Brad Thompson is the Director of The HALI Project – a non-profit organization started in 1999 that provides counseling and education services for communities who seek to be more inclusive of individuals with special needs.   That work includes working with families, the education system, and the medical system.   Brad has a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from Texas Tech University and a Masters Degree in Counseling from West Texas A&M University and is a Nationally Certified Counselor.  He operates a private marriage & family therapy practice in Amarillo, Texas.  He is also a certified mediator in the state of Texas. Brad has over 25 years of experience working with families.   Since 2007, Brad has worked with Dr. Shari Medford – a pediatrician in Amarillo, Texas – providing support to families of children with special healthcare needs in areas that go beyond the medical arena, but that can have a great deal of impact on a family’s quality of life.  From that work experience, he designed a training program in cooperation with the Boys Town National Institute on Child Health (Omaha, NE) to train parent partners who work in pediatric offices to provide support for families who have children with special needs and to provide support to the medical staff who are trying to serve our families.  The partnership placed its first partners in practices in the Omaha area in September 2009 and the results, as reported by both families and physicians, have been overwhelmingly positive.  The practice identification part of the project has already begun in the state of Wyoming, and partners will be identified and trained to begin work in those practices in January 2013. Brad has written multiple training programs designed to help people build relationships in order to expand the possibilities for children with special needs. Empowered Parents – helping parents deal with their emotions, create new dreams, and build teams to help them help their children reach their potential.Community Voices – creating opportunities to engage the larger community, giving people with special needs the opportunity to contribute their gifts.  This program encourages the invitation of “non-traditional” partners to our tables which connects us to people and opens doors that we may have never thought possible.Medical Home-Parent Partner Training – working with doctors and family members together, we build a partnership that equips a parent to provide some of the “non-medical” pieces of the medical home.  This frees the medical staff to work more efficiently and effectively as they serve our children.Happily Ever After Marriage Retreat – this retreat is designed to provide a period of rest and leisure – something very rare to most of our families – and tools to help them deal with the stressors that challenge the health of our relationships. Brad has been blessed with many opportunities to serve in the special needs community.  He served on the Medical Home Advisory Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics from 2004-2010.  He currently serves on two committees for the Mountain States Regional Genetics Collaborative.   While he says he would never have chosen for Hali the challenges that she faces every day, he feels incredibly blessed to share the lessons he has learned over 20 years with her to people across the country. Brad and his wife Karen live in Canyon, Texas.