My New Role with SPaN

I am happy to announce that recently I have become a member of SPaNs board. I am fulfilling the role of Vice President of Programming for the organization. SPaN is the Special Needs Advocacy Network, which helps families advocate for their child with special needs. As a person who has a disability I grew up going through this process. I am very excited to be a member of this organization and am looking forward to help coordinate events in hopes of educating families who need guidance for their child.

Check out their site: SPaNmass.org

Special Education Advocacy Network Events in the month of May

 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

Improved Access to Courts for Folks with Disabilities

In response to a recent study, which essentially concluded that disabled parents are more likely to have their children taken away in custody disputes, H. 1379 seeks to improve access to the Probate and Family Court as well as providing safeguards for parents. Key language includes that there must be a nexus between the disability and the ability to parent in order to remove custody and the judge must make specific findings that the situation cannot be remedied by any adaptive devices. Other key provisions include access to interpreters and other adaptive technologies so that disabled people can gain access to the justice system. 

For the language of the bill visit http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/188/House/H1379.