8 Ways to Advocate at School for Kids with Special Needs

by jphilo | Mar 17, 2014 | Advocacy, Different Dream, Special Needs Parenting

8 Ways to Advocate at School for Kids with Special Needs

This winter’s been a long one, but spring is on the doorstep. That means both better weather and annual review season are at hand. Mary Ashby, a teacher consultant for CLC Network (now All Belong), is today’s guest blogger. She’s here with eight great ideas about how to be an effective advocate at school for your child with special needs.

8 Ways to Advocate at School for Kids with Special Needs

There’s a fine line for parents between micromanaging your child’s education and trusting the school. As a parent, teacher, and teacher consultant, I’ve been on both sides of this line…and in the middle! These positions have given me insight into managing and building cooperative parent-teacher relationships. Allow me to share some thoughts I’ve gathered over the years so you can have a healthy, effective relationship with school staff.

Be proactive! Take your child to school before the school year starts to meet the teacher, make a connection with them, and share your child’s strengths and struggles as well as strategies that have been successful in the past. If your child is entering a new school, class, or grade, walk through the School Welcome Story to help him or her feel comfortable in the new environment.
Communication. Whether it’s during your initial visit to the school or a parent-teacher conference, share your contact information and the best way to get a hold of you. Ask the teacher how they communicate with parents: Is it through a newsletter, email, handwritten notes, or something else? Find out how they share homework assignments (for instance, Moodle, Renweb, a homework folder, or a weekly newsletter). But keep in mind, your job is not to micromanage!
Plan ahead. Before entering a meeting with school staff, write down what you would like to learn about or ask and think about how you will say it. Knowing how you want to talk about difficult subjects can help you speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
Be present. Both you and your spouse should attend the meeting if possible. Don’t bring younger siblings, as they can provide a distraction from the main purpose.
Don’t wait. Contact a teacher right away when you detect an issue so you can tackle it together before it becomes much larger.
Be open-minded! Your way of “fixing” a problem may not be the only way. Work with your child’s teacher, not against them. You don’t want the teacher to become defensive and dismissive.
Divide and conquer. At the end of the meeting, review the plan. Make sure you each know who is responsible for what. Offer recommendations that you can follow through with at home.
Dissatisfied? If you aren’t satisfied with the teacher’s response, address the teacher first (Matthew 5) and then go to the principal.

What Do You Think?

What do you think of Mary Ashby’s suggestions? Have you tried some of them? Do you use other strategies? Leave a comment so all parents are preparing for annual reviews can advocate well, too.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop-up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

Photo Credit: Jose Kevo, http://flic.kr/p/5BDa7C

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Mary Ashby is a teacher consultant for CLC Network (now All Belong), a faith-based, non-profit that promotes the development of people with a variety of abilities and disabilities to live as active, integrated members of their communities. Learn more by visiting their website or subscribing to their blog.

Author Jolene Philo

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The Power of Special Needs Parents

A few weeks ago Different Dream posted a story about Dr. Ignacio Ponseti, a gifted University of Iowa physician. He developed a non-invasive method for treating clubfoot now known as the Ponseti method. You can read more about him at the post, Dr. Ignacio Ponseti: Hero to Special Needs Families.

The Power of Parents in Changing Medical Treatment

But there’s a second horn to toot in this story. I was happy to hear NPR toot the power of special needs parents in a piece about how ordinary dads and moms revolutionized the treatment of clubfoot by championing the Ponseti method. Of course, the good doctor tried to publicize his treatment, as the radio article explained:

Ponseti spent the next 50 years tirelessly trying to get other doctors to accept it, but with little success. “People were falling over themselves to do fancy invasive surgery, and this one strange old guy who speaks softly with a Spanish accent in Iowa was getting sort of ignored by the drumbeat of people who were in favor of surgery,” says Herzenberg, who is one of the foremost practitioners of the Ponseti method today.

In the 1990s, parents started talking about the method on the internet. Here’s how Jennifer Trevillian got involved after her daughter was born with club feet in 2000.

Trevillian joined the small but growing group of parents evangelizing about the Ponseti method online. She built a few websites telling her daughter’s story, and she stayed active on the fast-growing Yahoo group. Parents began following each other’s advice—choosing to abandon doctors who insisted on surgery and often traveling long distances to find a Ponseti practitioner. “The way that the clubfoot treatment pendulum has swung is really a classic example of supply and demand—because once parents found out about it, they demanded it for their kids, and it really forced the medical industry to rethink the Ponseti method,” says Trevillian.

Now the Ponseti method is almost always the recommended treatment. When done correctly, 97 percent of kids born with clubfoot never need invasive surgery. To read the transcript or listen to the whole piece which includes links to more information, go to How Parents and the Internet Transformed Clubfoot Treatment.

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Ignorance about Special Needs = Opportunity to Educate

Today’s blogger brings an international flavor to DifferentDream.com. Maggi Gale grew up in England, has lived in Africa, and now resides in the Middle East. In this post, she introduces herself and challenges all of us to use misconceptions about our children to educate them about special needs. Would you join me in welcoming new guest blogger Maggi Gale to the Different Dream family?

Special Needs Misconceptions=Educational Opportunities

“Take that child to a hospital!” The sharp comment from a complete stranger shattered my peace. How dare he? And what did he know?

Lois, my EA/TEF daughter, was coughing, as she was getting over her latest chest infection. I had decided to take her for a walk to the beach. After all, we’d moved to the coast to get her into cleaner air.

By this point, her illnesses had established a regular pattern—first the cold, then the chest infection incorporating up to ten restless nights of coughing through the small hours, then, as she recovered, the daytime cough until it all tailed off again. Since the nighttime cough was such an issue, I was relatively unaware of the daytime cough, despite its distinctive seal-like barking sound. Knowing her body patterns by this point, I was just relieved that she was over the worst of it once more.

This wasn’t the first time unsolicited comments had upset me. Outwardly I held my tongue, but inwardly I fumed. It was time to think of a plan. A verbal reply was too emotive for me. So I sat down and thought through what I would like to say instead.

We believed that God had promised to heal our daughter, but from a human perspective, He didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry. But He’d begun…her surgery had been successful for a start! So, basing my thoughts on the Bible verse ,“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” I designed leaflets explaining Lois’s condition, and the reason for her unusual cough.

I went on to say how some people’s problems are easy to see, or hear, as in Lois’s case! But isn’t God up to something in all His children’s lives? Then, turning the focus, I asked what’s He up to in your life—after all, we are the clay and He is the Potter.

Was that the last day that we were the brunt of insensitive comments? No way. But it was the last day I left myself so open and vulnerable to them. From that day on, I treated the leaflets as my ammunition, and viewed the comments as my opportunity. Each time one came our way, I gave my leaflets, trusting that something good could come even out of something as bad as blatant insensitivity.

As for the man on the beach—what did he know? Nothing about EA/TEF, obviously. But those of us granted children with challenging problems can educate others, if and when we are ready to take up the challenge. Personally, I felt less defensive and more empowered when I finally took up that challenge. Maybe that will work someone else reading this, too.

How Do You Educate Others About Your Child’s Special Needs?

Maggie’s idea to create a leaflet about EA/TEF was fantastic. Now she’s prepared to educate people who are worried by her daughter’s cough. How do you take advantage of opportunities to educate others about your child’s special needs? Leave a comment!

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

Photo Credit: www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Maggi is a wife and mother of two daughters. She is a primary school teacher, having worked in Africa for 14 years before moving to the Middle East. Her passions are her animals and art. Her youngest daughter was born with tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF). This birth condition was to be the start of an arduous journey, impacting the whole family for several years. Through writing, she hopes to turn her experiences into encouragement for others on similar paths.