Wow! Some Folks are Just Too Clever

My friend Jennica just sent this out, is it amazing or what??

Try this Tuesday: About that IEP

Oh yes, it is that season again!!! Here are some tips I hope you find helpful as you prepare for your IEP meetings.

1. Organize your thoughts. Someone gave me this acronym and I use it as a checklist for myself: MAPS: Management needs, Academics, Physical needs, Social needs. I divide a big piece of paper in quarters and brainstorm each area, then organize what I come up with. Lots of folks have different systems, but that seems to work for me.

2. Organize your papers. It helps, trust me. Go see the possible placements, meet the people involved.

3. Know your rights. Your child is entitled to an education as a citizen—not IF he is toilet trained, or WHEN she becomes more independent. NOW. If they need support to be successful, they can have that support. Maintain perspective—it will cost your community far more if your child is not educated than it will cost to educate them. Hold your ground.

4. Practice phrasing everything in terms of needs. So instead of saying “we want Susie to have the limousine” say “Susie needs a vehicle roomy enough to…”

5. Deal with your feelings. Before the meeting. Vent to your friends, your mom, the people you work with and your advocate. New parents are dealing with many new feelings, seasoned parents are dealing with HISTORY—don’t go into the meeting full of pent-up emotions. You want to be able to think as clearly as possible. Some emotion makes everybody care—too much can derail the whole process.

6. Consider your negotiables and non-negotiables. Consider the possibility of many paths to the same outcome. I wanted an additional year of pre-school for my daughter—within limits I could be flexible about WHICH pre-school.

7. Consider the school’s point of view before your meeting. If you don’t know what their point of view is, ask them. You need to be able to address their concerns. And, if their ideas are vastly different from your views, you need time to get yourself into a “respectful, but not agreeing” mindset. That mindset is necessary for the team to function. A shocked yell of “WHAT the _______!!!!!” can really take a meeting down a wrong road…

8. Bring someone with you. Bring your spouse, a friend to take notes, your clergyperson (who can share how helpful your child is in Sunday school) or an advocate. It is so helpful to have another person who witnessed what went on. And they often add perspective to the meeting (make sure well ahead of the meeting that you and whoever is going with you are on the same page, of course.)

9. Plan several ways to explain your perspective. At one of my son’s meetings they wanted to discontinue all of my son’s accommodations because he wasn’t improving (he has a learning disability.) I was able to turn things around by pointing out that accommodations aren’t therapies, accommodations are like eyeglasses: glasses don’t fix people’s eyes, they just adjust eyesight, and people who wear them can’t function without them—ever…

10. Strategize. When there is some disagreement much of the team will be at the table geared up for a fight. They expect (and will goad you into) direct assaults, anger and negativity. If you can surprise them with a relentlessly positive perspective, humor, well placed questions,and relationship-building strategies amazing things can sometimes happen.

Good luck to us all! What else would anyone recommend?

Targeted Question: Disability Beliefs

It’s the IEP season and full servings of stress are being dished up with lots of conversations about kids, schools, teams and plans. In the midst of all this one of my friends, whose son is in 9th grade, asked me if my team had asked me “THE QUESTION” at my daughter’s meeting this week.

“THE QUESTION?” I asked.

Apparently every year for the past few years her son’s case manager has asked the same question at the beginning of every IEP meeting:

“Do you want your son to have competitive employment, supported employment or sheltered employment?”

She went on and told me lots of other stuff about her meeting, but this question really stuck with me.

I really hate this question.

Who wants to be part of a team where the coach starts the game by asking, “Should we aim for the bullseye, the target or the wall?”

Wouldn’t work for Wednesday night darts.

Doesn’t work in Wednesday morning IEP meetings either!

I hate the implication—at the beginning of team deliberations—that there are only 3 possible paths for her son. More than that, I hate that the 3 paths offered require her son to fit a system rather than requiring a system to fit her son.

Surely we can do better than this????

(Wheelie Catholic has written an interesting post about the value of consumer driven services. Check it out!)

Photo from here.

Listen to the Canary

A few years back our school district went through some administrative changes. Within weeks of the change the parents of children with disabilities were alarmed when they were notified that the district had changed the Education Plans of all of the children who receive summer services. These changes were made without holding a single IEP meeting— meetings that are required by federal law.

As the next few years unfolded many, many more problems came to light about the way our district was being administered. The Special Ed parents knew of the problems first. We often joked that our population was like the proverbial canary in the mine shaft.

Before the invention of sophisticated chemical testing equipment coal miners would bring a canary with them when they descended into deep mines. The canary would indicate the presence of poisonous fumes before the miners’ lives were in danger. As long as the canary sang the miners knew they would be all right.

In November I heard Michael Collins from the National Organization on Disability present as part of a panel at the Association of University Centers on Disability annual meeting. He was speaking about his organization’s priority of Emergency Preparedness. Collins stated, “People with disabilities are like the canary in the mineshaft—AND if they can keep us safe, or get us out, they can do it for anybody.”

This stands to reason. If our environments are accessible for people with disabilities they are accessible for all. While steps challenge many, a ramp works for everyone. How many of us have benefited from elevators and automatic doors? And who hasn’t followed the closed captioning when trying to watch the news in a crowded airport or catch a game in a noisy bar? If it works for the people with disabilities everyone succeeds.

It also seems to follow that it if we can meet the challenge of educating the kids with learning needs, we can educate anyone. And if we can address the healthcare needs of folks with significant disabilities we are able to provide care for anyone.

The same can be said for housing, transportation, civil rights, employment and more. If our systems can succeed with people with disabilities they can accommodate anyone. The Universal Design principles that architects use to create accessible spaces can be applied far beyond the accessibility of physical environments.

In my experience this even holds true for cultural issues. For example, if people with disabilities (including cognitive disabilities) are well integrated into a community, people with other differences are usually welcomed as well.

Conversely, when our systems have problems the ill effects are first noticeable to people with disabilities as well. Like the canary in the mineshaft the experiences of people with disabilities are often the first indicators of both society’s successes and its failures.

(Thanks to my friend Kathy who made me the miniature canary in the cage in answer to my picture dilemma!)