“I’m doing my best”: experiences of parents navigating services for their children with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

COVID-19 led to an unprecedented shift to exclusively remote education across the United States. The immediate and emergency pivoting from face-to-face services to telehealth left families responsible for navigating the educational needs of their children with disabilities while also coping with increased home and work responsibilities. This study examines the obstacles parents faced, and the extent to which parents were prepared to support their children, and discusses resources necessary to best support students through pandemic based remote education. Descriptive and correlational statistics were used to analyze survey data collected from 96 families of children with disabilities. Findings suggest that telehealth related therapeutic structures implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in parents of children with disabilities facing significant challenges in managing their schedules. Parents were expected to facilitate thelehealth based interventions with little to no training, resulting in them feelin overwhelmed due to their limited experience and a lack of training.

Points of interest

• Schools did not provide parents with the resources or communication necessary to effectively serve their child during the transition between in person and online learning.

• Parent struggled to navigate new found barriers assocaited with school expectations of their role in facilitating therapy sessions.

• These barriers predominantly affected women caregivers, which aligns with the trend of women leaving work as a result of childcare related challenges.

• Parents struggled with the expectations school administrators had of them and their abilities to successfully facilitate therapy sessions.

• Women caregivers experienced significant time related challenges associated with caring for their children, which aligns with the trend of women leaving the work force as a result of childcare related challenges.

• A lack of consistent and reliable communication between school districts and families left parents feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and hopeless regarding their child accessing necessary services.

• Parents are expected to be equal partners in their child’s education. The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the gap that exists between the concept of parents being equal partners, and what equal partnerships look like in practice.

Keywords:

• Disability
• parenting
• therapy
• telehealth
• covid-19
• academic success

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).