Our POPS parent support group is a family of parents who have children with special needs.  We help, support, and advocate to change laws for the future of our children.  Occasionally, we also provide guest speakers on various topics concerning our children during our monthly meetings.

We meet every 3rd Sunday at 3:00pm at the Lancaster County Public Library at 313 South White Street, Lancaster, SC 29720... In June and December, however, our dates are changed due to Father's Day & our annual Christmas party...

Our Mission Statement:

We the parents, caregivers, and loved ones of our

          children are dedicated to:

•  Increasing our understanding and knowledge of the various issues with which our children struggle as they try to learn
•  Supporting each other with compassion and patience in our many different journeys
•  Being informed and learning how to communicate our children’s issues to other caregivers, such as doctors, teachers, etc… and to those who need to know
•  Doing what we can to make the group effective and efficient by being   involved, be it whatever we each can do
•  Advocating to change laws to help benefit our children & our communities
•  Advocating for our children for acceptance, assurance, &  respectfulness from their peers, family, & their communities 

First things first, the challenges I faced with my son,

My son, Brandon, is a 16-year-old 9th grader who has been

diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Auditory Processing and Sensory Integration Disorders, severe learning disabilities & Crohn's disease. I first knew something was wrong when he was in kindergarten and was having trouble paying attention in a small private school. Before he started in public school, he was evaluated by the public school system for learning disabilities.

They found nothing.  He started first grade in public school and  

his problems continued. When Brandon was 8 he still didn’t know names of colors, his birthday, where he lived or even to name the 7 days of the week. I asked the public school to evaluate him again. They evaluated Brandon a second time in 2001 and found he was borderline and there was nothing they could do.

Brandon still suffered with failing grades, ridicule from his peers, had a very low self-esteem, and he hated attending school.  I let him repeat 3rd grade to see if that would help. It didn’t help at all; he was still failing a second time. I contacted the public school again in 2002 to have him evaluated again. During that time I contacted an attorney hoping that he could get me the services Brandon needed. The school informed us that Brandon was still considered borderline. He would not qualify to receive help in the classroom, No 504 plan, No resource program, and no help with the PACT test. They said Brandon would still be passed to the 4th grade. I feared he would fall further and further behind.

Brandon still did not know his times tables or how to write a paragraph on his own.  His educators at Heath Springs Elementary School informed me that I should accept him for who he was, and not keep pushing to make him better. On my own, I had him privately evaluated by a Neurologist, an Audiologist, and an Occupational Therapist. They all found tremendous problems.  My attorney informed Brandon’s public school educators of our private evaluation results. They disagreed with the results and said they still could do nothing.

After all the evaluations and attorney fees of over $3000.00, our attorney informed us that we could pay him even more fees to prepare us for a due process hearing. This had no certainty of giving Brandon more help and we would have spent thousands of dollars to try and nothing ever would be done. Needless to say, we gave up on the attorney.

My alternative was to help Brandon through other means besides public school. So I searched my options and found Glenforest School, a private school that specializes in helping children with learning disabilities. The school is 69 miles one way from my home. I even had to quit my 6-year full-time position with the Department of Public Safety to take him to school each day. The school tuition cost was about $15,000.00 a year and we also had to pay a high cost for gas, plus wear and tear on my car for Brandon to attend.  After 9 months, Brandon changed a lot at Glenforest School. He did not catch up to grade level, but his reading comprehensive had greatly improved and he was getting straight A’s.  For the first time in his life, he loved school. Brandon attended Glenforest School for 2 years with the help from my mom and my husband’s parents helping pay his tuition.

With the rising cost of gasoline and the hike in tuition cost at Glenforest School, we decided to home school Brandon instead. It has been a challenge for both of us, but with each day the challenges we face are overcome and he is academically learning. Brandon, in my opinion, is doing very well being home schooled. I feel with the relaxed environment of being home and with working at his own pace with learning; he is enjoying academics. I also feel that home schooling, so far, has made a world of difference in Brandon’s education and his outlook on life. He is doing quite well with all of his academic subjects and he is still smiling having me as his teacher.  

As you can see, my successful journey in starting our support group began because of Brandon. 

This is how it all started.

Before I quit my job with the DMV in Lancaster to go to Columbia, I was at work one day when I started venting about Brandon and the school system to my co-worker. All of a sudden, a customer named Julie (who is now part of our support group) had over heard my conversation. She started talking to me about Brandon and gave me information about the TEFRA- Medicaid program. It’s a program to help cover the high cost of therapies and such, and is based on the child’s income not the parents. She told me that Brandon would probably qualify with all of his disabilities he had. I called the number and it took 7 months, but now Brandon is currently on the program. If it hadn’t been for this one parent telling me about the Medicaid program, I would have never gotten Brandon on the program at all. I didn’t know where to turn and I certainly didn’t know Brandon would ever qualify for Medicaid. 

After that conversation with Julie, I was still so angry with the way Heath Springs Elementary School educators treated us that I decided to write letters to vent my anger.

So after my husband and I dropped the lawyer, I started venting on the Internet. I started writing letters by email to our entire local, state, and government officials. I wrote to Oprah, Dr. Phil, every newspaper I could find, and I even wrote to the President of the United States. I received back numerous letters in return from them, but really none to help with my son’s situation.

I decided to write a letter to our local newspaper here in Lancaster. I actually wrote 3 letters total in all. The first letter I wrote was really venting about Heath Springs Elementary School and the way they treated Brandon. It was really a nasty letter, but it did get published in a sugar coated way.

I wrote the second letter after Brandon was already attending Glenforest School in Columbia. I wrote this letter to inform everyone in Lancaster, how great Brandon was doing at Glenforest School. After the first letter was published, almost everyone in our county knew my situation from reading it in the newspaper. One sentence I wrote in that letter was “With the right teachers and the right teaching methods, children like Brandon can succeed with academics.”  I guess I actually wrote this letter to tell his past public school educators that they were completely wrong about Brandon. He can succeed if he had the chance.

After that letter, my husband told me to just stop. He said, “Please, give it up and relax”. I didn’t realize that over this whole period of time of writing all those emails about Brandon, I had suddenly become a very stressful person.

So, I finally stopped writing letters and tried to help Brandon improve on his academics at Glenforest School.

About a week went by of me not venting anymore, when all of a sudden something wonderful happened. There were 2 parents (who are now in our support group) who wrote letters to our local newspaper concerning their children and the problems they were facing with the public school system.  After reading those letters, I picked up the phone and called our local newspaper editor. I asked the editor if she could give me the names and numbers of those 2 parents so I could call them. I thought maybe the 3 of us could help each other in some way or another.  She told me she could not do that because of privacy laws with the newspaper. She told me if I really wanted to talk to those parents, I would have to write another letter to the paper. I needed to include my contact information in the letter for those parents to contact me and they would print it for me.

I sat down and wrote my final 3rd letter to our local paper.  That letter was published on a Wednesday and by the following Sunday, I already had 22 parents contacting me by phone. My phone was literally ringing off the hook that whole weekend. It seemed, my husband was in shock, but I was extremely excited. I just couldn’t believe so many parents, especially in our little small town, would be calling me.

After writing down all the parents’ names and their numbers, I told my husband, “I have got to do something for all these parents”. I also remembered the conversation I had with Julie months earlier in the DMV.  I realized that parents with children like mine needed to stick together if they wanted to change how their children are educated. I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing. Here I was thinking all this time that I was alone in dealing with issues concerning my son. I was somewhat happy and somewhat sadly mistaken in thinking that thought.

That same week, I jumped on my computer and started ordering everything I could possibly order concerning every disability I could think of.  I put my name on everyone’s mailing list. In the next couple of months, I received probably over 50 boxes by mail and by Fed-ex. My living room became my central point for storing all of these materials, catalogs, fact sheets, brochures, etc… It felt like the mail was only coming to my house and no one else’s. It was rather funny to the kids, I think.

I gathered up all my new items and stacked them neatly up against my living room wall. I then started making phone calls to all the parents to confirm a date to finally meet each other face to face. We finally agreed on a time, but we needed a place.

So, I then decided to go before my church elders and I talked to them about my idea of starting a support group in our area. They loved the idea and asked me to have the meetings here at our church. So, I called up all the parents again and informed them of our exciting news to have our meetings at my church.

We finally had a time and now a place to meet too. It was great. I think its funny how things just work out.

I then had to come up with a clever name for our group to be called. I was sitting at my computer one night just looking up more information for as many parents as I could. My son has ADHD and he was being his usual self and was running around the living room. My daughter comes in and says to me “Mom, please make Brandon stop popping around the room, he pops around way too much.” I stopped for a minute and thought wow!  What a wonderful name! I started typing up different words with the POPS acronym. It took me about an hour and I suddenly came up with Parents Offering Parents Support- POPS. I called up all the parents and they all loved our new name.

So you see again, the name of our support group also came from Brandon too.

We started out with 22 parents in our group, and now I am happy to say we now have 177 parents & friends on our monthly snail mail & e-list. I haven’t figured out how to bring all parents & friends together under one roof yet, but I am working on it. With many day- to-day activities we all face each month, it’s hard for everyone to attend our meetings at the same time. Some months we may have 10 parents attend, others we may have 20 or 30, it depends on what’s going on in that month with our daily lives.

The first year of our starting, I faced many challenges in meeting with the parents because I was driving back and forth to Columbia each day with Brandon. But, I continued to have the meetings each month even if I only had one parent to show up.

Some of the parents wanted me to cancel the meetings during the summer months, but I continued to be present at our church anyway. That’s how I met one very special parent named Vickie. She had just faced her son, having been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, committing suicide and now her daughter had recently been diagnosed with Bipolar too. She needed to talk to someone. I was so thankful that I didn’t give up and cancel those meetings during the summer because if I had, I would have never been there for her that day.  We sat there that day for 3 hours and just talked and supported each other.

After we had our meetings for a few months, I started making phone calls to try to get the best guest speakers I could think of to help us.  I called organizations like; ProParents, Family Connections, Federation of Families, and many more. I gathered up many guest speakers that year to help teach us how to cope with our children, how to handle issues dealing with the school system, and about topics such as; IEPs, 504 plans, IDEA and many more.

Vickie, the parent of the son who committed suicide that I mentioned to you earlier, wanted me to set up a guest speaker from the organization called NAMI- National Alliance on Mental Illness for our monthly meeting. She told me that it would help her greatly if I could do that. After making that phone call to NAMI, I met two parents called Dan and Betsey. Dan soon attended our meeting and did a wonderful overview workshop on mental illness. It was very helpful to Vickie and to other parents too.

After a year went by still having our meetings, Dan from NAMI came to me and wanted me to help them with a program called YouthNet. YouthNet is a tri-county program in our area to help keep children with serious mental illnesses from being placed out side of the home.

I then called up all the parents and asked their opinion on the idea of merging our group with NAMI. They all agreed it would be a wonderful opportunity to do so. We then took on a new name for our support group. Soon, POPS became known as POPS- YouthNet.

After the merge, Betsey wanted me to be hired by NAMI so that I could help them further with their efforts in our county with YouthNet. I agreed and at that point in time, I became a part-time employee of NAMI.  But since July 2008, however, I resigned due to NAMI being in conflict with our group & being given less hours.

Anyway, along with the story.

The parents & I also came up with an idea to mail out monthly newsletters to keep everyone informed about our meetings. My daughter, Brittany, helped me design our newsletters and we mail those out to everyone we come in contact with each month. It helps keep everyone informed about our upcoming meetings. If they missed attending a meeting on a particular month, it helps keep them informed about what we discussed at our previous meeting.

We have all begun a relationship of supporting, helping, and learning so much from each other. I have met so many friends and talked to so many people because of my wonderful journey. It has really been a blessing.

Together, we have found so many new strategies in helping educate our children too. One strategy that has helped Brandon improve academically at home is through Assistive Technology. We found that Assistive Technology is for the very mildest to the most severe learning disabilities.

One parent especially has been helping me research Assistive Technology to bring back information to the group.  Her name is Rhonda; she has a child with Autism.  Together, we have found out so much information about Assistive Technology that we are spreading the news. Our goal one day is to build an Assistive Technology learning center in our area. We realize that it would take many years of planning, but it is one of our future goals that I hope one day will be fulfilled.

Assistive Technology has really helped Brandon while being home schooled. We just recently bought a product called Kurzweil 3000. It is a Scan and Read product that, in my opinion, has helped a great deal with his reading comprehension. It has also helped improve his Auditory Processing challenges as well.

Using my scanner, I would scan in his reading pages and/or his academic tests on my computer. The Kurzweil software would then place his reading pages and/or his tests on the computer screen and read each word of it out loud to him. 

Brandon would listen to the computer read out loud to him with each word highlighted for him to follow.  He would then answer all of his text or test questions on the computer screen using the keyboard.

For pleasure reading, Brandon would also use Kurzweil 3000 to scan and read his Star Wars chapter books too. He would do this process of scanning himself without any help from me. Once the pages were entered into the computer and placed on the computer screen, he would then put on his headphones and listen and follow along while the computer read each page to him highlighting each word to follow. This helped him discover reading to be more enjoyable and fun.

We continue to inform all parents that Assistive Technology is just another tool to help our children academically. It’s no different than having to wear eyeglasses or even a pencil gripper for our pencils. I had a parent tell me once that her child didn’t need Assistive Technology because he wasn’t in a wheelchair. After explaining to her what Assistive Technology really was, she asked me to give her more information and demos to help her child.

There are a great number of parents out there that misunderstand what Assistive Technology really is. That’s why we want to spread the word and inform parents like us. It could open up a whole new world for their children in ways they just can’t imagine.

I feel, however, that our public school system in our state does not inform parents enough about Assistive Technology. It seems they do not want to spend the extra money to help these children in the classrooms. I’ve heard from a number of parents that have said they have never even heard of Assistive Technology before until now. They said they certainly have not heard it from their children’s educators.

We are doing our best to spread the word and I hope our efforts will help all children in our state.

A couple of years ago, Rhonda and I were interviewed on Channel 19 news in our area to help promote an Assistive Technology helmet called PlayAttention. It was really fun for Brandon; he really enjoyed seeing himself appear on TV. PlayAttention is another tool that could help all children with their attention and focusing challenges. It could even be helpful for this to be placed in our public school districts.

On a personal note I want to add, also on my journey helping start the support group, I have personally gotten involved with helping pass bills for legislators in our state too. I have been named in our area a chairwoman for school choice by the South Carolinians for Responsible Government. A couple of years ago, I was asked to attend a sub-committee at the State House to help pass a bill called “Put Parents In Charge”. I attended the sub-committee and told Brandon’s story in front of hundreds of people. Even though this bill did not pass, Brandon’s story hit every newspaper across the state. I was even getting calls from the Associated Press. It was really great how Brandon’s story made that much of an impact.

A couple of parents and I also went to Bishopville to be interviewed by John Stossel from ABC 20/20. That taping aired on January 13th, 2006, named “Stupid America- How we cheat our kids”. I had just a couple of seconds of fame on that show, but another parent, who currently attends Glenforest School, had more than a few minutes. It was truly exciting meeting Mr. Stossel.

I believe School Choice is one option that children like my son needs. Children like my son, cannot learn in a one size fits all educational setting. Parents like me deserve more school choice options to help educate their children in our state.

My personal efforts with school choice issues have nothing to do with our support group. I wanted to get involve with these issues because I feel parents in our state need more school choice options for their children. Along the way, however, there are a few parents in our support group that are also school choice supporters too.

Still traveling on my journey, on April 28th, 2006, Protection & Advocacy for People with Disabilities honored me with their “Louise Ravenel” award.  This was a great honor and I was very proud to receive it.

I know I have written a book for you concerning how our support group formed. I hope with doing so, it will make a difference with parents who have children like mine. I know in my heart that if parents would join forces and speak out about their children’s issues, that there would be changes made. They may seem like small changes, however, but there will be some. 

With starting the support group, I have learned so much about my own child’s disabilities as well as others.  The parents in the group have taught me to take one day at a time and to cherish the little things in life. We don’t concentrate on each individual’s own disabilities in our group. We each have our unique lives and challenges to face. Our group focuses on helping each other reach our children’s goals and to help each other cope with life in general. We all are facing the same issues concerning IEPs, 504 plans, IDEA laws, dealing with doctors, therapist, etc…, but we come together and we learn from each other different ways to handle those issues.  It makes life a whole lot easier knowing someone else is going through those same issues we face each day too. 

We are still meeting together once a month at the same time each month. We are currently getting new topic guest speakers and we are discussing new ways in helping each other and our community.

I had a parent tell me once that I should be proud of my accomplishments. She said I took a situation that made me so angry and resentful and I turned it around to helping other people. She said that I took something so terrible and made it into something so wonderful. I now can look back and smile and say to myself “Wow, was that me!” 

I guess she was right. In the beginning, I somehow used my anger to keep the support group going. I just wanted other parents to not make the same mistakes as I had made concerning the school system and with my own child. That’s why I pushed so hard in the beginning.  I had somehow pushed and pushed to get the word out about my own son’s issues that I forgot to stop and take a look at what was happening around me.  I had suddenly formed a group of parents together to help and support each other and I didn’t even realize I had the strength to even do that. 

As I said before, it’s funny how things work out.

My mother-in-law jokes with me regularly, she thinks I should write a book one day about Brandon and of starting the support group. I hope one day to maybe take her up on that suggestion.

I also want to add, FCTD- Family Center on Technology and Disabilities contacted our group to be featured in their February’s 2006 newsletter.  You can view the 11-page newsletter on their website www.fctd.info.

 Bridgette Reeves- Founder of POPS-Parents Offering Parents Support

support group

contact info:

259 Horton Rollins Road

Kershaw, SC 29067

(803) 273-9133