Empowering Families: The Search is Over for One Empowered Family
Hello. My name is Kristen Paurus and I live in Sebeka, on a small farm, with my husband William and our two beautiful daughters age 12 and 9. It is because of our oldest daughter, who is on the autism spectrum, that I first became interested in Empowering Kids.
Since she was diagnosed 8 years ago we have been on a long and exhausting search for autism-specific services in our area. There were many, many phone calls to literally every provider in the state of Minnesota. Every single phone conversation ended in some form of, “We’re really sorry but we don’t provide services in your area.”
As a parent, when your child is diagnosed with something like autism, and you know there is help out there but you can’t provide it to them, it feels like a special kind of torture. If there is one thing that I struggled with the most surrounding my daughter’s diagnoses it was the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough for her. But I didn’t give up and eventually, one agency in the cities agreed to a trial long-distance run of ABA services. Those services were short-lived however due to staffing problems and other difficulties.
When I first heard of Empowering Kids, it was the first time in a long time I was actually hopeful that we might be able to get the extra help we needed to provide our daughter with the tools she needs to thrive. We have been receiving services since July and there have already been several times that I have sent a text message to my daughter’s teacher letting her know of something awesome she just did. There have been so many little victories my daughter has already had in these last few months that I am so excited to see what she will accomplish in the future. I know that these little victories will add up to huge strides and it gives me so much hope.
Empowering Kids is providing such a great service to our local communities and I cannot wait to see the impact they have on not only my daughter’s life but the lives of all the other amazing children that walk through their doors. Thank you Empowering Kids, for not only providing this much-needed service to our local communities but for providing exceptional service. My daughter loves her lessons, her teacher, and all the extra events you put on. After 8 long years, the search is finally over.