The Voices Behind THE LIFE SUPPORT PROJECT
Ashley Wood
Ashley Wood, LCSW, Director of The Life Support Project and a parent of a child with epilepsy (Dravet Syndrome).
I began my journey with epilepsy in January 2009. During a family vacation on a remote island, one of my twin daughters launched (out of an actual clear blue sky) into a tonic-clonic seizure that took over an hour to stop. My daughter and I were emergency air-lifted off the island -- the beginning of a long, painful journey that at the time, I thought would never end.
A few years into our lives with epilepsy, I woke up to signs that my family was suffering from stress, trauma and chaos brought on by this diagnosis. And then, along came Polly….She helped me look at what I could do to help my family of 5 adjust, deal and accept epilepsy rather than just reacting fearfully to it. Polly pointed us down a path that changed how we did family.
Polly Ely
Polly Ely, MFT, author, speaker, and founder of The LAB Method™.
The LAB Method™ is a parenting approach that shows parents how to relax while they lead, how to attune to their kids instead of compulsively managing and controlling them, and how to set boundaries and hold them™(hyperlink). She writes, speaks, and lives as an ally to parents and partners everywhere, naming and normalizing the most harrowing parts of the parenting journey. Polly is renowned for giving parents routes out of the places where they feel lost, and helping to heal the parts of them that get broken along the way.