COVID-19 and Families with Special Needs
| Author | Margaret 'Pegi' Price, Jack Hamlin |
| Pages | 147-172 |
147
COVID-19 and Families with
Special Needs
MARGARET “PEGI” PRICE* & JACK HAMLIN**
Introduction
As was true for everyone else, experiences with the COVID-19
pandemic varied widely among people with special needs and their
families. Special needs can include physical, medical, emotional, mental
health, and behavioral challenges, impairments, or disabilities; learning
difculties; and other conditions. People from all walks of life struggled
during the COVID-19 pandemic. Families with special needs faced
unspeakably daunting challenges, but the general public did not see many
instances of that suffering because the lockdown distanced us from each
other, and families with special needs often experience social isolation
even without a pandemic.
This Article discusses some of the challenges that families of children
and adults with special needs have faced during the pandemic. Many
people in families with special needs are in high-risk categories. Some of
* Margaret “Pegi” S. Price is a professor at National University in San Diego, California.
She was in the private practice of law for more than 25 years. She is the author of the books The
Special Needs Child and Divorce: A Practical Guide to Evaluating and Handling Cases (2009)
and Divorce and the Special Needs Child: A Guide for Parents (2010), as well as many legal
articles.
** Jack B. Hamlin holds degrees in sociology and psychology, a master’s degree in forensic
sciences, and a juris doctorate. After a career that included psychological research for the
Center for Prisoner of War Studies, law enforcement, a law practice, and a position as judge
pro tem in the San Diego County Superior Court, Family Branch, he began teaching in 2003.
He is a department chair in the College of Professional Studies at National University, lecturing
internationally regarding conict transformation and restorative justice. For eight years, he
was a senior mediator and instructor for the San Diego Restorative Justice Mediation Program.
He facilitates one-on-one victim-offender mediations and large-scale community forums.
Dr. Hamlin continues to integrate his Catholic faith and studies in Taoism and Buddhism in
developing conict transformation theory and practices.
Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 55, Number 2, 2022. © 2022 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may
not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
148 Family Law Quarterly, Volume 55, Number 2, 2021–2022
the people whose experiences are discussed in this Article lost immediate
family members during the pandemic.1 We hope that this Article is helpful
to the family law community in working with families with special needs
children, and to policymakers in learning from the COVID-19 experience
to prepare for any future calamities that may present similar challenges.
The authors reached out to people in the special needs community and
invited them to share their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.2
The respondents included parents who have children with moderate to
severe special needs. Some of the families included both children and
parents with signicant special needs. The participants also included
therapists. The people who expressed interest in participating were
interviewed electronically or by telephone. To protect their privacy, the
respondents are identied in the footnotes by “Individual #X,” rather than
by their actual names. The survey team conducted the interviews during
the summer and early fall of 2020.
Additionally, we have provided an Appendix with summaries of
selected online resources to consult for further information. We hope that
this Article assists the family law community in representing families of
individuals with special needs.
I. Challenges of COVID-19 for Children with Special Needs
and Their Families
The COVID-19 pandemic was not easy for most families, but for
families with children who have special needs, the pandemic magnied
the difculties they already faced on an everyday basis. Also, due to their
unique situations and needs, many of these children and their families may
have suffered more intensely than the average individual.
Based on the interviews and additional resources discussed in more
detail later in this article, there are eight primary areas in which children
with special needs and their families experienced extraordinary challenges
during the COVID-19 pandemic:
1. Except as otherwise noted, the information in this Article is based on the interviews
conducted by Margaret “Pegi” Price and on her experience. She has worked with the special
needs community for nearly 30 years as an attorney, consultant, advocate, author, conference
speaker, expert witness in family law cases involving children or adults with special needs, and
autism therapist. Two members of her immediate family have special needs.
2. Margaret “Pegi” Price reached out to members of the special needs community through
social media, then interviewed 10 families as well as therapists and special education teachers.
The interviews took place by telephone calls, emails, and private messages. Unless otherwise
indicated, the information in this Article is from that survey or based on the experience of the
authors.
Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 55, Number 2, 2022. © 2022 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may
not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
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