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HPS'ers only

I had wanted to post these pics in order as they happened, but you know what, I've got so many cool pics that it will take forever if I do it that way - new plan.

After the circle, we split everyone at conference into three groups - HPS'ers only, parents of kids with HPS only, and HPS spouses, friends etc. We'd done this before, but we'd always stayed in the same room and just divided up into circles. That didn't work well. It was too hard to hear everyone, and several of the HPS'ers felt it didn't allow them the privacy they wanted.

The way we did it this year so far has had good reviews from most people. Sometimes it can be hard for some of the family members to understand why we do this and so strictly enforce it. It isn't anything bad about the families really. But, each of these groups of people are affected by HPS in very different ways and have very different concerns, questions and support needs. Sometimes HPS'ers don't want to talk about some of their feelings in front of family because they don't want to upset anyone. Sometimes they don't want to talk about what they're afraid of in front of the parents of younger HPS kids because they recognise that this could be very scary to a new parent, and they're in such a different place than the families with younger kids.

And I suspect that the parents also needed a place to express their feelings where they didn't have to worry about offending any of us. They have their own set of worries and grief issues etc.

Interestingly enough, when we did the conference review as a board, it turned out that the parent session was the most emotional. The adults session was actually not very tearful at all. It was very supportive, we're-going-to-beat-this-and-help-eachother-through.

I think that we will do this again next year. I do understand that some people come with family and they don't want to split up. I do understand this. And that's okay too - perhaps if you're family is not ready to break up like this it's a good time to go get a cup of coffee. There are too many people that really do need this "alone time."

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