The Vital Role of Community in Neurodivergent Success

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Our special guest, Mary Judy, brings her vast experience as an advocate for neurodiverse families to the table. Mary Judy shares her compelling journey and the challenges her son faced despite his academic success. She discusses the importance of creating individualized support teams for those who may not outwardly appear neurodiverse but still require assistance. Mary Judy's story is a powerful testament to resilience and the necessity of tailored support systems for fostering independence in neurodivergent individuals.

About Mary Judy:  I grew up in a Neurodiverse Family and that is my sense of normal. Not surprisingly, I married a man with a neurodivergent mind, and we have our own Neurodiverse Family. I was extremely fortunate to have the example of my mother Margaret’s support for my father and my brother who were the most impacted in our household while I was growing up. She was completely alone in her advocacy for our family, but she just did what was right because she loved us. My mom protected us all fiercely and meekly, using her gut to decide what was right and what was wrong. She was brilliant! After her death in 2008, my son was diagnosed with learning disabilities (2E) and eventually with Asperger’s Syndrome. When he was in high school, I realized that his father too has Asperger’s. There are only two choices you have when faced with this kind of knowledge; you can go all in or you can run. I went all in with the help of a wonderful network of friends and supporters that I had created for myself while raising my kids, and the example of my amazing mother who always showed me the way to love people unconditionally and with her whole being.

Now I’m helping other families bridge the gap to independence and adulthood professionally. When challenged daily with how to help my clients without enabling them, I think to myself “What would Margaret do?”

With the birth of our second child just prior to Y2K, I left the tech world to manage our significant real estate investments and educated myself about the residential design business and real estate management. We divested our North Carolina real estate holdings in 2005 to move to Chicago. There I earned my Illinois real estate and certified property management licenses. I renovated and flipped our family residences and managed the sales and renovation of client properties.

During these years our second child was identified as Twice Exceptional, eventually leading to an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis. I sought training through the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Wrightslaw Special Education Law and Advocacy, and became a contracted Parent Advocate for the Illinois State Board of Education. With my neighbors we started the Riverside Area Inclusion Network (RAIN) to support families and work with the school systems to create more inclusive educational and community opportunities for our exceptionally identified children. Public educators and the state systems were just adapting to this new normal and by high school we moved our exceptional child to a Catholic single sex high school with wonderful supports, and MOST importantly, a sense of belonging not experienced anywhere before. A wonderful priest (to whom I will always be grateful) also helped me to see that my husband is on the spectrum. This insight saved our marriage!

Recognizing a family dream to live in the Rockies, we relocated to Colorado in 2018. Here I went to work for state licensed program approved service agencies (PASA) to learn the supportive ropes for the Neurodiverse community. I earned my Association of Community Rehabilitative Educators (ACRE) certification, and have built a network within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF), the Department of Vocati