SPECIAL RESOURCE EPISODE 366- DaniPlan-Who Knows Your Loved One When You Cannot

The scariest part of caregiving is not the hard day, it’s the day you’re not there to explain what only you know. When a loved one is non-speaking, has epilepsy, needs sensory supports, or relies on a specific routine, the difference between “they’ll figure it out” and “they’ll care for them well” comes down to details. Joel and Debbie Pearlman built DaniPlan after facing that exact reality with their daughter Dani and realizing that the traditional special needs binder is too static to keep up with real life. 

We talk through what DaniPlan is in plain terms: a secure, web-based, mobile-friendly disability care plan that acts like a centralized hub for everything your caregiving team needs. Think communication preferences, triggers, step-by-step care instructions, medication updates, seizure plans, school and bus permissions, documents, photos, links, and a daily journal and calendar to keep continuity across rotating caregivers, teachers, therapists, and doctors. We also dig into the practical problem most families hit immediately: getting started. Debbie shares why “work backwards” is often the fastest way to build a plan, and how many of the records you need already exist as PDFs. 

The conversation gets real with stories where speed matters, including a moment when missing paperwork nearly stopped Dani from getting on the school bus until the right document was shared instantly. If you’re looking for autism resources, caregiver organization tools, special needs planning ideas, or a better way to coordinate disability care, this one is packed with actionable insight. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share this with a caregiver or provider who needs it, and leave a review so more families can find these tools and stories.

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daniplan.com

Transcript

Welcome And Why Awareness Matters

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hi, and welcome to the SJ Child Show. Today I am joined with Joel and Debbie Pearlman, and we're going to be talking about Danny Plan. Thank you all for joining us today. It is so hot. I hope you're staying cool where you are. Well, hopefully you are not here in Utah. No, I'm just joking. Because it has just been day after day. We are joined today with you know people who are moving things forward in the world. And the and and right now we're in such an interesting era of time where for the first time ever in the last year, autism is known even as a word, in more people's minds than ever before. Whether, you know, we won't talk about whether that's a good view or a bad view, but that itself is actually known is such an impacting and I mean, I think wonderful thing that we can now build from and work towards a better understanding for everyone. So it's so nice to have you both here today. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Yes, so much fun. Let's just start with an introduction from you both. I'll ladies first, Debbie. Oh, why don't you introduce yourself and yeah, we'll go from there and get into more about Danny Plan.

Meet Danny’s Parents And Founders

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Sure. Hi, everybody. Excuse me. My name is Debbie Perlman. I'm one of the co-founders and creators of Danny Plan. I am also Danny's mom. We have three kids. Danny is our oldest, she's 26. We have another daughter who is 23 years old living in New York City. And we have an 18-year-old son. His name is Charlie. He just graduated high school and moving on to his next adventure. And I'm just really happy to be here today. Thank you so much for inviting us to come on your podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Such a pleasure to have you guys, and I'm excited to learn more about you and you know the passion behind all of this. So, Joel, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, um, Joel Perlman, Debbie and I. Debbie is my awesome wife, and we, as she said, we have three kids. I'm a lifelong entrepreneur, and I, you know, about five years ago got kind of inspired on this concept of being able to document Danny's life into in a in a practical, easy way. And and that was kind of the what spurred the Danny plan.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

That's fantastic. And there's so many, I think, innovations that come from the passion, the challenge, the you know, what us as parents go through. And when we see that, hey, this doesn't exist. Why does not why do these things not exist for me and my family sometimes, as you know, like you said, Joel, I call myself a serialpreneur because I know like if it is not it does not exist, I'm making it, I'm figuring out, I'm creating, and I think that it takes us type of innovators and thinkers to move the needle ahead and to really help not only accommodate what we know for our personal living experience, but what we know others that will come, you know, behind us and and are all showing up in the world now. We know that they need these types of resources.

Turning Fear Into A Clear Plan

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Tell us about Danny plan, like what it is.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

You want to take it, Deb? You can go sure. So it all really started about five years ago when Debbie and I were really sitting on the couch and we were talking about Danny, is 26 now. Five years ago, she's about 21. She is non-speaking, she's really sweet, and we were just talking about her moving forward. If we weren't around, how would we be? How would people know how to care for Danny the way we want to care for, keeping her happy and healthy, and safe? I know it's something that all of us parents think about. And so we were talking about all the little nuances and quirks and OCDs and triggers that Danny has that are in our heads but other people don't know about things that you know, when we're talking to other people that understand us, we can go back and forth for a really long time talking about those little things for Danny. She uses her phone to communicate, listen to music, look at pictures. And if it's not charged, she gets triggered. Or she'll have, if Danny was around right now, she'd have headphones on, or if not, she'd have her fingers in her ears, right? So, and she also has happens to have epilepsy. If she had a seizure, would people know how to kind of handle that that situation? And so it was really after this conversation that Debbie and I just decided we owed it to Danny to document her life in a way that other people would really understand. We did a lot of research to see what was out there and found that there was just a lot of static forms. And as we went through the process of using these static forms, we realized how impractical they are because they're so hard to update, right? We many of us have these big binders or folders or whatnot. But the problem with them are is updating them and keeping them up to date. We're constantly needing to tweak it, it's just not really that practical. In fact, most people just aren't doing it, right? So when the time comes, it's really not going to be up to date. And that was the inspiration around creating the Danny plan, which is a centralized hub to help consolidate and organize all the information needed to properly care for a loved one with a disability, simple, secure, really easy to update, and then also easy to share with our support group, right? With rotating caregivers, teachers, therapists, doctors, so that we're not hoarding all of that information on our pad. So it's become really an amazing daily tool to be able to share, a training tool as we're all constantly re-explaining things about our children to other people so that there's care continuity, no one's making a mistake because everybody can have it a Danny plan in their fingertips, right on their phone, and be able to look step by step how to do different things. So anyway, that's a long-winded kind of response to what the Danny

A Mobile Hub For Daily Care

SPEAKER_01 6:29

plan is.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Yeah, that's fantastic. So as in an app then, or like a like a software or yeah, great question.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, it is a web-based application that is extremely mobile friendly. So we did that purposely. We wanted to make sure it worked over every platform, no matter what. We are also constantly doing updates. Honestly, we we view our community, people like you, Sarah, as kind of helping like part of the Danny plan, helping us build it. Since we started, we've had so much functionality based on our community feedback. Could we have set up notifications? Could we have a shared calendar? How about a daily journal? So all of the notes that we're taking that we all have to keep track of, whether it's a doctor's note or tracking behaviors, can all be in one spot. All of these things have come from you know, people like you in our community.

SPEAKER_04 7:23

So I love that. It's where I think the most important information comes from, because just like I was telling you this morning about the register, don't register access, you know, some of us were we're like, everyone wants to register, they want the updates. Everyone, you know, and we're going along with these great intentions, not realizing that there are these other half of the individuals who just want the access. They don't, you know, and so I think that it's wonderful that we keep integrating and updating. And I think that I also build technology. I understand like the updating of it 100%. It's a lot of work and it's a lot. I love that it has the note-taking because that is one thing for me that I'll just yesterday said to my husband. I know that I'm not supposed to talk about work, but I have to say this in my chat GPT, you know, really fast. So don't let me forget. Because it just sometimes things, things just come to you, and it it's wonderful to have somewhere because obviously the the system I'm using isn't isn't designed for what I really like that like a Danny plan. It you know, it's very, very general. So I love that it's it's specific. Plus, the importance of sharing with a team and network is more valuable than than ever. And we all know, just like you said, we come in with our binder, we gotta search through all of the tabs and all of the things to find that one note when we can just, you know, probably search bar or whatever it is to find the information right away. So spectacular. I'm I'm really excited to share this.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah,

Onboarding That Gets You Moving

SPEAKER_01 9:11

thank you. Debbie actually helps people to when people sign up to onboarding. And so wonderful. He's kind of the I talk a lot and a lot. Danny, Debbie's definitely the the producer of the of our Danny plan for Danny and and helps people. So I don't know, Deb, maybe you can tell her a little bit about that piece of it too.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

Yeah, of course. So basically, after you become a member of the Danny plan, we send back an email asking you to sign up for an onboarding session. And once you do that, I take members or users through step by step, making sure they understand the functionality of the site. We would talk about the workflow a little bit, doing a few entries together on Zoom, making sure that you have a clear path to completing your Danny plan. We do entries, we add photos, we add documents and links. We, as Joel mentioned, we have a journal, we have a calendar, we also make entries in each of those, just so that when you get off the call with me or one of my team members, you're inspired and you're ready to go. Usually getting something like this started, the biggest hurdle to jump is actually beginning the process. And so once you become a member, we make it really easy to get you from point A to point B.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

I love that. Yeah. And what if we have say we have this binder full of things? Should we take it to the library, scan it, and put it on a file so that we can update it to the Danny plan? Is that kind of like the idea?

SPEAKER_05 10:37

So it's interesting you say that. When we first started, we just had this concept or idea that we're gonna take that binder and make it electronic. And we didn't really know exactly what that meant, but our developers are so incredible that once we started working with Joel and I first conceptualizing what Danny Plan would look like, then we have a marketing partner, we also have a tech partner. And once we all started collaborating, we realized there's so much that yes, you're gonna need to do to get this going, but we've made it so simple. And so when we first sit down to work with someone, rather than saying scan, we'll talk about the process of getting your documents into your plan. So, yes, I initially thought that too. Okay, I'm gonna have to take this binder and scan it. But what's really interesting is once you start, we really take you through a step by step by step the way we've created your entries and the workflow so that that's very simple to do and follow almost very mechanically, almost from your brain onto the page. But then the documents, what happens is you work backwards. I like to tell people, work backwards, don't start with your child's kindergarten IEP if your child is 22 years old. So we talk a lot about working backwards, so starting with what's relevant today and then adding the documentation sort of backwards as it goes. And a lot of the current documents, whether it's legal, financial, medical, educational, it's already in a PDF. So if you reach out to those providers and ask them to send you PDF documents, most of it already exists. So it does save a lot of time scanning.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

I love that. Yeah, and it's always smart to well, especially with this, share this with your pediatrician, share this with your plan, you know, your family's plan members.

Sharing The Plan With Your Team

SPEAKER_04 12:17

How do they access? Do you bring them the your, you know, your app when you go there? Do is there an access point for the providers?

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Joel. Oh, were you asking me? Oh, I'm having no. I was looking for music.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 12:39

Basically, when you there's a left side menu on the Danny plan. Um, I would love to show maybe you'll show a visual when you air this, but there's these beautiful tiles, it's so beautifully constructed, but there's these tiles that you fill in the information, and then there's some functionality down the left side menu. And one of the options for a tab is to share this plan. So you can choose how to share your plan with others and how much access you want to give them. So we have three different ways to share. One is just sending somebody a PDF. So you get to pick and choose which of the information you want to send them in a PDF. Another is to invite somebody to be um a shared user, but with limited access. And the last is to share your plan in its entirety. So you, the user, get to choose who and how you share your plan. So we've made it really very, you know, from sending just one journal as a back and forth exchange with a caregiver to every bit of information and then all the versions in between.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

I love that. And I I just did exactly what you're gonna what you said, and I just went over to here and hopefully this is correct. Well, on the right place, and we can just look at it together. How exciting, right?

SPEAKER_05 13:51

This you'll see there's some yeah, the dashboard will be yeah. So this is what the dashboard looks like, this is what the tiles look like that you populate with the information.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

Sorry, listeners, you better go view the video. This is our viewing the video is the best step. No, I'm just joking. Yeah, amazing. Hopefully, people and of course, everyone that is listening, just jump on your phone and go to dannyplan.com right now if you want to look at what we're looking at on the screen that we're viewing. So just give you a heads up on that. Yeah, incredible. And like you said, it is beautiful, it's it's wonderfully look at look at how many options to be able to track and measure. I think it's the one of the most important things in getting the right care needs, like you said, Joel, when when we're gone and we need someone to have all of that information that is freshly played out in our brains on a daily basis. And you know, how do we brain transplant them to someone else?

SPEAKER_01 15:05

So and I think it's our biggest fear, right? I mean, we all talk about that kind of like passing before you know our kids do is like a fear for us in in our community, right? Because we want to make sure people are caring for them. And people talk a lot about housing and where they're gonna live, but it's really not that's more about a roof over the head. I think what we're most concerned about is they're being cared for the way we want them cared for. Also, they're being cared for the way they want to be cared for, right? And so I think by having these details and by having it done in an electronic fashion allows you to update things on the fly, on your phone, you're at the doctor, you can tweak a medication. If you're sitting there and a behavior changer or a new light comes up, you can just tweak it. So it's really easy to kind of keep it updated on the fly, and that when the time comes, it becomes a really powerful, you know, insurance policy that we know that there's a product out there that people have in front of them that's updated. And if they follow it, the our loved ones will be, you know, cared for the way that we want them to, and the way they want to be cared for. So it's also a nice tool for the future caregiver so they're not in chaos, also trying to figure everything out that we know so well about our children, right? And so I think it gives everybody around the horn a lot of peace of mind.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

Absolutely.

Real Stories When Seconds Count

SPEAKER_04 16:29

Tell is there a situation in which you've personally used Danny or had a story from any other users that you can share with us kind of about its amazing abilities.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I have a couple, Dub. Do you have anything in mind?

SPEAKER_05 16:46

I have a I certainly uh well, I always tell my favorite story. Well, it's not really a favorite story because it was quite scary at the moment, but so you have all your documents in your Danny plan, right? And I talked about being able to send anything to anybody in real time. So it was the first day of school, and Danny's school district doesn't house the post-secondary program, but that is housed in a different school district. So at the beginning of the school year, I had all of Danny's documentation into what is Berkeley Public Schools, but Danny's actual school is a district called Hazel Park. So Danny went to get on the bus the first day of school. At the end of the day, she goes to get on the bus and they said, We don't have the documentation for bus permissions and we don't have her seizure plan. And I said, Well, I sent it to the Berkeley Public Schools. And they said, We don't have it in Hazel Park, and Danny can't get on the bus. And I'm like, Well, hang on one second. And I went into my Danny plan and I went to my documents and I emailed over her seizure plan and the bus, you know, documentation that she could ride the bus. And in real time, the secretary at the Hazel Park school was able to go out to the bus driver and say, Here's the documentation, Danny can ride the bus today. And I was like, wow, like had this happened a year ago, I would have been freaking out right where to get that seizure documentation, and it's definitely going to take a few days, and I'm not even near the school right now, but the bus is supposed to leave. And who's gonna hang out with Danny till I get there? So I would have been in entire and complete chaos, but instead I said, hang on one second. I knew where that document was, and I was able to email it in real time. And Danny rode the bus home that day, and that's my favorite story. I'm like, okay, Joel, we nailed this. Like, this is why we built Danny Plan.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

I also I had a um the other day who was telling me a story about how her child got discontinued from getting their SSR. And that does happen to all of us. We get letters every once in a while. You have to go through the process. And she said if she hadn't had the Danny plan and all the documents that they needed to re-get over to them, she said it would have taken her an extra probably two, three months to get reapproved, which is a lot of money for us, right? And or for you know, our child and whatnot. So I talk about that all the time. Gabby and I talk about when we if we would have had this when Danny was started it when she was young, and when we were going for disability and guardianship, how many, how stressful it was to dig up things that we just hadn't had for years, like for diagnosis. We had to have her re-diagnosed at at eight at 17 and a half or 18 years old, we had her have have her rediagnose when she was diagnosed at 18 months, just like I think you said your son was around that time too. So yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 19:37

You don't, you know, like you said, this being able to access these things in this digital era and everything. Oh, it's it's so important, and this type of quality system and programming is necessary, necessary for the care of our individuals. And I love that it's not, you know, at the beginning I was like, I'm always talking about autism, it's my life, but I love that it's it is also personalized for older, it looks like maybe even just like seniors or just any loved one that you want care for. It, you know, you don't have to have an autistic individual in your life to use a Danny plan. It looks like you can use it for many individuals in your life. So please share this episode with your friends, your families, your older loved ones and family members so that they can all have some peace of mind that there is something there that can help bring, you know, just kind of continuity to everyone in the family, the providers as well. I think just fabulous. Bravo, Pearl Wins.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Awesome. Well, thank you for for having us and thank you for everything you do. Obviously, put out so information out there that's so helpful to our community. I think that it's great when we're all just kind of working together.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Yeah, absolutely. Are you guys taking this like to tech summits? Tell me a little bit about the how the process has been.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yeah, we go to uh I've definitely been going to a lot more conferences. I've been speaking at quite a few. So many different organizations as well are kind of looking to adopt it. Even some you know, we've had some great success with some big schools who are giving us grants, who see this, the Danny Clan being able to maybe integrate with some of the systems to make things a little more helpful because some of the systems aren't always connected and talking to the parents the way they need to be. So yeah, it's been it's really been amazing. The enthusiasm for it and the gratitude has been what you know drives Debbie and and myself. For sure.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

I love that. And for those of you who are listening, Dannyplan.com, go visit their website, check it out, become a member, have the honor to jump on a call with Debbie and meet her and you know go through this amazing process. But more importantly, have something to care for your loved one when you're not around anymore. So oh my goodness, thank you guys so so much. As you know, updates come and things, if things change, please reach out to me, let me know so that I can share with all of our community. And you know, the invite is always open to you guys to be with us here at the SJ Child show and share all of the good stuff.

Webinars Free Trial And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Yeah, and Sarah, I just to let you know, I do I do a lot of different webinars, but we do a general webinar once a month. I have one actually coming up on July 22nd. If anybody goes to the website at dannyplan.com, there'll be a spot there where they can uh it'll say to join a webinar. There's one coming up, I think this evening on Wednesday. So we have them every month, and that's a great way to really see the Danny Plan. And in you know, I do a full demo of it, and I think then people really get like a deep dive into all the benefits to kind of becoming part of the community.

SPEAKER_04 23:26

Incredible.

SPEAKER_05 23:27

Joel actually does a great demo. Um, and I just want to say too, if you don't want to wait for one of Joel's sessions, we also have a 14-day free trial, which is really nice. If you just want to get in there and start playing around and see what it is and decide whether or not it's something you're interested in, even you can register. It's 14 days free and you could just see if it's something that you like or don't like. But I I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

I think so. Uh if everyone that is, you know, a viewer, a listener is more or less probably on our same wavelength and really wanting to, you know, to know and to have the resources. And even if you're just a provider or a teacher, you can please provide these resources to the families that you serve. This is just so so valuable. And thank you guys so much. Thank you for your time and this incredible, incredible service that you're that you've come up with. And thank you for creating it.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Likewise, thanks for everything you do. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Absolutely. We'll definitely be in touch.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Thank you.

Outro Music

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Oh, yeah, stories of love and courage all throughout the night. Voice resonated an anthem for all trials and strike. She answers the call. Mother and a fighter break, the barrier district. Love and it's a guy, you'll never hide. Taking the word The heart is beats and strong. And we are belong to her together. Let's start in the night. So it's all bad boys in the light. Dance for family avocados. Movement of the bats, wait for the source, but get together. Get it feared in every part.