What additional needs ‘badges’ do you have?

We all have useful skills, things we’ve learned along the way, even scars that we may be carrying that give us experience that can be a help to others.

These ‘scars’ can be like badges, think scout or guide badges… they have the first aid badge and the camping badge… I’ve got the additional needs badge, what ‘badge’ have you got?

Reflect for a moment on what ‘badge’ you might have? And if you can see something in the people you journey with, tell them! What ‘badges’ do you see in them?

Our ‘badges’ can be used to make a positive difference in the world, to help others with our experience, or to be a guide to people starting out on the journey that we might have been on for years.

Here are a few ‘badges’ that come to mind in the overall additional needs area… do you recognise any of these?

Inclusion Champion badge – someone who leads inclusion at a venue (e.g. a club, church, school), or online.

One-to-One badge – someone who supports an individual child or young person with additional needs at school, club, church, home, etc

Paperwork badge – someone who knows their way around an EHCP, or a DLA/PIP application, or how to apply for a Blue Badge (oh look, another ‘badge’!), for example

Organiser badge – someone who coordinates and chases up all of the service providers for our child… personal assistants, social care, health care, school, transport, etc

Campaigner badge – someone who raises awareness, fights for acceptance and inclusion, uses all means possible to create a fairer world where everyone belongs

Befriender badge – someone who gets alongside the family of a child or young person with additional needs, offering support, maybe respite, a listening ear, etc

What additional ‘badges’ can you think of? Add them into the comments section below, along with a few words to describe them, and they can then be added to this list!

Whether you read this blog as a children’s, youth, or families worker, or as a parent, carer, or guardian, or as a practitioner, or as someone who supports one of these, or in some other role, you are likely to have at least one of these ‘badges’.

Some of you might have several, or even all of them! And you are likely to know other people that have ‘badges’ too.

Let’s celebrate our ‘badges’ and use them to be a help and a blessing to people who are new to our ‘pack’, who haven’t earned their ‘badge’ yet, but are working towards it.

Parents, carers, or guardians that are discovering that their child might have additional needs; or children’s, youth, and families workers who are starting out on the journey to make what they do more inclusive; or church leaders responding to the needs of their congregation; or some other role.

If we all use our ‘badges’ in helping others, in helping each other too, then we can make a real difference; not just to those that we are helping, but towards making society at large a better place for all of the children, young people, or adults that we journey with in different ways.

Looking forward to what an ‘awards ceremony’ might look like!

Mark Arnold, Director of Additional Needs Ministry at Urban Saints. Arnold blogs at The Additional Needs Blogfather. This article was re-published with permission.