Assembling a support team can be crucial in helping everyone during the acute stages of helping your child, as well as during the longer treatment period that will likely take place over time. One support team may look very different from another.
Your child’s medical response team is different than the support team described on this page. One way to look at it is to envision a series of concentric circles surrounding your child, with the closest circle being the primary medical supports and each circle moving outward providing other levels and types of support.
In navigating the layers of treatments that your child may need, there are a variety of roles that people can fill in helping you, your child, and other family members, too.
The support team for your family and your child may include:
- Extended family
- Close adult friends
- Health navigator or advocacy partner
- Teachers or other school personnel
- Therapeutic treatment providers, Counselors
- Youth group or other extracurricular activity coaches/mentors
- Your child’s doctor(s)
- Church or other spiritual group personnel