Start Your Map
The things nobody told you, in time
Every family of a disabled child has a list of things they learned too late. The benefit that existed for years before anyone named it. The record that was easy to get at age nine and gone at eighteen. The deadline that ran from a letter nobody kept. Families do not learn these things late because they were not paying attention. They learn them late because nobody put the whole board in front of them while there was still time to act.
That is what a map does. And making yours starts now, not at the next crisis.
Start earlier than you think.
If your child is years from 18, this page is still for you. The families who fare best at 18 started the paper trail early: evaluations kept, records gathered, benefits understood while there was still time to act on them. It is the same work either way. Done early, it is paperwork. Done in the teen years, it is a fight, and fights are costly and tiring in every currency a family has.
What your family gets
A gather-early list. The documents and reports to request while they are free, current, or simply still in existence: school evaluations, the full educational record, medical and therapy records that speak to function, benefit notices and the envelopes they came in. Each item on your list says why it matters and who holds it, so collecting your child’s paper becomes a habit measured in minutes, not a scramble measured in panic.
The agencies, named. Every family needs to know who owns what before they need them: the school district’s special education office, Social Security, the state developmental disability agency, the Department of Rehabilitation, the VA where it applies. Your checklist names the agency behind every step and links to the official place to act on it, so nobody has to guess who answers the phone when a plan breaks.
The money finder. Money exists for more of this life than families are told: benefits that start or get reviewed at 18, college aid and CTP programs most families never hear named, vocational rehabilitation, housing and transportation help. Your checklist points at the ones that fit your family, each with the agency that runs it and the official link to verify it.
How it works
The Family Navigator asks six plain questions: your student’s age, whether they have an IEP or 504 plan, where you live, which systems your family already touches, and a few about college plans and veteran status where they apply. From those answers it builds your checklist: 27 steps organized by the systems in your family’s life, each with the agency that owns it and the official link to act on. It takes minutes. It costs nothing. And because the steps sit in order, you always know what comes first, because a map you cannot act on is just more paper.
Your family’s information stays your family’s
This part matters, so here it is in plain words. In the current Family Navigator, the answers you give stay on your own device. Nothing is uploaded. We do not ask you to upload your child’s IEP or 504, and there is no account holding your family’s records. When a tool someday asks for more, it will say exactly what, exactly why, and exactly how you can delete it, in words as plain as these. Until then: your answers, your device, your map.
Start
One button. No signup stands between you and the first question, and you can stop whenever you like and pick the map back up in this same visit with the code it gives you.
Pass it on
Things Nobody Told You, live.
The webinar series is coming: live sessions with Tera Lisicky, M.Ed., each one ending with your questions. First up: Turning 18 With a Disability, the master checklist walkthrough. Then SSI at 18 and the DAC benefit. Then From Helpless Child to Chapter 35. Then AI as a College Accommodation. Dates are being scheduled now, and this list hears them first.
Join the webinar list:
Rather start by email?
Join this page’s list and we will send the starter questions and one useful thing at a time: a record to gather, a benefit to check, a deadline to calendar. Small steps, in the order families actually meet them.