Image: The first special needs parenting panel at BlogHer in 2008
I should have done this before going to the conference. Some of the folk at the #Blogher14 Special Needs MiniCon might have benefited from the back story.
Previous Special Needs Mini Cons/ Birds of a Feather etc.
- BlogHer05 (San Jose)--no specific programming or space for special needs parents/ people with disabilities
- BlogHer06 (San Jose)--no specific programming or space for special needs parents/ people with disabilities
- BlogHer07 (Chicago)--no specific programming or space for special needs parents/ people with disabilities
All that changed at BlogHer08, held in San Francisco. One session of the Mommyblogging track was "Blogging About Our Children with Special Needs":
If parenting in general can be isolating, it can be more so when raising a child with special needs. Susan Etlinger, Shannon Des Roches Rosa aka Squid Rosenberg, Kristina Chew, Jennifer Graf Groneberg, and Vicki Forman are among those MommyBloggers who are blogging their experiences...and finding both a community...and a cause. Join them. Share your story. Find out how, to quote Vicki, "...to embrace and treasure what makes us all different. And the same."
Coverage:
- Liz Ditz, here http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2008/07/blogher-08-in-s.html
- Susan Etlinger, the panel moderator http://susanetlinger.typepad.com/the_family_room/2008/07/blogher08-redux.html
- Shannon Rosa, panelist July 20 recap http://www.squidalicious.com/2008/07/blogging-about-our-children-with.html
- Shannon Rosa, panelist, July 22 recap http://www.squidalicious.com/2008/07/blogher-role-modeling.html
- Happy Katie's liveblogging of the panel http://www.happykatie.com/tech/blogher/blogher08-blo/
Updates to the moderator and panelists.
- Susan Etlinger, The Family Room, pretty much ceased blogging about special needs in 2010. Her son is thiving, and now is eleven.
- Shannon Des Roches Rosa, Squidalicious. Back in the day, she used the nom de blogue of Squid Rosenberg, but dropped the anonymity around the time she co-founded The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism in June of 2010.
- Kristina Chew has had various blogs chronicling the grown of her son Charlie over the years (Happy Katie's liveblog gives a good summary of Kristina's blogging history). She, her husband James T. Fisher, and son Charlie moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at the beginning of 2014. She blogs now at We Go With Him.
- Jennifer Graf Groneberg published Road Map to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son's First Two Years With Down Syndrome in 2008. She is no longer updating her blog, Pinwheels, but here is a 2010 interview.
- Vicki Forman was stricken with tragedy shortly after BlogHer08. Her son, Evan Kamda, died. Her memoir of life with Evan, This Lovely Life, was published after his death. She is now a nurse in Southern California, and just became certified as a critical care nurse.
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