We all like to have fun - with our families, with our friends and even with our community! For families with disabilities, going out in the community to enjoy events with their families can be hard and without the proper supports, practice and accommodations in place it can be next to impossible type of hard that only people who live this life can truly understand. And - this gives our surrounding community an opportunity to make their facilities or spaces more accessible and accommodating to families with extra needs.

How did you meet your friends? Maybe in school, at work, in a sports club or your neighborhood. But would you ever think of meeting your friends for the first time on Zoom? For Pause young adult, Jackson, and Pause volunteer, Michael - that’s exactly how their friendship started.

Supporting families is essential to the work Pause does. It's even one of the four pillars of our program - rest, support, connection and fun and has been ingrained in Pause since the very beginning. Back in 2012, a needs assessment survey went out to the local Butler County community allowing families to share their needs, barriers and successes. One of the biggest needs surfacing from this survey was from caregivers of kids who have disabilities who shared they needed respite, a break.

Linking arms with the community to strengthen our kiddos and spread awareness is our favorite thing! Over the years, we have found so many wonderful community partners that want to pour into our families and kiddos but often struggle with the how. When planning respite events, we like to reach out to community members or businesses to come to our events as “guest speakers” for the kids to enjoy. When we can introduce a new thing in a safe space it’s less scary for our kiddos who have a hard time with change and transitions.

Did you know that this past programming year the 378 volunteers enrolled in Pause spent 5,646.25 hours volunteering with us? In case you’re wondering, the market value for volunteers in 2023, is $31.80 per hour (the highest it’s ever been!). That means that Pause volunteers have essentially invested $179,869 in Pause this year! We don’t take their investment lightly!

When you think of self-care, you may think of a spa day, reading a book in the bath or maybe even a quiet nap. While those are definitely some great self-care options, did you know there are actually seven different types of self-care: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, professional and practical?

A consistent message we hear from caregivers, especially moms of kids with special needs, is around the struggle of being consistent with self-care. If we are honest, consistency can be hard for all of us, but with so much time devoted to care for children with extra needs it can be even more challenging. Since we know you can’t pour from an empty cup, Pause has made it a priority to create self-care opportunities for our caregivers.

Consistency and routine are key for kiddos with special needs. When we can predict what’s going to happen, plan ahead to help with transitions to different activities and make a plan B if something unexpected comes up, it calms our brain to know what’s coming.

One of the purposes of Thrive Night is to bring connection to families with special needs. Because they live a very nuanced life, sometimes it’s hard to explain, it’s hard to understand…it can just be hard. Thrive Night aims to take the “hard” out of connecting with other people who have similar experiences. There’s less to explain, more time to exhale and truly enjoy yourself. This is true for caregivers and also siblings of kiddos with extra needs.

Consistency and routine are key for kiddos with special needs. When we can predict what’s going to happen, plan ahead to help with transitions to different activities and make a plan B if something unexpected comes up, it calms our brain to know what’s coming.

Pause knows that program sustainability and longevity are essential to our families and we have assumed personal responsibility in making sure that happens for years to come! Currently, Pause is funded through grants, donations and volunteer support. We are always focused on sustainability as it has been emotionally and physically difficult for families to lose other community resources they have relied on in the past. As our grant funder priorities change, we must be prepared so our priorities can remain the same!

To be the light means in times of darkness you offer hope, encouragement, kindness and compassion. It can also mean taking the weight off - showing up when things feel heavy and simply helping to carry what they hold.

Where others are struggling with self-doubt, self-esteem and self-love, being the light offers a way to help them to regain confidence, joy, connection and worth so they can shine again - and - it’s helping them believe it’s possible in the first place. Light helps us feel safe and secure. It can signify new beginnings, hope, and opportunity. It lights the way, gives direction and exposes new possibilities.

When you receive something handcrafted for you, how do you feel? Special? Warm? Loved? When you can see the time, effort and love it took to create that handcrafted piece, you might feel overwhelmed with joy!

Now think of a kiddo with extra needs who has had a hard time at school. Making friends doesn't come easy. The adults in their life have a hard time understanding their needs. It might be hard to understand why they act a certain way or do things differently than their peers. They might often feel isolated and alone. When this kiddo receives a handcrafted gift, designed especially for them, they feel less alone. They feel special. They feel worthy. And they want to keep that gift in a safe space to remind them of their preciousness forever.

Pause has seen the need for family fun grow exponentially in the past year. Families who have kids with special needs find it hard to access community holiday events in safe ways. Sometimes the location or outdoor setting is challenging for kids who get overstimulated and run to find a calmer space. Sometimes families fear judgment from other people when their kiddo is having a big emotion in a tough moment. Sometimes parents worry their kiddo won’t enjoy or won’t be able to access the activities at a general community event without necessary sensory breaks. We are so thankful to have a fully donated space and the autonomy to design it purposefully. This flexibility gives families a safe, judgment free environment to enjoy time together as a family.

Volunteers make Pause possible. We can attribute much of our growth over the years to the consistent, dedicated and loving volunteers that have found Pause. They have allowed us to decrease the number of kids waiting to attend Pause programming by donating as little as an hour of their time.

One program that has shown exponential growth from volunteer support is Unlimited - Sunday morning programming in partnership with Center Pointe. Since the beginning of Pause, one of the most consistent needs we kept hearing from families was their need for a faith community in which their kiddos with special needs could also thrive in a learning environment. In the summer of 2021, Pause linked arms with Center Pointe to offer families that very thing!

Our world is full of stories - fictional, fancy land stories of princes and pirates. Inspirational, encouraging stories that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. And even real life, really hard stories where it’s up to us to find the silver linings. At Pause, we have the honor of hearing family stories, getting to know their family as a whole and, if we’re lucky, truly being a part of their larger story moving forward.

Creating meaningful experiences is a Pause program value that transcends experiences for not only families, caregivers and kiddos, but volunteers, too! Volunteers choose Pause for a variety of reasons - to further their professional career, to gain experience with kids who have disabilities, to fulfill club or organization service hours… the list goes on. Although our volunteers begin volunteering for a variety of reasons, we want them all to leave feeling a sense of purpose, accomplishment and impact so we focus on the experience created for them and even by them.

Respite. That’s “Pause speak” for any opportunity a caregiver gets to exhale. Take a break. Recharge their battery. With the 30-80 extra hours a week of caring for a child with extra needs, respite is a need we continuously hear from families. These extra hours caregivers accumulate mean less time for relationships - family relationships, marital relationships and even friendships. Caregivers have shared that the constant battle of defending their parenting strategies or explaining their child’s behavior can make relationships exhausting to maintain. Without these social relationships or connections, caregivers can fall towards the slippery slope of isolation.

As Pause staff, we consider ourselves innovators. Our programming team innovates new ways to enhance family experiences. Our family strategy team implements new tools and resources to help kids regulate their brains and bodies. Our development team strategically seeks out partnerships and donor support with those that align with our mission and vision. And sometimes, groups or organizations reach out to Pause with an innovative idea to bring hope to families with special needs.

Pause was honored to be selected by a group of students from Badin High School as the focus for their senior project. The group was inspired by Pause’s story at a local service fair and wanted to innovate a new way to bring their senior project to life and landed on curating bags full of goodies for both caregivers and kiddos with recent hospital stays.

Our dream goal - or big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) as Pause likes to say - is to have Pause stretch to every county and even every state! A BHAG indeed! As many great things do, we know it will take time, effort and community support. We also believe we are ready to take this next step of a multi-site model.

The process of getting to know families' stories and understanding the needs/interests of their children matters on so many levels and we believe we have cracked the code after perfecting our systems for the past (almost) 9 years. This allows us to expand knowing that no matter the community we are serving or the physical space we are in, we can stay true to our values, standards and best practices. We sort of like to compare this to Chick-fil-a. It doesn’t matter if you are in an airport, drive-through or mall - the chicken sandwich and “my pleasure” are the same.

When considering a partnership with a business, organization or program we ask ourselves these questions:

Does this partner align with Pause’s mission, vision and values?

Will this partnership benefit the families, kids and volunteers that we serve?

Can Pause further its impact by partnering with this outside organization?

When the answer to all of these questions is “yes!” we feel confident we can officially “Pause approve” the partnership. Over the past eight years, Pause has linked arms with many different partners - including parent coaches and consultants, trauma-responsive therapists, faith based missionaries, social service agencies, local colleges and high schools, local photographers, small businesses and even top tier pizza shops!

Increasing hope. It’s in Pause’s mission statement to “...to build resilience and increase hope.” Most of our families have children who will continue to hold their diagnosis through adulthood. We honor labels as amazing parts of who each child is and, at the same time, help build the caregivers ability to move through the difficult pieces of it with strength, new perspective and - you guessed it, HOPE.

It’s important to understand that loving their kids and grieving their diagnosis aren’t mutually exclusive. There is a season of heartache when a child receives a diagnosis that isn’t often talked about. There can be endless love and joy for our child AND disappointment and sadness that the dreams for their life need to shift and look different. When most girls are 15, they daydream about getting married and having kids and those daydreams don’t always include thinking about wheelchair access, mental health challenges or long hospital stays. There will always be this delicate balance of celebration and joy coupled with overwhelm and isolation when navigating special needs life.

When donors give to a nonprofit’s general fund, they often don’t get to see what their donation specifically provided - even if they understand why it matters or why it’s important. Pause wants to change that! We want to share the impact your time, talent and resources make on the families we serve.

There are several family fun events throughout the year that absolutely require donor support - especially since Pause is now supporting 750 kids! Some examples of this are our annual Back to School Bash, the Holiday Shoppe, and the Easter Eggstravaganza coming up in just 8 short weeks! We love this event because it provides a safe place for kids with disabilities (and their whole family!) to engage in Easter egg hunts and gives caregivers an opportunity to cross one thing off the list by taking home a customized Easter basket ready to go for Easter morning.