Support Students With Invisible Challenges

Learning to advocate for yourself is a long process, but it is even more difficult when you have a chronic or invisible illness.

 

My name is Kristy and my son has Ehlers-Danlos and Dyspraxia; this means his school days can be very long and overwhelming. It took us a long time, as parents, to figure out how to help him at school - when and how to intervene with teachers and administrators and even when to let him stay home from school.

 

We are still learning and when our son was in grade five, my husband had a great idea to make a pain scale chart for him to use at school. Our son would also give a presentation to his teachers at the beginning of the school year to introduce himself, share the chart and talk about his invisible illness. The chart was a simple way for his teachers to check in with him throughout the day and for him to respond with a number instead of trying to talk about his pain, frustration, fatigue or an overwhelming situation.

 

My son certainly isn’t the only one with invisible challenges, and as we all know and appreciate, teachers have a lot of students and a lot of long days, so it isn’t easy to check in with each student or keep track of the different needs across a classroom.

 

Introducing The DayBeacon Project.

 

We are in the process of creating an app specifically for the classroom which uses wearable technology to help students communicate with their teachers. We are close to being ready for our pilot programs and are really excited to be able to support teachers and students connect and communicate more easily in the classroom.

 

We would be very grateful for any donations to help with the app development costs, wristbands and the pilot program launch. Our goal is to provide free pilot programs in several states across the country and have our project meet a crucial classroom need.

 

If you have a child, sibling or know someone who struggles with invisible challenges, please consider donating to The DayBeacon.

When you donate $50 or more, please email us with your name, address and hat size (S/M or L/XL) at [email redacted] and we will send you a DayBeacon hat with much gratitude. 

 

Thank you! We truly appreciate your support.