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Link up with Other Advocates
The first step in your Game Plan was Expose Yourself to Advocacy Opportunities. You need to link up with other advocates in your state or community. You'll find advocates listed on the Yellow Pages for Kids website for your state.
Volunteer to Help
Try to hook up with a special education attorney who represents parents. Offer to help the attorney prepare cases for due process hearings and IEP meetings (for free). If you take this step, your knowledge and experience will jump. You'll also learn about things you can do that will jeopardize a good special education case.
You'll begin to view advocacy cases from a different perspective. You'll understand why you always need to prepare every case as though it will end up in a due process hearing.
Practice Your Advocacy Skills
In addition to learning information, you need opportunities to practice advocacy skills. Offer to go to IEP Team meetings with parents. Offer to be a friendly face at the table. Assure the parents that you will not say anything unless they ask for your input.
Explain that you are trying to learn - and the best way to learn advocacy skills is by going to IEP Team meetings.
When you go to IEP meetings for other children, you don't have the same emotional reaction as when you attend an IEP meeting for your child. You can be more objective.
You'll also learn about the players, their roles, and their personalities. You'll recognize their tactics and strategies more easily because you are not emotionally involved. You'll see the games people play. >
You'll see that parents wear "buttons" and how some school personnel push these buttons. In time, you will be able to prepare parents so they do not become overtly emotional or angry when someone tries to push their buttons.
So you want to be an advocate?
What were those five steps you need to take?
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Meet Pat Howey
Pat is a charter member of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA), serving on its Board of Directors from 2000 through 2003. She has been a member of the faculty of the College of William and Mary Law School's Institute of Special Education Advocacy since its inception in 2011.
Pat has degrees in Paralegal Studies from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, where she graduated magna cum laude. She is an Indiana Registered Paralegal and an affiliate member of the Indiana Bar and the American Bar Associations.
In 2017, Pat closed her advocacy practice and began working on a contract basis as a special education paralegal. Attorneys in Indiana, Texas, and California contracted with her to review documents, spot issues, draft due process complaints, prepare for hearings, and assist at hearings. In January 2019, she became an employee of the Connell Michael Kerr law firm, owned by Erin Connell, Catherine Michael, and Sonja Kerr. Her duties have now expanded to assisting with federal court cases.
"Changing the World -- One Child at at Time
Contact Information
Patricia L. Howey, B.A., IRP
POB 117
West Point, Indiana 47992-0117
E-mail: specialedconsulting@gmail.com
Website: https://cmklawfirm.com/
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Revised: 02/11/2021
