Episode 94: How To Support Siblings of Children With Disabilities

My guest this week is Emily Holl, the Director of The Sibling Support Project, the first national program dedicated to the life-long and ever-changing concerns of millions of brothers and sisters of people with special developmental and health concerns. Emily is a social worker, author, and trainer who has provided workshops and groups for siblings and families, presented extensively on sibling issues, and has conducted and published sibling research. A sibling, and board member of the national Sibling Leadership Network, Emily has written about her experiences in blogs, magazines, and books such as “Thicker than Water” and as co-editor of, “The Sibling Survival Guide: Indispensable Information for Adult Brothers and Sisters of People with Disabilities”. Emily earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts, a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University, and a Master of Social Work from Hunter College at the City University of New York.  In this episode, Emily and I discuss how to support siblings of children with disabilities. Emily encourages parents to connect with these siblings to create an open, supportive dialogue to help them navigate their experience and discuss their sibling's disabilities with their peers without creating stigmas. Often these siblings seek answers to questions that lead them to false understandings of the realities around their siblings' disability. Can they catch the disability? Did they cause it themselves? Emily helps parents combat these falsehoods and provides them with countless resources to aid in the support of the family as a whole.  Where to learn more about Emily Holl ... SiblingSupport.org Instagram Facebook Twitter  The Sibling Survival Guide Book Sibling Leadership Network