Your Stories - Melissa

The following story is shared by Janice, the mother of a daughter who is deafblind.

My name is Janice and I am blessed to be the mother of three lovely children. My middle child, Melissa was born deaf and blind with developmental delay. She is now 17-years-old. The Canadian Deafblind Association has played a vital role in the success of our family unit as well as providing specialized assistance for Melissa. Children's Intervenor Services summer and holiday programs have been so greatly appreciated in our lives.

My husband and I work full time and during the summer our daughter needs one on one care. The Summer Intervenor hours allow us to hire an Intervenor who is specially trained to assist our daughter. Our daughter is an extremely busy, active and engaging young person. She thrives off of being out in the community and being busy in activities all day and evening. It is exhausting trying to keep up with her. For a deafblind person she uses her senses and residual vision and hearing to their full capacity.

She needs to be with people who can communicate with her through sign language and also understand the unique ways deafblind people learn and interact. By having these wonderful people in her life she gets to explore the shopping malls, zoo, lakefront, walks in the park, grocery shopping, arts and crafts, swimming and endless unique ideas the Intervenor comes up with. On many occasions our daughter has gotten to know the family of the Intervenor. Melissa even visited the grandmother of one of her Intervenors every week and ate freshly made grilled cheese for lunch. I am so pleased that her world is opened up for her to explore and learn and interact with people other than just her family through the valuable work of these Intervenors.

Being a parent to a special needs' child is a huge undertaking. There are so many directions you are being pulled at all the time. Trying to be the best parent to three children all at different stages is exhausting! Managing the health of our daughter, our younger son with his unique interests and growth and development, our older daughter working hard at university, working full time jobs and lastly trying to keep our marriage healthy and happy can be a tremendous balancing act. The summer intervention program pays for the three days' of intervention per week for Melissa with another caregiver working the other two days at our cost. Having those three days paid for is such a blessing. If we had to pay for five days of full time care we would not have any extra money for care on a Saturday night out with friends or an occasional evening out to a movie. This program also provides me and my husband opportunities to have one on one time with Melissa's siblings. The savings also allows us to go on family day trips with the help of the Intervenor. Children's Intervenor Services has made our lives more balanced and helped tremendously with fulfilling the lives of each and every person in my family.

If I could thank you in advance for considering this extremely worthwhile organization as a beneficiary of your hard earned dollars, I would like to do that and consider you part of "my" team working hard to inspire those around me and help the community understand deafblindness through my beautiful daughter.

Join Janice and Melissa's team by supporting Children's Intervenor Services with a donation today.