Pathways Welcomes Dr. Michele Havens!
Uncategorized
Oct 25, 2021
In 1975, my son was born. By all accounts, he seemed to be developing according to “plan”, but by Kindergarten, he was behind his peers in learning the alphabet and numbers. His birthday was late in the year, so he had a chance to repeat Kindergarten. Through the years he struggled with reading and writing, but no one could seem to figure out what the problem was-he was “smart”, so he must be “lazy”. He isn’t trying “hard enough”. Does this sound familiar?
My Plunge Into Special Education
I began my career in special education as a teacher’s aide, when my son was 5 years old. My experiences with my school district had never been positive and my son never received the help to get through the school system. I recognized early on, that I needed to learn to be a powerful parent and then to teach others to do the same.
I did NOT want other parents to have the same experiences I had.
Where is the Owners Manual?
I began my special education career as a paraprofessional and eventually became the teacher/coordinator of a public-school preschool disabilities program, where I taught for 20 years. I led several parent support groups each month and shared my experiences with the other parents. It became obvious that all parents, particularly ones with children with challenges, needed to learn multiple skills to be successful in advocating for their children.
No child comes with an “owner’s manual” and when a child has special needs, the parent is totally “in the dark” with no guidebook to follow.
From the experiences I had with my own son, I decided to pursue further education and it became my passion to help others. I became interested in learning and behavior and earned a doctoral degree in 2001. I then became certified in DIR®/Floortime™ and completed a graduate certificate program in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Once leaving the public school, I trained future teachers as a professor at the University level for over 20 years.
Combining Expertise Into A Partnership
I am thrilled to be joining Melinda Jennis, President and Founder of Pathways for Exceptional Children. We are confident that the training programs we will be developing together will provide the consistent guidance and support to parents of children having disabilities in very practical ways.
