The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

100 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 1 1 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT ed with the FS Yahoo Livelines group, which my husband was invit- ed to join when he was hired. There he met David Hall, Audrey’s dad, and their similar occupations and family dynamics led to a friendship. We soon discovered we each had a special needs child requiring individ- ualized educational considerations, and we began learning from each other. Brandon and Audrey became friends during our two-year tour in Germany. As time and tours evolved, Brandon and Audrey also found themselves in the same special needs residential program in Eastern Mary- land. In 2005, the FS Special Needs Yahoo Group was formed. It was a very significant step, offering a world- wide forum for families with special needs children to communicate direct- ly. I quickly became an active member, posting messages and answering ques- tions. It was through this forum that we met Matt Horner’s dad. Over the years we stayed loosely in touch, sharing information. When the Horners made the tough decision to enroll Matt in a residential school, they contacted us about the programs we had surveyed and why we had cho- sen the one we did. Matt and his folks visited the school at which Brandon and Audrey were then enrolled, but ultimately decided to continue look- ing. Their journey took them to the Riverview School. For families with special needs children, flexibility is a must. We are always seeking better and more pro- gressive and aggressive educational programs for our children. Brandon has been through it all, or so it seems to us. We homeschooled him for two years, employing a few tutors along the way for some of the classes and seeking out speech thera- pists to work one-on-one with him. He attended a special needs school at post in the Dominican Republic for a year, until we decided he was not get- ting what he needed as a 15-year-old. For families with special needs children, flexibility is a must. We are always seeking better educational programs for our children.