227 – Joshua Carrigg of Gaithersburg, MD, Master Sergeant U.S. Army & Father of Three All with Special Needs

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at HorizonTherapeutics.com.

Joshua Carrigg: I would say, don’t give up. You can overcome anything. Even when there’s a death, you can overcome that. Just keep pushing, hold people accountable. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, whatever one liner you want to give, but I would say just don’t give up.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Joshua Carrigg, a master sergeant in the US Army, and a father of three with a variety of special needs. We’ll hear about Joshua and his family on this week’s Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Say hello now to host David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to The Dad to Dad Podcast, fathers mentoring fathers of children with special needs, presented by the Special Fathers Network.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.”

Tom Couch: Now, let’s hear this intriguing conversation between David Hirsch and Joshua Carrigg.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Joshua Carrigg of Gaithersburg, Maryland. He’s a master sergeant in the US Army and the father of three children with a wide range of special needs. Joshua, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Joshua Carrigg: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Austin, have been married for 20 years and are the proud parents of three children, Christian 21, Nicholas 18, who has autism, and Melanie 10 who has Down syndrome to name a couple of the diagnoses. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Joshua Carrigg: So I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. My wife grew up in Marianne, Arizona, which is right outside of Tucson. And we love the Southwest.

David Hirsch: And when you were growing up, did you have any siblings?

Joshua Carrigg: I did have siblings. So I had two siblings that I grew up with that came from the same mother and father. One was Shalon, one was Justin. And then I had some other siblings that my father had in later marriages.

David Hirsch: Do you have some full siblings and some half-siblings? That’s what I hear you saying.

Joshua Carrigg: Correct.

David Hirsch: And out of curiosity, what did your dad do?

Joshua Carrigg: So before my father used to work… So he was in the Air Force for a little while as a mechanic. And he loaded bombs on airplanes. And then he got out of the Air Force and went to work for Delta Airlines where he was a mechanic as well in maintenance tech. And then he got out of working for Delta and then worked for a school district in Georgia.

David Hirsch: And is your dad still alive?

Joshua Carrigg: He is still alive.

David Hirsch: And how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Joshua Carrigg: Fractured. I think that’s a good word. He left my mother when I was five. They divorced and he got married two other times. He’s got children with two different ladies besides my mother.

David Hirsch: Okay. Sorry to hear about your parents getting divorced. Coincidentally at about the same age, my parents got divorced. My mom and dad split when I was six. My younger brother was five. And it affects everybody differently, right? There’s some, I don’t know, call it unintended consequences that go along with a relationship splitting. And it’s not all good, it’s not all bad. But there is some fallout and it can be challenging. I’ll just mention that so I’m reading between the lines when you say “fractured.”

So was there an important takeaway or two when you think about the experience that you had growing up, mostly with your mom, not your dad, some lessons that you learned from your dad that you’ve taken away?

Joshua Carrigg: So you can make any situation good or bad but I think a major takeaway that I actually told my father to his face was, how not to treat women. Cuz he was not great. Another takeaway is kinda sticking it out. I think not growing up with my father has made me want to stick around for my kids. So when me and my wife argue, we always try to stick it out for us and them. So it’s definitely made us push harder and be better parents.

David Hirsch: Yeah. There is something to be said if you make a commitment to follow through on your commitment. And I know it’s easy to say, but in the heat of battle sometimes it’s harder to stay committed. So I admire you for that. And maybe it’s the pendulum swinging one direction like in your dad’s case, your parents’ generation, and now the pendulum’s gonna swing back the other way. You’re gonna overcompensate, if you will, and just say, I’m not gonna let that happen to me.

Joshua Carrigg: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: So my recollection was that you joined the Army at 20 and you’ve been serving for 19 years, and your current rank is as Ambassador Sergeant, and you’ve had two deployments to Iraq in ’03-’04, and then in ’06-’07.

Joshua Carrigg: Correct.

David Hirsch: And I’m wondering when you started in the Army if you could envision that you’d be knocking on the 20-year door?

Joshua Carrigg: So actually it’s funny cuz when I first joined the military, I mean my girlfriend at the time now wife were separated and so I went to the military, I’m like, hey, I need a job that’s gonna be able to give my son insurance. And I knew we were going to Iraq, so I was like, oh, I wanna be in Iraq within a year. And they gave me both. So if I thought that I was gonna be in for 20 years… I know when I first joined, I joined for six years. And they used to make fun of me saying that I’d get out when they had flying Humvees. So we’ll see.

David Hirsch: [laughing] Okay. When you reflect back on your career, your long career, I’m wondering if there’s a highlight or two that you can share with our listening audience.

Joshua Carrigg: So a lot of it’s been up and down just like any career, 95% monotony and 5% action. But I would say probably less, five or six years, when I became a senior leader in the Army and I got more soldiers underneath me and I got to directly influence their life, good and bad. So I think that’s probably been the most impactful to me.

David Hirsch: And you became a father, was it before you started in the Army or shortly thereafter?

Joshua Carrigg: A little of both. So actually we had our oldest son, he’s gonna be 21 in November. And we had him before I joined the military. And then I joined, I came back from basic training, decided we were gonna get married, got married and then my wife got pregnant as we were going to our first duty station as well.

David Hirsch: Okay. A little bit of both, like you said. Thank you for sharing. Let’s talk about special needs first on a personal level and then beyond. So I’m curious to know before Nicholas’s diagnosis, I was wondering if you and Austin had any exposure to the special needs community?

Joshua Carrigg: So we had a little bit of exposure to special needs or complex medical needs or whatever you’re gonna call it. I had a brother who had ADD. Now it’s just ADHD. And then my sister had epilepsy. And then on my wife’s side there were some issues with alcohol and drugs and suicide and different mental health issues.

David Hirsch: Okay. What is Nicholas’s diagnosis and how was it first made?

Joshua Carrigg: So Nicholas has got a few different diagnoses. The first diagnosis that he had when he was younger, probably about four or five years old, was autism and he got diagnosed when we were at Fort Benning in Georgia. Just aggressive kiddo, never really looked in the eyes, had a hard time saying I love you. And just all around, I would say they’re normal autistic, but there’s no normal autistic tendencies. And then later on he was diagnosed with another rare medical condition called Mast Cell Activation, or at the time it was called mastocytosis.

David Hirsch: When you first got those diagnoses you’d mentioned that you were at Fort Benning. What was your reaction? Can you put yourself back that many years?

Joshua Carrigg: I think if anybody gets the autism diagnosis it’s like world ending. And it was a little bit for us. When we finally started getting educated on it and really just educated on how to help him. So I know ABA was in its infancy at that time. So we took him to ABA therapy and stuff like that. And he started I would say coming along. If you talk to any adults who have been through ABA it’s like torture to them. But that was our initial reaction, of course shock, and then okay, let’s get smart on it and let’s figure out how we can make his life better.

David Hirsch: Okay. It sounds like you had a very pragmatic approach. We’ve got a situation, we need to figure out what the situation is and how to make the most of it. I don’t know if that’s part of your military training or if that’s just part of your DNA.

Joshua Carrigg: I don’t know. Sorry, just keep moving on. That’s all you can do.

David Hirsch: Okay. So was there some meaningful advice that you got early on that helped you and Austin navigate?

Joshua Carrigg: I think really just not giving up and always just, I wouldn’t say pushing through it cuz there’s not everything you could push through, but really just, like I said, educate yourself on the matter at hand and make educated guesses at that point. [chuckles]

David Hirsch: Yeah. I know that autism is considered to be a spectrum, right? If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism, right? It affects individuals differently. And I’m wondering on a… I don’t know that you could quantify this on a scale of one to 10, one being very mild, 10 being more severe, where do you think Nicholas falls?

Joshua Carrigg: You can ask me that day to day. So when he was originally diagnosed, that’s when they had different names for it, Asperger’s and all that stuff. So I would consider him mild and then some days again, day to day it could be a bad day. And he’s a super extreme, but, he’s come a long way and he is a super good guy and super loving, super smart.

David Hirsch: I know that they typically use the word functioning, higher functioning, lower functioning. So it sounds like intellectually he’s functioning at a high level. And I’m wondering if there’s some call it quirks that individuals with autism have that you can relate.

Joshua Carrigg: If you ever ask Nicholas, he’ll tell you he is a genius. They have told him that before and he likes to tell people that. But quirks, he’s got different quirks. He’s got a little OCD, he’s got a little ADHD. He does have a hard time socially. I know growing up one of the major things that was an issue for him was friends. It’s not that he didn’t have friends, he just didn’t realize that’s what the people around him were called. He used to come home and be like, I have no friends. And we’d go pick him up and he’d be playing with 20 kids, but finally figuring it out, you had to put a name on it. Hey, this is John, this is your friend. And then after that, he said oh, I got lots of friends.

David Hirsch: So it’s helping him, if I can paraphrase what you’ve said, develop the language and understanding for what some of these things are, what the connections are.

Joshua Carrigg: Correct. Anger, friendship, love. Just putting a name on it and just explaining to him what it is and, oh, I do have that feeling.

David Hirsch: And you mentioned that the secondary diagnosis is Mast Cell Activation?

Joshua Carrigg: Correct.

David Hirsch: And what is that specifically?

Joshua Carrigg: So the body has mast cells, and the mast cells help fight off allergens and stuff like that. His body over produces mast cells and he can have a reaction from normal everyday things, stuff that he’s not even really allergic to. Sometimes it could be peanuts, sometimes it could be… So his real allergy is like hot and cold. So if he gets too hot, then he starts having a reaction. And some of the times he could be anaphylactic. He’s had to use EpiPen, growing up in his life. He can self-administer [laughing]. It’s nothing, he just doesn’t wanna do self-administer because he’s I just don’t wanna go to the hospital. So he tries to fight through it.

David Hirsch: Okay. Yeah. It sounds like he’s come a long way, like you said, from an early age. Glad to hear. Let’s talk a little bit about Melanie’s situation. And in a prior conversation you mentioned Melanie was adopted at six weeks. What’s the backstory there?

Joshua Carrigg: So we had originally tried to foster and stuff like that. We went and got certified in Kentucky when we lived there in Georgia. Now then, we never got any placements, even though our home studies were always glowing. So we… Not saying we gave up, we did a compassionate assignment to Boston and so we put fostering and stuff like that on the back burner.

And so about three or four years later, we had sent our home study out before to a whole bunch of facilitators and adoption agencies and all that stuff. And finally after a while, they gave my wife a call. They were like, hey, we have a family that’s interested in your home study. Can we send it to ’em?

She did not tell me. And she had it forwarded and after they selected us to go to the next process, she finally told me. After all that, we were selected to take home our lovely little girl.

David Hirsch: My recollection again from a prior conversation was that Melanie was part of a set of twins. And I’m wondering if you can go into a little bit more detail about the circumstances.

Joshua Carrigg: It was interesting circumstances. I’m at the duty military. Our daughter was born in Hawaii and we got a phone call. They’re like, hey, you can come pick her up this weekend. So I bought my wife a plane ticket and sent her down there. We had gone through a special needs adoption facilitator, so they just helped the families meet. And then we had to figure out all logistical and legal pieces. So we knew she had Down syndrome. We knew she had some other medical issues. And so we went down there and got her and brought her home. Made sure that we brought her home for our son’s birthday, that was his promise.

David Hirsch: So he considers this to be his birthday present, his little sister.

Joshua Carrigg: He does. We actually worked it out. So we brought him home on his 10th birthday and then we finalized the adoption on our other son’s 10th birthday.

David Hirsch: That’s a pretty wild story. You know, what a blessing it is to have a little girl in your family and to have her come into your family in the manner that she did. And I’m wondering out of curiosity, if you made an effort to stay in contact with the birth family or what the circumstances are on the other side of that situation.

Joshua Carrigg: So for me, I have not made an effort to contact her birth family, but my wife does stay in contact. So my daughter does have… She’s Baby B, twins. So we do get pictures of her sister. We made sure that we kept her name as intact as possible, because in Japanese every word and every character means something. So we made sure we kept her name as close as possible. And we’ve kept in contact with her family, and I’m not gonna say their name, but they felt that, in the Japanese culture, that it was frowned upon to have a child with complex medical needs. But it was also frowned upon to have an abortion and stuff like that. So they thought this would be the best choice. And they told the rest of their family that she passed away at birth. Yeah. So we do have some contact with them.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thank you for your transparency. It sounds like just by the tone of your voice, there are some mixed feelings. It’s like one door closes in the chapter of their life by moving on, trying to move on, by not being forthcoming with their own family about what happened to Baby B, if you will. And the door opens into the Carrigg family, right? And you’ve got this beautiful young daughter who has been a blessing in your lives and it’s aususpicious circumstances that have created this situation.

And I just admire you and Austin for opening not only your home, but your hearts, right? Because a lot of individuals would say, oh, that would be a good thing to do. And then maybe they go through the training, right? They get close to it and they don’t get any farther than that. Or maybe they do have a foster care experience or set of experiences. It’s more temporary in nature.

And then it seems like you jumped, leapfrogged from not only getting trained and putting yourselves out there to getting the call and being matched and all of a sudden it’s wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. Here it is. It sounds at some level exhilarating to be part of the journey that you just described, but no doubt it has come with some challenges as well.

Joshua Carrigg: It has. And I wouldn’t consider my wife much of an optimist. But she’s pretty positive in reference to exactly what you just said. If they hadn’t given her up, we wouldn’t have her. And I consider myself as, I wouldn’t say cultured, but have lived in different cultures and dealt with different cultures. I just can’t understand any culture that would give away a child, let alone a child with medical complexities and stuff like that. That’s me.

David Hirsch: Yep. We’re each built a little bit differently and the good news is that Melanie has two loving parents and two loving older brothers. And she’s in an environment where she’s thriving, relatively speaking. And I think that’s beautiful.

So what were some of the fears that you faced as parents of children with the types of challenges that you’ve described with both Nicholas and Melanie?

Joshua Carrigg: You said the fears?

David Hirsch: Yeah.

Joshua Carrigg: I think really the only, I mean besides the normal fear, can any of their medical issues cause death or stuff like that. Outside of that is really just being treated like anybody else. I think that’s been a huge hurdle to overcome for both of my complex children is just wanting to be treated the same and not just have expectations that, oh, she’s got Down syndrome. We can just throw her in her corner and she’ll be okay. Just having the same expectations that you would for any other child, and just helping them meet their full potential. So I think that’s one of our biggest fears outside of the medical issues.

David Hirsch: Yeah. You didn’t use the words inclusion and acceptance, but that’s what I’m interpreting what you’re saying. You want them to be included and you want them to be accepted.

Joshua Carrigg: Correct.

David Hirsch: We’re in a much better place as a society today than we probably have been in all of history. There’s still a lot of room for improvement…

Joshua Carrigg: Correct.

David Hirsch: …as it relates to what’s going on in our educational systems and what’s going on in society overall. And I admire the commitment that you’ve made, some by birth and other by choice here, to shoulder the responsibility that comes along with this and be a role model to others. Not that that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing, but inadvertently you are role models.

Joshua Carrigg: I wasn’t saying that. It was an unknown fear. At the time we really didn’t know, so our daughter is deaf as well. And I think, hoping that she can be part of the deaf community and just accepted by the deaf community. That’s probably been the biggest heart, the biggest pain. Cause a lot of deaf folks, and I’m not speaking for all deaf community now, but a lot of the deaf community that we’ve come it’s either/or. They’re accepting of everybody, or if there’s anybody what they would call “deaf plus.” So it’s anybody that’s got more medical complexity than just being deaf, they’re not accepting at all. We flew across the country to DC so she could go to one of the greatest schools in the deaf community. And they weren’t very accepting of her. And so that was hurtful for us, I think.

David Hirsch: There’s a school that I remember being at as a volunteer, Gallaudet University, which is considered, at least by the standards that I was there a decade or decades ago, to be one of the premier institutions in our country for those that are deaf. I’m wondering what insights, if any, that you can share.

Joshua Carrigg: So I wasn’t gonna say the name of the school. So actually we put in a compassionate assignment. We got moved to Washington DC so we could get our daughter into Gallaudet. They have a middle school called Kendall Demonstration. And let’s just say they haven’t… There’s been some people at Kendall that were wonderful, very accepting, just great all around people, welcoming to the deaf community. But for the most part, the community as a whole there wasn’t very accepting of “deaf plus” children.

In fact, and I don’t know if I could say it, it is open cases. But right now we’re suing Gallaudet for discrimination because of that reason. So for the deaf community they helped write the Deaf Education Act and all that stuff, and they didn’t include my daughter. They put her into a closet as it would be. And so right now we’re suing them. And what they would do is once a child would get so high up in school, if they took the test scores and all that stuff, and they made the school look bad, then at that point they pushed the kids out of the school. So Gallaudet is a federally-funded private school. That’s what they would do is anybody with medical complexity they’d let ’em go through the K through whatever, K-2, K-1 classes. And then once it got so high up, they just pushed those kids out to the mainstream community. So right now… We’ve already won one lawsuit against them. We’re suing them in federal court now. So yes, we know a little bit about Gallaudet. [chuckles]

David Hirsch: Wow, I didn’t realize I was gonna step on a landmine there. But thank you for sharing and this is your reality, right? And when you brush up against something that’s not right, you either sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen, or you’re like if it’s happening to us, it must be happening to other people.

It’s a matter of principle. And one of the things that I think we’re each taught, and I don’t think it’s unique to the military, is that we’re guided by our principles. And when you feel like your principles have been trampled or your rights have been trampled, if you’re not gonna stand up, who is gonna stand up?

Sometimes people have a tendency to look the other way or they don’t have the bandwidth, or it just seems too overwhelming, right? So your pedestal just got ratcheted up a couple more notches, and I’m hoping that the outcome of these legal proceedings will be favorable and that you’ll level the playing field for people like Melanie to have opportunities just like anybody else, regardless of what their medical condition is. So thanks for sharing.

Joshua Carrigg: I would like to say that not to say that me and my wife fight everything, but we’re right fighters as it would be. So that just seems… And you can talk to anyone of my soldiers as well. We try to abide by the regulation and if somebody’s outside the regulation, we try to make sure that they are held accountable.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thank you again. Not to focus on the negative, but in addition to what you’ve mentioned, what have been some of the bigger challenges that you’ve encountered?

Joshua Carrigg: No, really. I think the biggest… and medical in itself is complex, especially being in the military. You get used to your doctors in one place and then your PCs to another place. And they have what they call Exceptional Family Member Program, which is supposed to be there to assist you as you’re transitioning from one place to another.

So besides dealing with medical stuff, education has probably been the second most complex thing to try to figure out because each state you go to is totally different. You have to start the IEP process. When you move to one state and you have a great IEP… So like when we lived in Massachusetts, our kids had great IEPs. Everybody was a team. The doctors were included on the team. And then we moved to Washington State and they’re supposed to provide what they call comparable services. Comparable to them is not what we would consider comparable. So I think that’s probably been the second besides medical to traverse.

David Hirsch: Yeah. That I guess is one of the disadvantages of moving from place to place like you have with the military is that you are gonna have to learn a new system. There’s a new set of players involved and it’s not a homogeneous experience. That’s what I heard you saying, right?

Joshua Carrigg: Yes sir.

David Hirsch: There’s probably some pluses and minuses in each of those different moves that you’ve experienced and it does make things more complicated.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey, will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: So I’m curious to know what impact Nicholas and Melanie’s situations had on your marriage as well as your extended family.

Joshua Carrigg: Extended family. We really, we have some contact with our family at home, but really not a lot. In the military, you move around and you can have friends one day and then not see them again for two, three years. And you see them again, it’s like you’re best friends again. With moving around it comes with that. Extended family, not so much. So marriage-wise, and I think just like any other marriage, you have your ups and downs, depending on what book you read or what system you’re gonna try to help navigate your marriage. So it’s had some complications for our marriage. We still have issues. You can always improve on communication. After almost 20 years, we still have issues in communicating needs and wants. And arguments, we seem to argue over the stupid stuff and not argue over the deep stuff if that’s what it comes down to. We’ll argue over what’s for dinner [laughing] over, hey, we’re gonna go to Boston for a week and go to medical conferences and do all this other stuff, which is super complex. No arguments. [chuckles]

David Hirsch: Yeah. Hopefully it helps you put the important things in perspective, right? If you get the bigger pieces to the puzzle, which is the welfare of your family, the safety of your family. I think it’s just human nature that we have disagreements about some things that at the end of the day don’t really account for much.

Joshua Carrigg: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: And hopefully some of the experiences you’ve had help you develop a clear sense of priority.

So let’s talk about special needs beyond. One of the things you made reference to is the Exceptional Family Member Program. And just for some background, for those that aren’t in the military, what is that?

Joshua Carrigg: So actually, Congress put into law with the NDA that the Department of Defense had to come up with a program to help soldiers, sailors, airmen with complex families, the special needs folks. And they gotta develop a program to help with the transitioning and schools and medical and all that stuff. And so each service came up with it. In the Army it is just called the Exceptional Family Member Program, and each service has a different name for their program.

So that’s what it is, really the Exceptional Family Member Program. And it really comes from going PCSing from stateside to outside the continental United States. Helping them find schools, helping to ensure that, if a soldier’s PCSing to, let’s say Washington state, that they have all the medical doctors and therapists and all that stuff that the children and the family need. So that’s what the programs are to do.

David Hirsch: So it was piggybacked on the ADA laws. That’s what you’re saying.

Joshua Carrigg: Really, it was to help families in the military transitioning and navigating those other areas. So you’ll have system navigators on each side. You’ll have, and we have for the Army, we have Army Community Services EFMP, and then you have medical EFMP. And the medical EFMP is there to… They’re supposed to vet your packet and make sure all the providers are there. And the ACS EFMP is there to help you find, like social services. Helping you into school, help you with IEPs and stuff like that as you’re transitioning.

David Hirsch: And what’s the backstory on creating this “Exceptional Families Of The Military?”

Joshua Carrigg: My wife… There’s a lot of gaps that my wife fills in the Exceptional Family Member Program in all services, in all the DOD. Awhile back, she testified before Congress about some of the gaps that we had. And after that she decided to start an organization as a military spouse, and it’s founded by a military spouse and everybody that’s in her organization are military spouses now. But they’re there to help do case management and just help families navigate and give them a voice with Congress and the Executive Branch and the Department of Defense and try to fix the programs that I know the military wants to fix.

David Hirsch: So how long has the organization been around?

Joshua Carrigg: So it’s actually now just been over a year.

David Hirsch: Okay. So it’s relatively new.

Joshua Carrigg: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: It’s a volunteer-led not-for-profit organization specializing in helping DOD families enrolled in the EFMP program. That’s what I heard you say.

Joshua Carrigg: Yes, sir. Yeah. Enroll in, navigate the EFMP program. Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: And what’s the scope of the work that the organization does? I know it’s relatively new.

Joshua Carrigg: So it’s wide ranging and we got lots of voices and lots of people and lots of ideas. From case management, we have a family in Texas for an example, and they can’t find a specific provider or their branch is telling them they can’t do this and just helping them with paperwork and all the way down. Like I said, case management-wise, all the way up to educating. I’m not gonna say anything about lobbying. They don’t really lobby. They educate folks in Congress to try to help make lives better for the Exceptional Family Members of the military.

And I know one of the most recent things was they were going for changes in the ABA program for children with autism. They’ve been talking to the Defense Health Agency and trying to advocate for families all over the United States and trying to change it for the better. So it’s again, very wide ranging. As they grow, they’re narrowing their scope and so they’re starting different committees and different things. And again, just trying to help as many people as they can. That’s really it.

David Hirsch: Okay. I remember when I was doing a little research, I stumbled across something called the EFMP Coalition, and I’m wondering what is that?

Joshua Carrigg: So just like anywhere, if there’s gaps in anything, there’s an agency trying to fill those gaps and try to assist families or people or whatever to navigate those systems. The Coalition, what it is… So there’s some of the nonprofits that deal specifically with housing. There’s nonprofits that deal specifically with schooling. My wife’s nonprofit deals with kind of everything. But they started this coalition to bring all the players in this small field together to hopefully give the families a bigger voice. My wife, if she gets somebody who has like housing issues, she’s okay, hey, I’ll push them over to this agency cuz this is really what their bread and butter is and they’ll be able to help with them better.

David Hirsch: Excellent. We’re thrilled to be in connection with the Exceptional Families of the Military and I’m hoping that the work will continue to blossom and that you’ll have the intended impact that these families and the children deserve, right?

Joshua Carrigg: Yes, sir.

David Hirsch: And that you’ll be able to fill in some of these gaps that you make reference to.

So I’m thinking about advice and I’m wondering if there’s any advice that you can offer to another dad. And I’m thinking more specifically in the military. You’ve got going on a couple decades of experience being a father to children with special needs. And I’m wondering if there’s any advice that comes to mind that’s not specific, but overall advice that you can offer.

Joshua Carrigg: I would say, don’t give up. You can overcome anything. Even when there’s a death, you can overcome that. Just keep pushing, hold people accountable. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, whatever one-liner you want to give. But I would say just don’t give up and at the end of the day, know what you’re fighting for.

David Hirsch: Yeah. If I can paraphrase what you’ve said, follow through on your commitment and know what your purpose is.

Joshua Carrigg: Seems fair.

David Hirsch: Why did you agree to be a mentor father as part of the Special Fathers Network?

Joshua Carrigg: Just to try to… My father wasn’t there. I was the oldest child with my siblings and always put in charge, made sure dinner was on the table. Just trying to provide help and insight where I can, and again anything can be overcome and just sometimes you just don’t know how to do it. And I’ve been doing this for a while, and even I don’t know how to overcome everything. But you educate, make educated guesses and you just keep moving forward.

David Hirsch: Yeah. We’re thrilled to have you as part of the network. Thank you. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Joshua Carrigg: No, I think I’m good. [ chuckles]

David Hirsch: Let’s give a special shout out to our mutual friend, Rebecca Emerson at the Exceptional Families of the Military, for making the introduction.

Joshua Carrigg: Yep. No, thank you Rebecca. She’s definitely a great asset to my wife’s organization. I won’t even say my wife’s organization. It’s their organization. They’re running it together. They’re a great team. Definitely yin and yang. But yes, Rebecca Emerson and her husband and family are great people.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to learn more about the Exceptional Families of the Military, or to contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Joshua Carrigg: So they do have a website. It’s https://exceptionalmilitaryfam.com.

David Hirsch: Okay. I will be sure to include that in the show notes. And as far as contacting you, what’s the best way to do that?

Joshua Carrigg: You can email me at joshuarcarrigg@gmail.com

David Hirsch: I’ll be sure to include that in the show notes as well. Joshua, thank you for the time and many insights. As a reminder, Joshua is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father, or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Joshua, thanks again.

Joshua Carrigg: Thank you.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly, to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics.com.