delay.

This is a good thing because if my child is struggling, the support of their dad will be crucial. Once we know of their challenge, we can begin to research and identify strategies that may help our child. If the evaluators turn out to be wrong, it just means that our child received extra help that they may not have actually needed. It is important that we err on the side of being overly cautious rather than taking a “wait and see” approach. Again, if we are wrong it just means that my child will get help to “kick a ball even sooner” than the other kids.

So, how do I know if my child may need to be evaluated? This brochure will list what a child should be able to do during the first two years of life. There is also information on how we can intervene to help them. Each child develops differently and your child may not be developing like this material is describing. That is why it is so important that we get evaluations if we are at all concerned with their development.

Click below to download our DADVOCATES brochure.