Life Planners™ Newsletter
June 2006
by Linda Moran
Monthly advice on how to write your child's Letter of Intent,
also known as a Life Plan
Feature Story |
Life Plan Tip |
This Month's Question
Download our free sample
Letter of Intent
(All sensitive and identifying information has been changed.)
But I don't know how to use a computer
You don't need to. Honest! Of course, it will look a lot prettier if you can print it out all neat and clean with no spelling errors, but that's not the point. If you can't afford a computer or just don't want to learn how to use one, you really can develop a Life Plan that is every bit as effective as any computer-generated one. Let's see how you can organize your plan and keep it up-to-date using tools that everyone knows how to use and can afford—paper and a loose-leaf binder.
Now perhaps an e-mail newsletter about avoiding computers seems odd, but some folks print this newsletter and pass it on to non-computer-using friends. Besides, not all e-mail users are facile with word processing.
If you're a computer whiz, stick around, though. There's news for you too.
If you can't use a computer to produce your Life Plan, remember, the goal is not to publish something gorgeous. The goal is to explain your child's needs to a new caregiver. If you organize your Life Plan and explain it clearly, that's enough.
Start by getting your supplies.
You need a loose-leaf binder and some blank paper. If you are able to type your plan, that will ensure that it is legible, but if you can't, just get some lined paper and make sure you write neatly. Print if you have to—don't take a chance that your plan cannot be easily read.
You also need a three-hole punch and some section dividers—those tabs that separate different parts of your plan where you write the name of the section. And that's it. Really. Get a binder, some paper, a three-hole punch, and some tabs. That's all you need to write your Life Plan.
So let's get started. Begin by marking your tabs with the names of the major sections of your document:
- Background information. This is the easiest section to write. It will contain your child's full name, date of birth, the names and social security numbers of everyone in the family—you get the idea.
- Advisors. Who is your lawyer? Accountant? Other trusted experts that help your child?
- Important Documents. Make sure you write down where you keep your insurance policies, your will, the key to your safe deposit box, etc.
- Medical. This might be a very long section for some children, but don't despair! You can start small and build from there.
- Diet. What does your child like to eat? Are there medical reasons that particular foods must be avoided? Start explaining it here.
- Safety. For some children, this section is short, but for others, there is a lot of explaining to do. Either way, this is where it all goes.
- Placements. Where does your child live? Go to school? Work? Make sure you describe the history and what you anticipate in the future, not just what's going on now.
- Hobbies and recreation. Vacations, summer camps, things to do. What are your child's favorites?
- Religion. What works for your child's worship?
- Finances. Explain what resources are available to take care of your child—trust accounts, government benefits, or something else.
Every child is different—if you don't think you need one of these tabs, chuck it. Add new ones that you think of.
Avoid worrying about thoroughness. This can be too defeating. Instead, do what you think of first. Right now, just write the names of some topics on the tabs and put in those section dividers. Then get some of your records—start with whatever you have handy. If you have your child's latest Individual Education Plan (IEP) that explains what the teachers are doing with her this year, grab your three-hole punch and get busy. Punch some holes and stick the IEP behind the education tab in your binder. You're on your way!
While you are on a roll, why not place one blank piece of paper in each section and write down some notes? Use a new piece of paper for each thought. So, if you have to explain Sheila's gluten-free diet, write about only that subject on your piece of paper. Suppress the urge to talk about her growth chart on the same page—use a fresh page for that.
Stick to one subject and one subject only on each piece of paper. Leave lots of blank space—if your pages are getting filled up, then you are taking on too big a subject on each page. Double space your writing so there is plenty of room to cross out and update sentences with no information. Don't write about another subject on the reverse side of the page. Use lots of paper.
Here's why you should use so much paper. It makes your plan far easier to change. This way, if you need to update your plan, you can add more information about that same subject on the rest of the paper later. And someday, when you've crossed out six sentences and it just needs to be reorganized, it's easy! Start your rewrite on a fresh piece of paper and then throw away the old piece of paper when you are done.
Think about why this works. Your child is constantly changing and your Life Plan is always changing. If you leave lots of space on every page, you can cross out old stuff and insert new stuff and it will still be easy to read. You can add information at the bottom or on the back of the page and it still makes sense.
And when the page is getting too filled up or too disorganized, then write it again from scratch—maybe splitting that subject into two different subjects on two new pages. If you follow this system, your plan will be very easy to change, which will cause you to stick with it and keep it up-to-date. Make it easy and you will do it, because your child needs it and her caregivers do too.
This month's Life Plan tip: Back up your work
Whether you store your Life Plan in a computer or not, you need backups! You know how much work it is to create and maintain your plan. Don't let accident or disaster destroy your work. Computer users should copy their plans to disk or other backup media and paper planners should make copies of their plans regularly.
Everybody should make sure they have multiple copies and that one of them is stored at a different location. A great way to store your backup is to give it to your caregiver every time you make a big update, which should be once a year at least.
This month's featured question: How can I explain my insurance coverage?
You probably can't. Let's face it—you probably don't really understand it yourself. You get surprised a couple of times every year with what they won't pay or by how hard you have to work to get them to pay.
You don't have to explain everything to your new caregiver. Just tell them what you know. You know when you need a referral and when you don't. Who your primary care physician is. What your co-pay is. When you need to fill out a form and when you don't. How you've organized your record-keeping so you can track how you get paid.
No matter what you do, you can't make it easy for anyone—it's not easy for you. But if you explain what you know, at least it won't be any harder for someone new. It has taken you a while to learn all this stuff, so just make it easier for the next person by passing it along.
A thought to ponder:
"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it."
William Faulkner, American novelist
and short-story writer who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature.
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