Wonderful Wednesday: The BAPS Blog Awards

Usually my wonderful Wednesday post is a day I take a break and share an inspirational (hence wonderful) post, meme, TV show, advert etc that I've seen online over the last week.  It's covered all sorts but I've found each of them wonderful enough to share and you can see them all here.  In a way this week is the same but a bit different.  My share is about The BAPS Blog Awards.

This is fairly unusual for me - if it's not about autism, SEN or cunningly spreading awareness of one of the other conditions my kids have got in some way, it doesn't get into my blog.  So blogging or blogging awards are a thing I don't usually talk about. The closest I've got to posting about blogging is here - and even that was really about whether a post could make a difference and trying to affect positive changes of the perceptions around my kids.

But these are new - these awards have just been created and are just for bloggers who write about Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).  Yes, bloggers like me, but more than that, a community of bloggers I'm very proud to part of.

In some ways we are no different.  We share our stories, we hope people read them.  We want to grow our readership and following (usually).  And like many bloggers we support each other. I feel both part of a larger blogging tribe and this smaller more niche community.   But I think in some ways it can be difficult.

A SEND blogger is often a bit more open to criticism.  Like all bloggers we write passionately, but it can be in subjects that are very sensitive. Most of us are in some way hoping to affect some sort of change in the world be that via a particular campaign, raising awareness of conditions or what it's like to be 'that family' or changes attitudes for the better.   And this can sometimes seem like a tireless task.

Any blogger must be able to think of a time when they've written a post that means the world to them - they click publish and nothing happens.  Well that can happen a lot, particularly when you start off SEND Blogging.

But at the same time, this community is incredibly supportive of not just each others posts, but of each others lives.  And it's something I value very much.  We run a small linky to that affect.

So, if you know a SEND blogger, and you like what they do (and yes it's also very OK to choose me too ;-)), I'd love for you to show your support for this special community - take a minute and nominate them below.  They are all fantastic people and I'd love the wider blogging community to get involved in nominating.

PS. I happen to think all parents are pretty awesome, but do like the hilarity of  possibly getting 'BAPS' out.  After three kiddies.. ok let's not get into that!