My Book for Families With Special Needs Children

I am pleased to share the release of my book  “Financial Planning for Special Needs Children Families“. But you must have noticed a slight cease of activities at my blog for last few months. There were 2 reasons for it. First was a technical issue which is addressed now. You can check from the new look. The other bigger reason was My book ” Financial Planning For Families with Special Needs Children“.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since this book is close to my heart so I put on hold my blog for a while. Finally the book is published now and available for you to read.

My Mission – PlanSpecialNeeds

I am a financial planning expert who is passionate about helping special needs children families. My aim is to remove their anxiety towards special needs financial planning. This will bring in the families a sense of empowerment, so that they are able to provide for their loved one with special needs and to the whole family. That’s the mission of PlanSpecialNeeds.  This service I started exclusively for families with special needs dependent.

 

 Special Needs Financial Planning

During my employment years there was always zeal to work for people and the financial planning profession helped me in taking that first step. Within my network of friends/relatives I have met families who have a special needs child. Through them I have seen the difficulties in the life revolving around concern for the child. But I truly admire parents of a special needs dependent for the patience, understanding and the persistence they possess. Being a special needs parent is not an easy road to trek, yet the journey is priceless. They not only understand and bond with their children, but they learn, grow, and expand their own knowledge as well. This is what makes them possess those skills which every parents of a child admire to have.

When I started my financial planning practice thoughts hovered in my mind. How can I create difference in the lives of people who need me the most?. I always aspired to be working with families who are not able to receive a proper guidance and resources to plan for their financial well-being. By then I have already met numerous families with special needs children. Through them I gained a deep understanding into their personal, financial and legal requirements. My spouse, who is an occupational therapist by profession is an instrumental guidance in taking this decision. She has been serving families with special needs children from 2003. Seeing the ongoing concerns of such families and a lack of specialist advisers in our country I then decided to set up a specialized practice for families with special needs children.

The Decision

My parents spent a life juggling between the joint family issues and their personal life. Through their lives, I realize that for a service middle class it’s always difficult to handle so many issues together. At some point of time dissatisfaction may arise.  For families with special needs children, the life is not easy either. There is no single resource which they can refer. Neither they can know how the complete system actually works and where they should approach for help in need.

Though I have met families with special needs children even during my college days the awareness was too low. I hardly came to know much about their life. Then when I was employed I worked with few of the families but even then our discussion was restricted to only investment aspects. That’s what I was hired for and the need to advise them holistically not arisen yet in India. It was after my marriage that I came to know more about a family life when you have a special need dependent. My wife in her profession has been working with such families for quite a long time.  We had lot of discussions on the life of families who have special needs children as we met many of them through our friends/relatives.   It was at this stage that I came close to understanding how the lack of information is not allowing families to plan their future. When I met few of them then I realized that most families are being guided wrongly committing multiple mistakes in their financial or legal aspects.

Why This Book?

I always had a dream of giving holistic and unbiased advice to those families who do not have access to a good financial advice. Starting my own practice as a fee-only financial planner was the first step in this direction. But by then I had already decided to advice families with special needs dependent. That is what gave birth to the idea of PlanSpecialNeeds. Though the website covers most aspects of what I plan still it can reach only those families who are well conversant with today’s technology. Most of the families having special needs children need readily accessible information which they can see and refer to plan their financial future.

This thought made me approach various media houses to cover articles discussing only special needs financial planning. Though, the issues have been covered in the past but it has been more generalized and the need has arisen to go deep into the problems families are facing. In my view, an article too should serve as guidance rather than a one-page note. This was surely a breakthrough as post these articles I started receiving inquiries and referrals from across the country. These numerous inquiries made me write more as I was able to dive deeply into the issue families are facing.

But again the special needs planning cannot be covered completely just by few articles. When we speak of special needs planning in India then every issue has to be addressed by families themselves. This can be achieved only when they have information on how they can put things together and what they should do to plan for the future. That’s where I decided that only a book can provide them a resource which families need to plan their future. I intend this book to reach families whom I cannot approach in my direct capacity. I am confident this book will provide them a readily accessible information source to be helpful in their planning process.

So here is the book – “Financial Planning for Families having Children With Special Needs“. You can order your copy from Amazon and pass on the information to any such family you know. In the end do share your feedback which will be valuable for readers and families who wish to plan but do not know how to start.