Erin Schalk Found Calm, Confidence, and Connection Through Caregiver Training

For six years, Erin Schalk worked to understand her son Brendan’s needs and make sure others understood him, too. After Brendan was diagnosed with autism at age 3, she and her husband spent years learning, finding services, and advocating for their family.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought new barriers. Later, moving from Southern California to the St. Louis area created long gaps in care. Even after more than a year, Brendan was still waiting for some services. Erin had taken part in caregiver training before, but the experience often left little room to practice what she learned. When a family she met through a support group recommended Easterseals Midwest, she decided to give it a try.

What she found was far more hands-on than she expected.

The two-week Caregiver Training program combined lessons, group talks, and practice with therapists. Erin worked with Autism Specialist Anna Duke to learn how to plan and lead sessions that supported Brendan’s goals.

“I knew upon finishing that training that I could take the skills that I had learned and start to apply them immediately in real life situations,” Erin said.

Learning in Real Time

One of the biggest differences was the chance to practice skills with Brendan while getting real-time coaching from a therapist through an earpiece.

At first, taking the lead felt intimidating. But the hands-on work helped Erin move beyond learning a strategy and start using it with her son.

For one activity, Erin and Anna set a goal to help Brendan learn to give and receive compliments in a more natural way. Erin filled a bag with colorful ties, sunglasses, bucket hats, and superhero capes. Then she and Brendan played a game, taking turns dressing up in silly outfits and complimenting each other.

The game helped Brendan practice a social skill while having fun with his mom. Erin also saw how the activity gave him a sense of support and belonging.

Other lessons helped Erin better understand how those with autism people may experience the world. In one exercise, parents put marbles in their shoes, wore oven mitts, and tried to complete tasks while loud sounds played nearby.

The activity offered a glimpse of how sensory differences can affect daily life. It helped Erin see why a behavior that might seem confusing to someone else could make sense from her child’s point of view. “Behavior is communication,” Erin said. She learned to look for what Brendan might be feeling or needing instead of judging his actions at face value.

Tools That She Brought Home

Erin brought the lessons home and found ways to use them with all three of her children.

Mornings, for example, can be hard when children must move through several tasks before school. Easterseals Midwest helped Erin create a colorful emotion chart based on Brendan’s love of bowling.

On the chart, feeling great is a strike. Feeling terrible is a gutter ball, with other feelings in between.

The family can use the chart to talk about how everyone feels before the day gets busy. They also have a visual list of ways to handle frustration, such as taking deep breaths, doing wall pushups, or running their hands underwater.

These tools give the children choices when strong feelings become hard to manage.

The family has also started playing games together on weekends. Monopoly and Mario Kart give them a fun way to practice taking turns, handling frustration, and being good sports.

For Erin, these changes have helped her learn new strategies, but have also helped her family understand one another and grow closer.

“I Could Finally Just Enjoy Being Their Mom”

The most powerful change came after Erin’s first week of training.

One weekend, she sat in the living room with Brendan and his two younger siblings. Suddenly, she felt a sense of calm that caught her by surprise.

For years, she had been used to watching for problems, anticipating what Brendan might need, and worrying about how other people might respond. She had learned to live with that constant stress.

Then, for a few minutes, it lifted.

“I was actually just very present with my children, instead of thinking constantly about what could be happening in the future,” Erin said.

She began to see how years of navigating services, schools, and other systems had shaped her daily life. She had also absorbed messages that suggested she was not doing enough or that every struggle meant she had failed as a parent.

The support she found at Easterseals Midwest challenged those messages.

The staff shared their knowledge and gave her tools to support Brendan. Just as important, they recognized how hard she and her family were already working.

Erin described that encouragement as a relief; she felt that the staff respected her family’s experience and understood the challenges they faced.

“That’s why that feeling of calm was so profound,” she said. “I could finally just sit in the living room with my three children and enjoy being their mom.”

Families Need Support, Not Blame

Erin’s work in disability advocacy began in 2018, before Brendan’s diagnosis. Today, she continues to write and speak about disability rights, access, and inclusion.

Her own experience as a parent has strengthened her commitment to that work. She wants people to see Brendan as a whole person, not make assumptions about his life or future based on his diagnosis.

She also wants parents to know they should not have to fight every battle alone.

“We shouldn’t have to depend on whether a particular parent has the time, knowledge, resources, confidence, or ability to fight every battle,” Erin said. “Families shouldn’t have to be extraordinary just to navigate ordinary life.”

That belief extends to the people and systems that shape family life. Parents, schools, communities, funders, and policymakers all have a role in building places where disabled people can belong and get the support they need.

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Caregiver Training gave Erin practical ways to support her son. It also reminded her that she and her family deserve support, too.

When asked what she hopes decision-makers will understand, Erin returned to a basic truth: disability is part of the human experience. Supporting disabled people and their families should not be treated as someone else’s concern.

As Erin put it, the question should not be why society should invest in support. It should be what kind of world we want to build.