Background

Parents of children with special needs must first be informed about their rights and have access to resources where they can receive social-emotional support, to benefit from early period services. In order to achieve this, it is thought that providing support from parent to parent may be a solution. However, it is seen that there is no proven and developed program in our country to provide information and social support from parent to parent regarding early intervention.

Project Goals

• Training content will be developed after the focus group interviews with 16 people consisting of parents who have kids or siblings with special needs.
• Trainings will be held with butterfly parent candidates for 8 weeks.
• 5 butterfly parent candidates will form a caterpillar parent group with at least 3 participants each.
• Butterfly parents will present their training content to caterpillar parents for 8 weeks.
• Butterfly and caterpillar parent application book will be prepared and expanded on the website.

Project Results

• After meetings with experts and experienced parents of a child with special needs (butterfly parents), a training program was developed under the topics of social emotional learning, information to information, and advocacy support.
  
• 15 volunteer butterfly parents attended parent support and mentoring meetings.
• Caterpillar and butterfly parents were matched so that each caterpillar parent could receive one-on-one support and butterfly parents could support each other in the process.
• A parent training book developed in which there are contents and materials that will provide parents with convenience and guidance in their interviews.
• A website prepared for information sharing and butterfly-caterpillar parent applications.
  https://kozaile.org

Testimonials

“There is no such thing as being a butterfly on this journey, we are always caterpillars – some of us are just bigger than the others. The reason I joined this project was to support other mothers, but I did get a lot of support here and learned a lot.” A mother and project participant

“At first, you don’t think of looking for another family with a child diagnosed with Down syndrome to learn about their experience, but then you start wondering about other families like yours, about what they did to get past this stage”. A father and project participant