Ages 4-7 · McHenry County, ND county

Early Years Circle (4–7) — McHenry County, ND

Right now in McHenry County, ND, families raising a neurodivergent child are doing it one household at a time. Same district, same waitlists, same paperwork, same fights — and almost none of them have met each other. McHenry County is one of 53 counties in North Dakota.

Four to seven is where families are newest and most alone: first evaluations, first school meetings, first time being told to wait and see. Almost everything in this circle is about not losing two years to waiting.

A monthly meeting in McHenry County

1
Where each family is in the evaluation process
2
Early intervention to school transition
3
What the school did and did not offer
4
Play and routine that helped
5
One thing each family will do this fortnight

What families in McHenry County, ND ask first

We only just started.

This is the group for exactly that.

Is it too early to push?

No. Early is the whole point.

Should we wait and see?

Families here will tell you what waiting cost them.

From a room in McHenry County to a national count

Step 1
Your circle, in McHenry County, ND
Eight to twenty families who meet monthly. Local operations stay local: your meeting time, your venue, your rules, your members. Nothing about joining changes how your group runs.
Step 2
The McHenry County chapter
Every circle in McHenry County reports one number — how many families it speaks for — and agrees on three asks per school year. The chapter is who a school board, a superintendent or a county commission talks to.
Step 3
The North Dakota coalition
County chapters send one delegate each. The coalition tracks state bills, testifies at hearings, and works alongside the structures North Dakota families already have a legal right to: the state's federally funded Parent Training and Information Center under IDEA, its Protection and Advocacy agency, and its Developmental Disabilities Council.
Step 4
The national assembly
State coalitions meet quarterly. One count, one set of federal priorities — IDEA funding, evaluation timelines, restraint and seclusion, transition services, and the gap between what the law says and what a district does.

North Dakota families are not starting from nothing. Under IDEA, every state has a federally funded Parent Training and Information Center; every state also has a Protection and Advocacy agency and a Developmental Disabilities Council. Those exist to be used. What is missing almost everywhere is a local group organized enough to use them together. McHenry County is one of 53 counties in North Dakota, and each one needs its own chapter.

If you already run something in McHenry County

Keep running it. There is no merger, no renaming, no handing over your members or your money. A group that has been meeting in McHenry County for years knows things no statewide organization can generate on its own. Affiliation adds two things and takes nothing: your families are counted in the North Dakota total, and your ask is worded the same as everyone else’s so it cannot be answered separately.

Affiliate a McHenry County group · What autonomy means here · Start a county chapter

The rules that make it work

Local groups keep local control

Your meetings, your members, your money, your name. Affiliation adds a count and a shared ask. It never adds a boss.

Nobody is diagnosed here

This is a working group of parents, not a clinical service. Families share what they did and what happened. Nobody prescribes, nobody treats, nobody assesses.

Experience is shared as experience

What one district approved is a fact worth passing on. What worked for one child is a data point, not a prescription. That distinction is enforced in every meeting.