During the month of May I worked as
a Special Education Advocate by educating parents and professionals on various
topics associated with special needs. The first training kicked off in
Cohasset, which focused on “Creating A Vision”. This workshop is to help
parents develop future goals for their children through their children’s lens.
No vision is too big! We emphasized that the parents should, no matter how
extreme or unrealistic it may seem, let their child pick the vision. It may not
always be realistic, but it is essential to try to best accommodate the children
with their own unique vision. Maybe they want to be a pilot, but they are
visually impaired, it is still possible to find them a position that may still
work in the aviation field that will still give them the opportunity to be as
close as possible to their vision.
The second
workshop was based on “Student Discipline” in Arlington. This workshop was
based off of schools regulations and knowing your child’s rights in their
program. As parents, you should always
read the school handbook! This is the best place to start and it is often
overlooked. Many times the handbook can be found as a PDF on the schools
website, but typically it is also sent home with the child at the beginning of
the school year. This training went into depth about the types of punishments
the schools implement and the rights of the parent in this situation. We also
went into detail about how important it is to let the teachers or the staff associated
with your children know about your child’s IEP and circumstance. This is the
best possible solution for your child success in the school.
The third
presentation was a “Basic Rights” workshop. This took place in Everett and was
a bit different than the other workshops we have been apart of. This workshop
included a Spanish/Portuguese interpreter. This workshop is to let the parent
know their basic rights when it comes to their child and their disability. It
mainly focuses on the IEP or 504 Plan associated with your child’s disability.
It has been
incredible to be able to be apart of something that I am very familiar with
being someone who went through this process as a child and now being able to
teach it to others. Sometimes parents don’t
even know where to begin, but with these various trainings that SPAN has created
it makes the process that much easier.
For more on this topic and for more information on the
trainings please visit SPANs website below: SPANs Website
