Family First Advocacy

Family First Advocacy (FFA) is committed to helping children with social, emotional, behavioral, and other mental health challenges find success in the public school system and their communities by empowering them through community-based advocacy, support services, trainings to children, parent(s)/caregiver(s), other caring community members, social groups, and mentoring. At no expense to families.

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A mom is all I ever wanted to be!

Just like the Brady Bunch, I wanted three girls and three boys, and we would all live happily ever after. Well, as you probably figured out things didn’t exactly happen the  way I thought they would. Remember the saying, “Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it!”


I am the VERY proud mama of seven children. What I wasn’t prepared for was that six out of the seven would have some form of learning disability &/or mental health challenge. Their challenges range from ADHD and dyslexia to developmental delays and severe mental disabilities such as Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), Autism, and everything in between. Clearly, we are nothing like Brady Bunch, but that doesn’t mean we are not a spectacularly amazing family!


At times we are messy and completely dysfunctional, and as a parent I rarely knew what I was doing. In the midst of my confusion and heartache for them I knew I could unfailingly provide them with three things:


  1. They would always have my unconditional love.
  2. I would NEVER lie to them.
  3. I would never stop fighting for them to be all they could be.
About Us

The area that my children struggled the most was in the school system. I went to meeting after meeting, sitting around a table with a bunch of people I didn’t know talking about all the ways my babies were struggling, and they were all speaking a language I didn’t understand. It was very intimidating!


I knew my children better than they did, I knew what they needed more than they did. They knew the school rules and they knew how to teach, but I knew what my children needed to be able to receive that education. Sadly, I didn’t feel like my voice was being heard. For the most part everyone was nice but when it came time for the decisions to be made my requests and suggestions were more often than not completely ignored. According to federal law parents and caregivers are supposed to be “equal members” of their child’s IEP/504 team. I was a member of my child team but not an” equal” member.


I left each meeting feeling like I failed my children. After one specific meeting something in me snapped! I made a promise to my children to never stop fighting for them. I got obsessed with learning educational law, learning everything I could about what was owed to my children in the public school system by federal laws that were there to protect them and to ensure they had the same opportunities as children without disabilities.


The fight was on and now I am equipped with enough knowledge to make me dangerous. Sometimes I did it well and other times my emotions got the best of me, I was a hot mess! It has been 16 years since that specific meeting, and this is what I have learned:

I learned that I was not alone, there are a lot of parents with children with disabilities who felt just as lost and alone as I felt.

I have learned to channel my emotions & fight into a passion for advocating for all students K-12.

I learned I didn’t have to know everything, I just needed to know where to find the answers to my questions.

I learned that most of the time if a parent didn’t not know what to ask for and how to ask for it, the student would not receive what they need.

"They All Cost Money and I Could Not Afford It"

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  • I learned that parents or caregivers fall into two different categories:
  • They know their student is struggling but are having trouble getting what they need, or even tested to see what they need.
  • They are completely trusting the school staff to let them know if their student needs an IEP or 504 Plan (which rarely happens).

All these lessons and more built in me a passion for helping students with disabilities and ensuring that no other parent or caregiver would ever feel the way I felt when I first started advocating for my children. That is why I decided to start this nonprofit. Please check out all the services and supports we offer, as well as stories from Parents or caregivers that we have had the privilege of helping.

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