Enlisting and Providing Support

Questions you have with which your colleagues may be able to provide help and support

I am researching Special Education Laws and the rights and responsibilities of the parents of special education children. Through my research I am wanting to create a tool such as a resource guide that provides parents with helpful information. The information is going to be list of frequently used terms within an IEP or IFSP as well as other resources that parents could use. I am planning on using Power Point to present my Advocacy Action Plan. I have been fine tuning this for a while now and I just keep getting frustrated because I am such a perfectionist with things like this. I do not want to present something that looks unproffessional becuase that would defeat the purpose of my Action Plan.

A question that I have is as my fellow colleagues is there any information that you think would help parents and be beneficial for my resource guide?

Resources and information you are seeking

Information that I am seeking is any information that parents may not understand with the whole IEP process. I want to make sure that in my Advocacy efforts that I cover as many things as possible to help the parents with Special Education children.

Resources and/or information you have found helpful and insightful

Information that I have found helpful has been interviews with parents about what they have found most frustrating with their IEP meetings and getting the help their children need.  I also found the website IDEA.gov very helpful because it has all the updates on teh changes to the laws as well as information regarding IEPs and IFSPs.

My Personal Advocacy Journey

"An aware parent loves all children he or she interacts with - for you are a caretaker for those moments in time." Doc Childre

What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?

What inspires me the most about my advocacy plans is the impact that I will make helping the families with children with special needs. I am excited to see how my action plan will unfold into a usable resources for families with special needs children. I am excited as well to share this information with my colleagues so our agency can impact all the families that need advocacy support.

What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?

The challenges I have came across thus far is finding usable information and resources that would fit the needs of the families in which I work with. I want to make sure all the information that I place in the resource guide is useful and not overwhelming like most IDEA and IEP information is already.
Anxieties that I have is that my advocacy action plan will not work or that my focus group will not like it. I am nervous about what they will say about it, I am a people pleaser in some respects so I don't like to hear negative comments. I know that the feed back that I will get will only help in the end it just makes me nervous.

What do you believe will be most effective in helping you overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan?

I believe that I can overcome the challenging emotions in regards to presenting and implementing my action plan is by creating a tool that I know well, practice what I plan on saying and make sure all my information is available and ready for the day I'm presenting it.

How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

I can encourage others in their advocacy efforts by being positive with my comments and offering help or suggestions with their efforts. I also can help them by sharing what I have learned thus far in this class in regards to creating an action plan.
I think others can encourage my advocacy efforts by giving me constructive criticism when it is needed, offer help in the efforts or suggestions to help me make my advocacy plan better.