M&L Updates

 

We hope you find our website a resource to help with navigating the world of the special needs family.

M&L Special Needs is dedicated to creating simplicity with the complex journey of special needs.

Learn more about our Services.

M&L Special Needs also works with other professionals to cover the needs of special needs families. If you are financial service professional, here’s how we can work together.

Browse our Blog archive by topic using the ‘Blog Categories’ option at right.

Blog Categories

Autism Cares Act 2019 Passes in the House

Wednesday, August 21, 2019As an organization that works to serve individuals with disabilities, we feel 100% confident in stating that, as a country, we need to pay more attention to autism. Specifically, we need to work hard to support (i.e. fund) organizations and...

Join ILO for Bike to the Beach (B2B): August 2, 2019

Thursday, June 13, 2019Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org Last year (2018), Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) took part in the nation-wide Bike to the Beach (B2B) for the first time. Three ILO riders, Maedi Tanham Carney, Rip...

ILO at the Crossings is in The Washington Post!

We have some very exciting news to share - Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) at the Crossings is in the Washington Post! In an article titled, "On their own, but not alone: How a group of men with autism found an independence their families weren't sure they would...

Employment for Individuals with Disabilities

Friday, March 29, 2019 Employment for individuals with disabilities is a very important issue. Studies have shown that employment can be vital to psychological health, as well as helping individuals socialize, integrate, and develop further skills. It is also true...

Support Services Staff Shortage: A Discussion

Thursday, February 28, 2019 M&L Special Needs Planning, LLC is a company dedicated to helping families with special needs simplify their complicated and complex special needs journeys. As a financial planning company, we pride ourselves on offering services that...

ILO: 2018 Accomplishments and 2019 Future Goals

Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' website, www.ilonow.org.Integrated Living Opportunities is a non-profit organization that is devoted to helping families with special needs build supportive, integrated communities. These communities enable safe,...

Case for Inclusion 2019

Friday, February 1, 2019United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) is an international organization that provides services and advocacy for adults and children with disabilities. UCP recently released its annual report ranking state performance on services: The Case for Inclusion...

ILO Community Group: Social Sundays

Thursday, January 17, 2019Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities blog, www.ilonow.org. Integrated Living Opportunities is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping families with special needs build integrated, sustainable, inclusive communities in...

2018: M&L’s Year End Review

Thursday, December 20, 2018 Hello everyone! As 2018 draws to a close, all of us here at M&L are eagerly anticipating another fun and enjoyable holiday season. As we celebrate everything that we have accomplished in 2018, we would like to sincerely thank you all...

ILO’s Year End Address

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) website, ilonow.org. Dear ILO Families and Friends, As we enter the holiday season of 2018, ILO is very excited to share new developments in our organization—most of which have come about as a...

Peers® for Young Adults

Thursday, November 29, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. As 2018 draws to an end, all of us here at Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) are busy planning fun, exciting and enriching opportunities for our self-advocates...

Help ILO Grow Through Social Media

Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities website, www.ilonow.org. In the last five years, ILO has grown by leaps and bounds. In that time, we have helped many self-advocates transition from living with family/caregivers to living in their own home. We create...

ILO Community Group: Self Advocates Living Full Lives

Friday, October 12, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO), www.ilonow.org. ILO Community Group is a coalition of self advocates (individuals with disabilities) that come together to socialize, build relationships, and create personal support networks....

Have you heard about ILO Community Group?

Thursday, September 28, 2018 Shared from Integrated  Living Opportunities (ILO), www.ilonow.org. Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) is a non-profit organization that helps individuals with disabilities (self-advocates) and their families build and maintain the...

What’s Happening at ILO? Fall 2018 News and Events

Friday, September 21, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. Fall 2018 officially arrives tomorrow – and it is certainly shaping up to be a busy season at Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO). Grab your calendars: we have a...

Are ABLE Accounts Unsustainable?

Thursday, August 30, 2018 The ABLE account is an excellent tool for individuals with disabilities to save for the future while living full, rewarding, financially secure lives. As a special needs planning company, we have written quite frequently on the ABLE account...

ILO Bikes to the Beach: Join Us on August 3

Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' website, www.ilonow.org. In just seven days (August 3), Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) will be teaming up with Bike to the Beach (B2B) for their DC Ride for Autism and Disabilities. ILO Founder and CEO Maedi Tanham...

Thursday, June 21, 2018 For most families, saving appropriately for post secondary education is a challenge. The cost of raising children, paying mortgages, and saving for retirement doesn’t leave much room for adding a college savings account into the financial plan....

Bike to the Beach: The DC Ride for Autism and Disabilities

Wednesday, June 14, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. Over the course of the last four years, Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) has been working hard to create communities in which adults with disabilities can live as...

Special Needs: To Use or Not to Use?

Thursday, April 26, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' website, www.ilonow.org. Language is important. We use language to connect and to communicate, to identify and to explain. Language allows us to dream, to invent, to innovate and to improve....

Welcoming Adults with Disabilities into the Workplace

Thursday, March 29, 2018 A couple of weeks ago, we published a blog titled December 2017 Jobs Report: Year-end Job Numbers Cap Record Year for Americans with Disabilities. The title of the blog is self explanatory – last year, more individuals with disabilities...

AN INCLUSION TOPIC OFTEN OVERLOOKED: SEXUALITY

Thursday, March 1, 2018 Written by Barbara Goldschmidt, shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' blog. The Twitter feed was #sexEd4all.  And more than 150 people—government employees, teachers, non-profit advocates, parents, and students—had gathered for the...

Trump Signs Caregiver Act

Thursday, February 1, 2018 Oftentimes, caring for a family member with a disability or a special healthcare need can be exhausting – mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially. As caregivers, we have all experienced overwhelming tiredness that comes from...

Renters with Disabilities: Do They get a Fair Shot?

Thursday, January 17, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) is dedicated to helping self advocates and their families build supported, inclusive communities that are fully integrated into...

Integrated Living Opportunities: Welcome, 2018!

Friday, January 5, 2018 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog. On behalf of everyone at Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO), we would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. 2017 was an...

ILO 2017: Year in Review

Wednesday, December 13, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. As a non-profit dedicated to building supported communities for adults with disabilities, Integrated Living Opportunities’ (ILO) number one priority is to ensure...

Adults with Disabilities: Preparing to Live Independently

Monday, November 27, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. At Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO), we are dedicated to helping self-advocates and their families create communities in which adults with disabilities can live...

ILO Update: Community Group and 2017 Fundraising Initiatives

Thursday, November 9, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) blog, www.ilonow.org. At Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO), “community” – as a philosophy, as a practice, and as a goal – is the driving force behind everything we do. We consider ILO to...

ABLE Accounts Coming Soon to Maryland

Saturday, October 28, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) blog, www.ilonow.org. Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog! As family members, friends, colleagues and peers of individuals with disabilities, we have long been aware of the ABLE account...

Special Needs Planning Workshops: Register Now!

Thursday, September 14, 2017 Parents and caregivers of individuals with disabilities often carry heavy loads. From the very first steps of the special needs journey, parents are faced with an overload of information. They are responsible for making huge decisions that...

Integrated Living Opportunities: Summer 2017 Update

Friday, August 18, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. Here at ILO, we organize and host regular updates and information sessions for members, community partners, and potential participating families. During these sessions,...

Social Security Caregiver Credit Act

Thursday, August 3, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' (ILO) website, www.ilonow.org. Here at Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO), we are all parents, family members, and friends of individuals with disabilities. We are dedicated to creating supported...

Traveling with Individuals with Disabilities

Thursday, July 20, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' website, www.ilonow.org. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! Today, we would like to devote our blog to a topic that can be one of stress for many families with special needs –...

Mellow Mushroom Dine & Donate!

Mellow Mushroom Dine & Donate!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28 - 6:00-9:00 PM  Hand-tossed pizzas! 24 craft beers on tap! Join us for our next fun-raiser for ILO (Integrated Living Opportunities) at Mellow Mushroom in Adams-Morgan on June 28. They will donate 15% of your tab to ILO!! ILO families and their...

Support ILO: 2017 Fundraising Calendar of Events

Thursday, May 15th, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities website, www.ilonow.org. Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog. This past weekend (May 21st, 2017), ILO hosted its very first Bike and Hike Fundraiser. The ILO Bike/Hike “fun” raiser at the...

Mark Your Calendars: ILO Bike/Hike Fundraiser May 21 2017

Thursday, April 13, 2017 Shared from Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog! We appreciate that you took the time from your busy schedule to check in with the latest happenings at Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO). Today, we...

Transitioning: A Summary

Thursday, March 23, 2017 As parents, we all must face the fact that one day soon (often much sooner than we would like) our children will be adults. For persons with special needs, this progression from childhood into the adult world can be complicated. Issues such as...

A New Community Partnership in DC

Thursday, March 16, 2016 Hello everyone and welcome to our blog! Today, we would like to share some thrilling news with you – as of last month, M&L's community building non-profit Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) has entered into a new community partnership....

The Right to a Full Life: Debbie Fickenscher

Thursday, February 23, 2017 Hello everyone, and welcome back to our blog this week! For today's blog post (which has been shared from Integrated Living Opportunities' website, www.ilonow.org), we would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Debbie Fickenscher on...

A Time for Love

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 Hello everyone, and welcome to the blog this week! Today we would like to share with you a post written by ILO Participating Family Member, Barbara Goldschmidt. In this post, Barbara shares her thoughts on and research into love, emotional...

Welcome to the M&L Blog Community!

We hope you find our website a resource to help with navigating the world of the special needs family. M&L Special Needs is dedicated to creating simplicity with the complex journey of special needs. Learn more about our Services. We invite you to explore our...

New Futures Initiative™ Training Session: Spring 2017

Friday, January 20, 2017 Hello everyone and welcome back to our blog this week! Thank you all for taking the time to visit our website today. If you are a regular visitor to our blog, you may have heard of our community building non-profit, Integrated Living...

Independent Living for Adults with Disabilities

Thursday, January 5, 2017 Hello everyone, and welcome back to our blog! Thanks for taking the time to visit our website today. As you all know, M&L's non-profit, Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) is dedicated to building intentional, integrated and inclusive...

2016: M&L Year in Review

Thursday, December 29, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog today! From all of us here at M&L, Happy Holidays! We hope that you are enjoying a relaxing and joyous holiday season with family and friends. As the past year draws to a close, we would like to...

Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE): A Report

Thursday, December 15, 2016 Hello everyone and welcome back to our blog today! We appreciate you taking time out of busy schedules to visit our website. At M&L, we recognize the importance of employment in emotional, financial and social success. A significant...

Vocational Rehabilitation: A Discussion

At M&L Special Needs Planning, LLC we are committed to helping individuals with disabilities plan for and lead independent, successful fulfilled lives.  As special needs life and financial planner, we recognize that an important part of independent living and...

Big Moves: ILO Self Advocates Achieve Independent Living

Thursday, December 1, 2016 Hello everyone, and thanks for visiting our blog this week. Today we are very excited to share some incredible news from our community building non-profit, Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO). (Note: For those of you that may not be...

Saturday, November 26, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to our blog this week! We appreciate that you have taken the time to visit our website today. The last year and a half has been trying for the American people. The 2016 presidential election was a...

ILO Needs Your Help – Volunteer Today!

Sunday, November 13, 2016 Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead Hello everyone and welcome to our blog this week! We appreciate the time you spend browsing our website....

Sibling Support in Families with Special Needs

Thursday, November 3, 2016 As parents of individuals with a disability, we know all too well how challenging and time consuming it can be to meet their needs – whether medical, emotional, academic, or financial. It is common for parents to feel overwhelmed, stressed,...

Integrated Living Opportunities: October 2016 Update

Thursday, October 20, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to our blog this week! Thanks to all for taking the time to visit our website again. As you may know, M&L owner and founder Maedi Tanham Carney is the founder, President, and CEO of a community building...

Building Day by Day

Thursday, September 15, 2016 “No doctor can write a prescription for friendship or love.” Bessel van der Kolk, MD When you build a bridge you should expect some heavy lifting. Physical or mental, what does it matter? Helping our adult children establish independent...

Travelling with Individuals with Disabilities

Thursday, September 1st, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! As much as it pains us to admit it, summer is winding down. And, with the end of August comes the last long weekend of the season – Labor Day. In honor of the last summer celebration...

Education Online: Helping Parents of Children with Autism

Saturday, August 8, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! Thank you all for taking the time to visit our website. As parents of individuals with disabilities, we are all familiar with the on-going struggle to help our children be the best that...

Integrative Responses for Anxiety

Thursday, July 7, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's blog post! Today, we are fortunate enough to be able to feature another article written by ILO Participating Family Member Barbara Goldschmidt. Barbara has written a number of pieces for M&L over...

The Special Needs Trust Fairness Act

Thursday, June 9, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! As financial planning experts, M&L staff all agree that the Special Needs Trust (SNT) is perhaps one of the most useful and essential components of a well-rounded special needs...

Supported Decision Making: The Jenny Hatch Justice Project

Thursday, May 26th 2016 Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog this week! A few weeks ago we wrote and published a blog titled Supported Decision Making: A Discussion. In that blog, we focused on Supported Decision Making (SDM) as a newly emerging legal method of...

ILO: Behind the Scenes

Thursday, May 19th, 2016 Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog today! Thank you all for taking the time to visit us this week. In today’s blog post, we would like to take the opportunity to reflect on the incredible progress that Integrated Living Opportunities...

Caregiver Care: What’s Needed Now

Thursday, May 12, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! Today, we are very lucky to be able to share with you another post from ILO Participating Family member Barbara Goldschmidt. Today, Barbara writes about the importance of caring for...

Supported Decision Making: A Discussion

Thursday, April 28th, 2016 As parents, we inherit many responsibilities when we bring a child into the world. We must feed, clothe, and care for our children; provide emotional support, love, and security. We guide them through their childhood and provide them with...

Exploring Supported Employment: A Parent’s Perspective

Thursday, March 24th 2016 Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog today! We hope you are all enjoying these early days of spring – we certainly are. A few weeks ago, ILO Participating Family member Barbara Goldschmidt wrote a blog titled What it Takes to Weave...

The Case for Inclusion 2015

Friday, March 18, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! We are so happy that you could join us today, as we are going to focus on a very important report that was recently released by United Cerebral Palsy: The Case for Inclusion 2015. This...

Transitioning Youth Retail Project

Thursday, February 11th, 2016 Here at M&L, we know that working is important. Employment provides us with the means of supporting ourselves, and allows us to becoming contributing members of society. In addition to being financially essential (for most people),...

Disability Issues and Election Agendas

Friday, February 5th, 2016 Good evening everyone, and welcome back to the blog today! As I’m sure you are all aware, this past week has been a busy one in the world of US politics. Like every American, the staff of M&L are closely following the progress of each...

Life Sharing: A Discussion

Life Sharing: A Discussion Thursday, January 28th, 2016 Good evening everyone, and welcome back to the blog today! We hope that you have all had a productive week and, as always, we would like to thank you for taking the time to visit our website. Here at M&L, as...

The Medisked I/DD Data Digest 2015: A Summary

Friday, January 22nd, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back this week! As you all know, the staff at M&L wear many hats; we are professionals in the special needs financial and life planning fields, president & participating family members of our community...

Coming Soon: The ABLE Account

Thursday, January 14th, 2016 Good morning everyone, and welcome back to our blog this week! Thanks for visiting us again today – we really appreciate that you take the time out of your busy schedule to drop by. Those of you that have been visiting our website and...

Hello, 2016: M&L’s Annual Year in Review

Thursday, December 31st, 2015 Hello everyone, and welcome back to our blog this week! We hope that you have having an excellent holiday, surrounded by family, friends, happiness and joy. From all of us here at M&L we would also like to wish all our clients,...

Support Staff for Individuals with Disabilities: A Crisis

Thursday, December 17th, 2015 As special needs planning professionals and parents of children with special needs, the staff at M&L receives and reads many articles, studies and reports related to special needs parenting/planning issues. We make it our priority to...

Air Travel for Individuals with Disabilities

December 3rd, 2016 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! We hope that you all had a happy and a healthy Thanksgiving break. We almost can’t believe how fast this year has been going – it is amazing that we are a couple of short weeks away from the...

Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015: A Summary

Thursday, November 26th 2015 Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog this week! We hope that you are all having a fabulous fall, and are spending this holiday weekend celebrating with family and friends. From all of us here at M&L Special Needs Planning, LLC,...

State Disability Funding Cutbacks & the Effect on Families with Special Needs

Thursday, September 17th, 2015 It is no secret that raising a child with a disability can be very expensive – in addition to the daily living expenses associated with raising a family, parents with special needs also have to factor in additional expenses related to...

ABLE Act Update: A Discussion of the New Proposed Rule

Thursday, July 16th, 2015 It is our hope that most (if not all) families with special needs have become familiar with the recently passed ABLE act, and are aware of the financial benefits that this act may provide for individuals with disability. Here at M&L, we...

Building Community One Pod at a Time

Thursday, July 16th, 2015 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog this week! We hope that last week’s post, Can My Family Member with Disability Afford Independent Living, proved informative, and inspired you and your family member with special needs to consider...

Diamonds in the Rough Conference: September 2015

Sunday, July 12th, 2015 Hello everyone! We hope that you are all having a fantastic weekend! Today, we would like to publish a special post to let you all know about an incredible conference happening this September, in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore metropolitan...

Integrated Living Opportunities: Organizational Update

Thursday, May 28th, 2015 It is no secret that housing for Americans with disability is in a crisis mode; as more and more individuals with disabilities age into adulthood (more than 500,000 individuals with ASD in the next decade alone), the already scarce housing...

Community: The most important resource for families with special needs

Thursday, April 30th, 2015 Here at M&L Special Needs Planning, LLC, we fully understand the importance of community. As parents and professionals in the special needs world, we have spent many, many years forming connections, creating friendships and building...

Florida & The Special Needs Housing Revolution

Thursday, March 12th, 2015 If you are a parent of a child with special needs, you have no doubt thought of what will happen to your child when they age into adulthood, i.e. “Where will my child live? Where will he/she work? Will there be happiness and fulfillment in...

New Futures Initiative™ Training: Round 2

Last week, M&L founder/owner Maedi Tanham Carney CFP®, CWIC and a group of 9 families travelled to Evanston, Illinois to take part in the New Futures Initiative™ training with Center for Independent Futures (CIF). As those of you who are familiar with our housing...

ILO and New Futures Initiative Tackles 2015, & One Great Reason Why You Should Learn How to Create Housing for Your Family Member with Special Needs

Thursday, January 8th, 2015 Good afternoon everyone, and thanks so much for dropping by our blog today! Well, we are two weeks into the New Year and the staff of M&L Special Needs Planning, LLC is on fire! We are already checking off our 2015 goals, beginning with...

Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO) our Nonprofit Takes another Huge Step Forward: M&L, CIF and Core Families Welcomes Rebecca Rubin, LCSW-C as the lead social worker for the ILRI Assessments

Friday, September 26th 2014 Please note: M&L Special Needs Planning, LLC is in the process of filing Integrated Living Opportunities as a non-profit 501c3 - as soon as this  process is official, we will release an announcement. Hello everyone, and welcome to our...

Back To School: A Look at Special Education in 2014

September 4th, 2014 Hello everyone! Welcome to back to school week! Over the last few weeks, as the media and retailers begin their inevitable “back to school” coverage and campaigns, the staff of M&L has had some time to reflect on how this time of year can...

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