ACCEPTING THE GIFT

Quickly move from 'how-to endure' the struggle of caregiving to receiving its graces and blessings and draw closer to God.

Gain strength and hope. See your caregiving journey through a new lens brought to light through beautiful imagery, wisdom-filled content, prayers, meditations, and guided reflection questions...and plenty of space for personal journaling.

Carrying to Term: A Guide for Parents after a Devastating Prenatal Diagnosis addresses every aspect of the longest (and shortest) months of your life. From emotional issues to spiritual struggles to funeral-dress shopping while you’re still seven months pregnant, Carrying to Term offers strategies for parents struggling just to make it through the day. You can forge a best-case scenario out of a worst-case scenario. You can bond with a baby who hasn’t yet been born. Parents have learned to make memories in brief windows of time, and you can too. 

Self-Care for Special Needs Moms was designed for moms who are struggling to find the balance between their duties as a caregiver to their special needs child, and the rest of life’s responsibilities. This workbook helps moms understand what healthy self-care looks like, what small steps they can take to find peace in the margins of their day, and why bringing in help isn’t a sign of weakness, but something that can strengthen us in our vocation.

Face your challenges with the power of prayer! For every parent and caretaker of a special needs child, this resource will build your faith and offer practical ways to incorporate hope and prayer into your daily life.

The Adaptive Teacher: Faith-Based Strategies to Reach and Teach Learners with Disabilities will teach you how to maximize the effectiveness of your lessons with concrete strategies you can implement in your classroom tomorrow that will benefit all learners. Written by John E. Barone and Charleen Katra, who bring over forty years of combined experience working with people with disabilities, this guide for teachers and catechists addresses crucial topics that will enrich the scope and reach of your teaching.

The Resource Manual features 90+ pages of information, perspectives and tools to assist in the ministry with people with mental illness.

Both memoir and manual, Spiritually Able: A Parent’s Guide to Teaching the Faith to Children with Special Needs is a life-preserver to parents who are seeking ways to grow and nourish a deeper relationship to God and their faith for their child with special needs. Full of tips, advice, and personal accounts, Spiritually Able helps bridge the gap and invites all into the welcoming embrace of the Church. 

This is the third in a trilogy of inspiring, heartwarming books that tell the story of a Lafayette, La., couple and their child, Eli, who was born with a birth defect called spina bifida. Published when Eli was 9 years old, this volume follows the boy's life from infancy to that of a healthy, happy second-grader. At the same time, on a parallel track, the book chronicles Eli s dad s growth in and understanding of his Catholic faith. In his journey toward the light of a much deeper faith, Eli s dad, Chad Judice, gains an unshakable trust in the Lord, a greater reliance on the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a commitment to the church s teachings on Natural Family Planning.

Better Than OK: Finding Joy as a Special Needs Parent is the hope-filled book you need today. In her down-to-earth way, Kelly shares practical tips and takeaways to shift your focus away from the negatives of your child's diagnosis and towards acceptance, renewed faith, and joy. Better Than OK is a much-needed resource for any Catholic parent facing the challenges of a special needs family.

Waiting For Eli: A Father's Journey from Fear to Faith is a book about a Lafayette, La., couple and their infant son Eli who was born with spina bifida. It is an inspiring story of faith, hope and the power of prayer. The book takes us on an emotional roller coaster ride, starting with the day the author first learns of his son's medical condition. This moving story has a strong pro-life, pro-love message, and is made even more compelling by the authors descriptions of little miracles along the way. 

Emily M. DeArdo was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at eleven, so she knows what it’s like to live with a keen awareness of her own mortality. She draws on the medieval practice of memento mori, “remember you must die,” and shares her personal story with unique and compelling insight into the meaning of Christian life and death. Using the Stations of the Cross as a framework, DeArdo leads you to trust in God’s providence as you confront suffering and death and develop enduring spiritual strength and courage along the way.

This comprehensive book covers a variety of the most-encountered special needs, along with approaches for meeting those needs. The author discusses strategies for having fruitful dialogues with parents, identifying students for your special needs program, recruiting effective catechists or teachers, and developing lesson plans.

It’s hard enough for today’s parents to raise faith-filled children. But for the parents of kids with special needs, the challenges can be almost overwhelming; these parents’ own spirituality may suffer amidst the daily obstacles of raising a child with disabilities, and they may wonder how—or even if—their child can ever experience a meaningful spiritual life.
In Faith, Family, and Children with Special Needs, David Rizzo—whose 12-year-old daughter has autism—offers great hope for parents who want to grow in their own spirituality while helping their children with disabilities experience God in a deeper way.

In Journey in Love: A Catholic Mother's Prayers after Prenatal Diagnosis you will find a sensitive, supportive resource from an author who knows this suffering firsthand. Kathryn walks with you through the stages of grief, helps you to pray even when you feel you cannot, sheds new light on the comfort and grace of the Church’s traditional prayers, and provides meditations tied to the liturgical year.

A comprehensive religion curriculum designed to help parents and catechists in their task of teaching special children and adults about the Catholic faith. The program may be used in a variety of religious education settings: parish religious education, either in an inclusive classroom or in a specialized setting. It may also be used in the home for family catechesis. If a catechist is teaching in an institution or group home, the program may be readily used in those settings as well.

This book is a treasure-trove of heart-warming stories, practical help, and inspiration for fathers of children with special needs. Author Randy Hain and all of the contributors open their hearts to the reader and share the incredible challenges they confront as fathers of children with special needs. They also unveil the unexpected blessings that come from fathering these special children. These heartfelt stories from fathers give both insight and tremendous inspirational encouragement for other fathers.

This revolutionary book guides parents and teachers in implementing the beauty of a classical education with all children including those with special needs. Cheryl Swope is an advocate of classical Christian education for students with special needs. The love of history, music, literature, Latin, and learning instilled in her own children has created in Cheryl the desire to share the message that a classical education offers benefits to any child. This second edition provides streamlined prose, updated resources, a new chapter, an enhanced appendix, and new stories to delight, encourage, and inform the reader.

In Be Brave in the Scared, Catholic writer Mary Lenaburg shares how the overwhelming demands of caring for her severely disabled daughter ultimately taught her—and can teach you—that trusting in God and accepting his will can lead to profound joy, no matter what challenges you face.

The handy pocket guide will give you the basic information you need to do adaptive ministry in your Catholic parish. Call by Baptism. Called to the Sacraments. Called to be Saints.

In this important, ground-breaking book, filled with stories of her own life with often-disabling health conditions, Maureen Pratt sets out pastoral guidelines and practical steps covering evangelization, catechesis, participation, privacy issues, spiritual vocations, and much more.

These kits are designed to help children with Autism and other special needs prepare for First Holy Communion, Confession, and Confirmation. 

Eli's Reach is the story of how this child's life has touched the hearts and influenced the thinking of many. Hearing Eli's story has brought about a keener appreciation of the value of all human life and is credited with saving several unborn babies from abortion. Additionally, the story has rekindled the faith of many and drawn them into earnest prayer.