Supporting Parents and Professionals Caring for Children with Special Needs
Self-Care and Resilience for
Those Supporting Children with Special Needs
Helping parents and professionals sustain the strength, patience, and presence their children depend on
Caring for a child with autism or other special needs is both deeply meaningful and profoundly demanding. This program offers practical tools drawn from yoga, mindfulness, and social-emotional learning to support parents and professionals in caring for themselves—so they can remain calm, resilient, and emotionally present for the children they love and serve.
What Participants Learn & Practice
Participants develop practical tools to:
- Stay calm, grounded, and present during challenging moments
- Reduce stress and emotional overwhelm
- Communicate more clearly and strengthen relationships
- Practice mindfulness and breathing techniques in daily life
- Build emotional resilience and overall well-being
Why this Program Matters
Parents of children with special needs often provide extraordinary levels of care while receiving very little support themselves. The emotional, physical, and financial demands can be overwhelming.
This program helps parents and professionals develop practical skills that support their own well-being—so they can remain patient, emotionally present, and resilient in the face of daily challenges.
Addressing the real challenges families and caregivers face every day
Common Challenges We Help Address
- Nutrition and understanding how food can impact behavior and well-being
- Recognizing and responding to triggers that may lead to anxiety or distress
- Supporting self-regulation, especially during moments of high anxiety or emotional overwhelm
- Managing sleep difficulties and ongoing fatigue.
Supporting Deeper Emotional and Relational Needs
- Accepting a child’s current limitations while holding a vision for growth
- Shifting from survival to a more hopeful, forward-looking mindset
- Navigating the attitudes and responses of others
- Navigating communication challenges within the family
- Understanding that how you relate to the challenge shapes the outcome
MEET THE TEAM
Proven experience and lived understanding that strengthen outcomes for families and schools
For more than 26 years, Family Resiliency Programs has supported over 5,000 New York City public school parents and parent support professionals—many serving families in under-resourced communities.
This program is strengthened by the contributions of Sharon Manner, whose extensive professional and personal experience brings depth and authenticity to this work. With over 35 years of yoga and meditation practice and more than 25 years teaching children on the Autism Spectrum, she has developed programs and trained facilitators throughout the United States and Canada.
As the mother of a daughter on the Autism Spectrum who requires ongoing support, she also offers a lived understanding of the daily realities families face—along with the resilience, patience, and commitment required to navigate them.
Together, this combination of long-standing experience and real-life insight creates a program that is practical, sustainable, and deeply relevant for the parents, professionals, and communities it serves.
Program Format
This program follows the same proven structure as our Masterful Parenting and Train-the-Trainer Parent Leadership Academy programs, with additional specialized content to support families and professionals serving children with special needs.
- Delivered in live, blended, or online formats
- Combines social-emotional learning with practical self-care tools
- Includes guided practice, reflection, and real-life application
- Supported by structured curriculum and sustainable facilitator resources
- Implemented in New York City public schools and community settings
- Grounded in practical tools that create real change in daily life
For full program details, structure, research and outcomes, please visit the Masterful Parenting, Parent Leadership Academy and Research pages.