Hi everyone!

If you don't know about Sibshops, it is like what we tried to do during our first year meetings with our brothers and sisters of PLAYNET Kids.  (We did have a handful of Siblings who particpated on a fairly regualr basis, but due to staffing needs for our PLAYNETTERS inour second year, we unfortunately had to temporarily disband our Sibling group). Sibshops addresses the unique issues of the siblings of children with Special Needs through a fun and wellness approach. 

Dan is going to get to participate in the Sibshop on Saturday September 9th in Bloomington, and if I can find a sitter on th 8th I plan to atttend the training on Friday and possibly also on Saturday. However, they said I would have to step out part of the time on Saturday due to my son's participation.  If any of you PLAYNET members have any inclination that you might like to help PLAYNET through facilitating Sibling activites in the future as a part of PLAYNET or perhaps as a part of another local Sibshop, please consider registering to attend on at least Friday.  (Yes, you could be good at it!). It is a real privilege to have Don Meyer himself in our community for this training event!

Please contact me by e-mail or phone if you would like to know more about attending this event, or about Sibshops in general.  Also see the link to the brochure below!  Thank you!

~Ronda
812-659-3700

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Don Meyer SibShop Training in Bloomington
Date:	Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:33:48 -0400
From:	Wheeler, Marci <mwheeler@...>
To:	Elizabeth Sinders <mom23littleboys@...>, The Metzgers <rmetzger@...>, Michele Robb <parentsolutions@...>, <wyrickdl@...>, Kim Wolford <kjwolford@...>, <baloge@...>, Vanessa Vance-Green <vgreen@...>, <nnicholson@...>, Melnaie Hasenstab <southernindianaautism@...>

Hi Elizabeth, Ronda, Michele, Lisa, Kim, April, Vanessa, Nicole and
Melanie,
Could you send a message to your group members for me? See below.

Hi everyone!
 I want to encourage local and Southern Indiana families to take
advantage of the Don Meyer SibShop workshops to be here in at the
Bloomington Convention Center on September 8th and 9th! You can go one
or both days. Each is only $25 dollars for the day!

On Friday September 8th come hear Don Meyer the leading expert on
siblings of children with special needs! He will talk about the unique
concerns and opportunities of siblings! There will be a panel of adult
siblings that Don will facilitate and he will also briefly discuss the
SibShop concept.

On Saturday September 9th Don will train a smaller group of up to 30
adults on how to run a SibShop while he is running a SibShop for up to
20 siblings ages 8-13. To be trained as a SibShop leader you must attend
the first day to be eligible for the second day.

A third unique opportunity right here in Bloomington on Saturday
September 9th is to have your 8-13 year old "typical" siblings attend
the workshop from 10-2 for lots of FREE fun! They don't want the parents
of the 8-13 year old siblings to attend but there will be lots of
supervision and did I say FUN! Lunch will be included on Saturday plus a
small stipend to cover mileage.

For a link to the brochure go to:
www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca/fconference.html
For a link to the registration form go to:
www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca/conferences/SibshopForm.html

Hope to see some of you there!

Marci Wheeler, M.S.W.
Indiana Resource Center for Autism
Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
2853 E. Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47408
Phone: 812-855-6508
Fax: 812-855-9630
mwheeler@... 
www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca