Philadelphia, PA. (The Hollywood Times) 6/17/2026 — Disability benefits advocate Michele Leahy wakes up every morning with the satisfaction of knowing that her work changes lives.
Through her company, Leahy Life Plan, she helps teens and adults with autism, intellectual disabilities, mental health, and other special needs navigate the complicated maze of government regulations, benefit denials, and shifting rules that often stand between families and their needed critical services.
For more than 20 years, Leahy has been using her expertise, tenacity, and candor to guide parents, grandparents, and caregivers –- through long-term disability planning, helping families build secure and fulfilling futures for loved ones with disabilities. When these children grow up and become adults, Leahy Life Plan helps them navigate the vital adult services they need.
This is especially important after they age out of school programs and the school bus stops arriving at their front door.
“Many students with disabilities stay in school until age 21 or 22, where structured supports are in place,” Leahy explained. “After that, options can narrow quickly. This is about setting up our loved ones for long-term financial stability and independence.”
Another scenario is that the young adults are academically able, go to college, go online, and don’t interact with employers until after graduation. As such, they don’t understand how to make the academics relate to real-life work environments that require deadlines, dealing with customers, and other needed skills. This is when the disability “blooms” or becomes obvious.
Leahy is known for being direct. She does not sugarcoat difficult realities, particularly when families want to avoid conversations about the future.
Her goal, she said, is not to simply comfort parents — it is to properly prepare them and help them implement their plan early so they can return to being mom and dad and not sole caregivers.
Sometimes she works with parents who have become overly protective, unintentionally limiting opportunities for their children to develop independence. As caregivers age or face health challenges themselves, that dynamic can create major problems for their loved ones later on.
Few professionals approach disability planning the way Leahy does, and even fewer bring her combination of professional expertise and personal experience. Clients praise her extensive knowledge, research-driven approach, and ability to stay ahead of constantly changing laws and regulations.
She said that parents come to her so she can help them and their adult children who are leaving the school system and transitioning to adult services.
“I want them to be aware that financial planning is important because it gives you choices, and an understanding that the people who are a part of their circle of support and are the key to a life well lived,” Leahy explained. “Getting those supports in place early is crucial so parents can be a parent to an adult, and their one-on-one support can fade and get used to others in their life and not be isolated.”
Deeply Personal Approach
For Leahy, the work is deeply personal. Born with spina bifida, she struggled with mobility from childhood. At age 12, she underwent surgery to correct scoliosis. A year earlier, she had been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular autoimmune disease. She has been a permanent wheelchair user since age 14.
At 23, Leahy survived a devastating accident involving a tow truck that snapped the rods stabilizing her spine. Years later, in her 30s, both of her legs were amputated.
Despite these challenges, she built a life rooted in resilience and advocacy. “I went to a segregated school,” she said. “I truly understood what it’s like to be treated like a second-class citizen. Even now, I’m still striving for equal access.”
Leahy earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Penn State. Yet, when she graduated in 1995, finding a job proved difficult. She also holds an M.S. in Non-Profit Management from Eastern University.
“The workforce was afraid to take a chance on me unless I worked inside the disability community,” she recalled. “I had to prove myself worthy by temping, so my employers could test my skills. I proved I was educated, results-driven, and deserved a chance.” She worked outside of the disability community for many years before her current work.
In 2023, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro appointed Leahy to the PA Employment First Oversight Committee, where she remains highly active. She was the first non-veteran executive Board Member of the United Spinal Association, a national disability rights organization, and is also a powerful national public speaker.
Today, she is passionate about advocating for disability rights, noting that “these rights I fight for are universal human rights, and are about equity, not just equality. What I do is help disability rights come out of the shadows and remind everyone that our needs should be valued the same as everyone else’s.”
Much of her work centers on the question many parents fear the most: ‘What happens when we are no longer here to care for our loved ones?’ “Sometimes the parents choose safety for their disabled adult children over living a full life where everyone else can make choices and mistakes, allowing them to be seen as adults,” she said.
Leahy stresses that early planning is critical. That planning often includes difficult but necessary conversations about state and federal benefits, wills, Special Needs Trusts, trustees, guardianship, powers of attorney, life insurance, ABLE accounts, waivers, and much more — often in coordination with attorneys and financial professionals.
Financial Security is Key
A major focus of her work is helping families create financial security for adults with disabilities while preserving eligibility for government benefits.
“The earlier you plan, the more you can create a separate financial ‘house’ for the adult with disabilities,” Leahy said.
She also encourages parents to help their loved ones become as independent as possible socially, professionally, and personally.
“As a caring mom or dad, if you’ve spent 30 years softening the blow and putting safeguards in place and your loved one struggles with change, when you pass away, they’re not only losing a devoted parent — they may also lose their home and their support system,” Leahy explained.
“An atmosphere of isolation can unintentionally be created. Parents hate talking about this, but it’s vitally important because sometimes love can also hold someone back.”
Mother Knows Best
Abbe Pescatore, a suburban Philadelphia mom and recent widow, has worked with Leahy for several years to secure and maintain benefits for her 41-year-old son Daniel, who has special needs.
Pescatore said she became frustrated after receiving different — and often incorrect — answers from Social Security representatives during multiple phone calls.
She was so impressed with Leahy’s expertise that she arranged for her to participate in official calls with government offices to discuss her son’s benefits.
“I kept going back to Michele for advice and quickly realized she knew more than anyone else out there,” Pescatore said. “I learned to take off the rose-colored glasses and look at my son from a realistic point of view.”
Her advice to other families is simple: “Engage Michele Leahy and listen to what she has to say. You may not be able to do everything you want and need, but she has worked in the system for a long time and knows how it operates. She has helped my son and me in so many ways. In a word, Michele is brilliant!”
Leahy says confusion around disability benefits is incredibly common. Many parents, for example, do not understand the differences between Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), or how state and federal benefits interact.
“Parents and caregivers can meet with me to review available benefits, and I can often save them a tremendous amount of money simply by helping them fully understand the system,” Leahy explained.
Based in the Philadelphia suburbs, Leahy currently works with clients in 16 states, and her reach continues to expand.
“Part of what makes Leahy Life Plan unique,” she said, “is that the company is entirely owned and operated by people with disabilities.”
“We focus on long-term life planning for people with disabilities and their families because we understand these challenges firsthand,” she said.
Employment is a Game-Changer
Employment is another major concern for many families who have a loved one with autism, special needs, or another disability.
The unemployment rate for adults with autism remains dramatically higher than the national average, with some estimates suggesting up to 85 percent are unemployed or underemployed. The numbers, according to several national sources, reflect the significant barriers many autistic adults face in the workplace.
For Leahy, long-term planning is ultimately about creating choices and autonomy. “Families can avoid defaulting to siblings as future caregivers or other undesired situations by planning early and creating independent living options and support systems,” she said.
“It’s about giving adults with disabilities choices — where they live, what services they receive, and how they live their lives in the most meaningful way possible. That creates peace of mind and a better quality of life for everyone involved.”
Looking back on the many families she has helped over the years, Leahy says the most rewarding moments come when the system finally works the way it should.
“I love seeing the relief on families’ faces when services are approved, and utilizing all the available services so the person with the disability is living their best life,” she said.
She is especially proud when parents begin to view their adult children in a more realistic — and empowered — way during evaluations and planning. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see my clients working, receiving benefits, contributing to society, and building meaningful lives,” Leahy said.
Leahy Life Plan:
Website: https://www.leahylifeplan.com/
Email: michele@leahylifeplan.com
Phone: 484-238-0841
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/LeahyLifePlan
Schedule with Michele: https://calendly.com/leahylifeplan
