TPP 184: Wendy Besmann on Navigating Health, Education, and Insurance Systems
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
36 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 12 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the Family Roadmap and why did Wendy create it?
This guiding star process, the five steps of what you have to do to break up a messy problem is like the North Star. It doesn't change. And the reason is that people and systems are very predictable. And you can navigate using sort of an all-purpose tool because mostly when it comes right down to it, you're interacting with people. And there are some basic rules of the road that make that easier.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Reber, and my guest today is Wendy Bessman, the founder and creative content director of Get There Project, which is aimed at helping families raising differently wired kids be more informed and confident in mapping out a path for the challenges, especially those involving the systems we're often up against. The mother of a son with autism and bipolar disorder, Wendy is going to share with us her family roadmap, which is a step-by-step guide for how families raising differently wired children can more successfully navigate health, insurance, and education systems.
Her approach helps parents of atypical children with many different kinds of needs, especially in situations where clear community support may not be readily defined. In addition to founding the Get There Project, Wendy is behind Team Up for Families, an advocacy and training organization for families living with behavioral, developmental, and other special health needs. She also has written several books, including The Family Roadmap, Team Up for Your Child, and Young Adult Roadmap. And before I get to my conversation with Wendy, the Tilt Parenting podcast is supported with the help of generous listeners who make a small monthly contribution to help me cover the cost of its production. If you would like to join this community of supporters, I would be grateful.
It's easy to do. And when you sign up, you can make a monthly pledge of as little as $2 a month. Just go to patreon.com slash tilt parenting to sign up. Again, that's patreon.com slash tilt parenting. And now, here's my conversation with Wendy.
Hello, Wendy. Welcome to the podcast. Hello, Debbie. Thank you for having me. Well, I would love as a way to start, you sent me a lovely email giving me a little bit more about your story. Would you mind sharing for my listeners some of your personal experience that inspired the work that you do in the world?
Sure. Get There Project evolved out of my experience as the parent of two wildly differently wired children, Elliot and David, who are grown now and independent. Hallelujah, I'm thrilled to say. Didn't think it was going to happen sometimes. But it evolved out of my having to go around and find the services and supports they need. I mean, we all know that Diagnoses are pretty much for school system services and insurance coverage. But lots of labels flowed through our household, ADHD and giftedness and sensory processing disorder for Elliot and autism and bipolar disorder for David. And I was wandering through the wilderness, as so many of us do, trying to find services that fit the kid. And it's such an overwhelming process.
It is like moving into a strange new world where everybody speaks a different language and they have all kinds of rules and customs that seem very bizarre and you have to find your way through. So in the course of doing all of that, I began to collect strategies from other parents because I didn't know what to do. And I had these children who did things that were really hard to understand. My younger child, David, was kind of a wild man who got bounced out of four preschools by the time he was five because between the autism and the cycles of the bipolar disorder, he tended to scratch, kick, and bite whenever he got upset and was disinvited from a lot of places. And the school system spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with David, whereas for Elliot...
it was a lot more of a thing that could get missed because they just didn't know what to do.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the Family Roadmap and why did Wendy create it?
0:00–5:47
2
How did Wendy’s personal experience with her children shape the Get There Project?
5:47–10:17
3
What is the “Guiding Star” five‑step process for breaking down messy problems?
10:17–14:37
4
How can parents use the five steps to set goals and navigate any system (school, health, insurance)?
14:37–18:20
5
What does an IEP meeting look like when you apply the roadmap’s steps?
18:20–22:30
6
Which keywords in education and health systems unlock access to services?
22:30–26:33
7
What simple tools (binders, numbered lists, notebooks) help families manage overwhelming paperwork?
26:33–30:58
8
Where can listeners find the Get There Project resources, workbooks, and coaching?
30:58–36:05
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids