BY KATHERINE ERNST

In print | Published March 19, 2009

Founded nearly a year ago by Grace Chang ’09 and fellow head coordinators Katie Altynova ’08 and Kristin Caldwell ’09, SibShop is a program that aims to support the siblings of children with special needs in the local community by providing them with peer support and education within a recreational context.

“A lot of families are really struggling with how to care for a member of their family with a life-long disability, and we typically think of the parents as having this burden to carry,” Chang explained. “Siblings are often the overlooked family member.”

Best described as events, SibShops are designed primarily for school-age children and emphasize a kids’ eye-view.

Erin Rondhovde ’10 explained the need for a group like SibShop in light of the lack of existing area organizations serving siblings of children with special needs.

“I’d never heard of a group that worked with the siblings of special needs children before,” she said. “I think it’s a need that often goes unmet.”

Currently run by Chang, Rondhovde and Caitlin Daimon ’11, Sibshop bring information and discussion activities together with energetic games. While the Swarthmore branch of the program initially focused its attention on facilitating a space where the siblings of children with special needs could be the focus of attention, SibShop has recently been making an expanded effort to foster discussion.

“Last year the focus was a lot more on just giving the siblings a place where the attention was all on them, and I think that was a good starting point, because for obvious reasons they don’t get that a lot at home,” Ronhovde explained. “But since then, we’ve started to incorporate much more the aspect of creating a dialogue with the kids that are involved and between the kids that are involved about what it means to have a special sibling.”

Daimon believes the children noticed that. “They’ve become more involved with discussing their special siblings. It’s been great,” Daimon said.

At the meeting this past Monday, Chang, Ronhovde and Daimon passed out nametags, markers and pieces of a giant, homemade puzzle to participants, whose ages ranged from four to 10 years. After each child colored in his or her own individual puzzle piece, all the pieces were taped together to create a vibrant poster with the word “autism” written in big letters. Everyone then created a circle around the poster, and Chang asked the children to take turns talking about their brothers or sisters with autism. About half of the children raised their hands.

SibShop is a partner program to TOPsoccer, a branch of a national organization for young athletes with disabilities. Organized by youth soccer association volunteers, the program is designed to bring the opportunity of learning and playing soccer to children between the ages of four and 19 with mental or physical disabilities. At Swarthmore, both SibShop and TOPsoccer meet at the Field House every Monday at 7 p.m. so that children with mental or development needs can play soccer while their siblings participate in a separate set of activities.

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