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    Pipe Dreams Youth and Families,offers sliding scale and grant-supported consultancy services to build neurodiverse youth's and their allies' capacity to navigate and increase choice and change in education, health, and community.

    Pipe Dreams provides a network, a home-base for skill-building, and even, professional accompaniment, if needed.  Our core focus is increasing human capitol and preparing families for making impact. 

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I do this work because the systems involved are difficult to navigate.  Some environments have the potential to be far more disabling than the person-to-person differences we call "disabilities". 

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      When we feel empowered with information, and skills, connected to community, and capable of placing our voices at the center of decision-making processes that affect us, this is the inception of a paradigm shift in the shaping of policy and service provision.   

      More specifically, we aim to shift the current paradigm from one that is 2nd or 3rd person-driven to one that is driven by 1st-person neurodiverse research respondents, program designers, and evaluators. 

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It's NOT a pipe dream! Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise . . . . Our community is characterized by its intellect, creativity, and drive.   Nonverbal Autistic teenagers have written and self-published books about their experiences and how their brains work using augmented communication devices!  There simply is no justification for failing to recognize the expertise or claim that it is too difficult to design a process that draws from the most relevant source of information about the needs of neurodiverse learners and what the determinants of results-based evaluation should be.   In fact, it is far more practical and ethical to hold space for direct participation and decision-making. 

 

Because we know there is a long historical legacy of neurodiverse game-changers, this vision is , quite simply . .  

NOT A PIPE DREAM!

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SERVICES

Examples of capacity-building include:

• working with a school to include a youth's voice in his or her IEP development and implementation process each year.

• assistance writing letters, legal documents, homeschool education plans, grants, etc.

• workshops for families on student and child rights under special education law

• intergenerational sharing programming

• coordinating sponsorships, mentorships, and apprenticeships with local community members, businesses, and organizations

• connecting families to each other for healthy social opportunities and skill-sharing either through networking consults or through our monthly bonfires and field trips