Every single thing in his life I've had to fight for." These words cut to the heart of Jodie's experience raising Caelan, her five-year-old son with autism and developmental delays. In this raw conversation, Jodie takes us through her journey from a complicated pregnancy at 19 to her current desperate search for a school placement for her son.
The system's failings become painfully clear as Jodie recounts the endless waiting lists, denied services, and bureaucratic obstacles that have defined her family's experience. Despite a formal autism diagnosis, Caelan has received virtually no public speech therapy or occupational therapy. Now, after applying to 18 different schools with autism classes, they've been rejected from nearly all - joining a growing community of families with nowhere to send their children come September.
What makes this conversation so powerful is Jodie's unflinching honesty about both the joys and struggles of raising Caelan. She describes the sleepless nights that finally improved with melatonin, the meltdowns she couldn't understand because her son couldn't communicate what was wrong, and the beautiful moments of connection that make everything worthwhile. Through tears and determined advocacy, she reveals how parents are forced to become experts, fighters, and researchers when the systems meant to help them fail.
This isn't just one family's story - it represents a national crisis affecting hundreds of children with autism across Ireland. As Jodie puts it: "It's constantly going around in circles." Join us for this essential conversation about what happens when children with special needs fall through the cracks, and the parents who refuse to let them be forgotten.
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