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Advocacy
Training or Advocacy Boot Camp?
Pete
yells, "Two standard deviations above the mean is WHAT?"
"98!"
"What
comes next?"
"84
- 50 - 16 - 2!"
"And
where are the regs about IEPs?"
"300.340
- .350 and Appendix A!"
"And
what is your mission?"
"Page
24 of Wrightslaw!"
After
two days of intensive advocacy training, these Colorado parents, adovcates
and attorneys were exhausted and empowered.
 Was
this advocacy training - or advocacy boot camp with Pete Wright as
drill instructor?
We
got an answer a few days later:
I
attended your training sessions in Colorado Springs and Denver and want
to thank you for the most informative seminar I have ever attended.
I learned so much!
I considered myself an advocate for my child. After this conference,
I realized I knew squat!
For me, the most important part of the seminar was learning that I had
to put my emotions behind me. This realization came home today, when
for the third time in as many days, the school staff ignored my son's
positive behavior intervention plan. Instead of feeling my blood pressure
rise, I thought to myself, "Go from Emotions to Advocacy."
I've spent the past few days going over the bell curve, setting up independent
evaluations, and reviewing my notes from your presentations.
I want
to thank you for answering so many parents' questions. You answered
one of my questions and it helped.
You are doing a wonderful thing for parents and advocates, but most
of all for the children whose lives are touched by their disabilities.
After the wonderful Boot Camp in Colorado
Springs, I was so moved that I sent an email to Oprah and begged her
to have you both on her how. There are so many parents in my shoes who
have no clue about what to do or how to do it -- and you are the keys
to our success. Thanks for being the wonderful people that you are!
Connecting is
Power
Six
months ago, we received emails from Lee Mizer of The Advocacy Project
and Linda Rivera of Special Kids - Special Families.
Lee and Linda asked us to put on a two-day training program in Colorado.
Each expressed concerns about taking on such a large project alone. They
did not know each other.
We suggested that Lee and Linda may want to meet and join forces -- and
this is what they did.
While Lee
and Linda were planning the conference, our new book, From
Emotions to Advocacy, went off to the printer. We suggested that
they order copies of From
Emotions to Advocacy for the participants - and they did.
Did Lee and
Linda get stuck with hundreds of dollars of books? Nope. They sold out!
(Didn't we tell you that FETA is a great book?)
Yellow
Pages for Kids with Disabilities - and the People Who Love and Work
with Them
As
a way to thank our Colorado friends, we published the "Colorado
Yellow Pages for Kids with Disabilities" today.
We
are building our "Yellow Pages for Kids with Disabilities"
so the people who love and work with these children can get information,
support, and connect with one another -- as Lee and Linda did.
Our Yellow Pages for Kids with Disabilitiesare different from
standard "Resources Pages."
We asked the Colorado participants to give us the resources and groups
that were most helpful to them. We listed their recommended
resources in the Colorado
Yellow Pages for Kids with Disabilities.
One
down, 53 states and territories to go.
Now we will tackle Hawai'i.
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