Yes, August first was my due date to begin advocating for the next school year. Since my son began going to the local community college, there has been much less advocating in the traditional sense. After his 18th birthday, I no longer could advocate in the same way. My role turned to preparing my son to advocate for himself. I want to say, it has been worth all the hours I spent getting ready for the school year. My son will be going away to college this fall in a program that gives him a few extra supports to help him be successful.
The advocating a parent does revolves on what is best for her child. In our case, my son went to a private school with no special education services. There had been other children with mild disabilities but they'd usually left the school. My husband and I wanted our son in an inclusive environment with typical peers and a strong academic program in a Christian environment. Our daughters had gone to this school and we wanted our son to have the same experience. There had not been children who graduated from our school with a diagnosis like my son's. So what were we going to do to give this our best college try. I figured out I must take a role of a professional with our school staff.
I met with the staff who would work with my son in the coming year during August. I trained them on his diagnosis as well as things about him personally. I shared strategies for behavior, anxiety and differentiation of academic instruction. I had to prepare for these meetings in the early weeks of August so I would be ready. Over the years, I went to many professional seminars and trainings which helped me to better prepare the school staff during these meetings. I also learned how to present the material both visually and orally in an understandable way visually and orally. Developing repore before the school year began was a very important outcome of these meetings. I would be working closely (sometimes very closely if things weren't going well) with these people so it was vital to have a good working relationship.
Each family will advocate in different ways. Advocating style is often determined by what the child needs, the parent and school personel's personality as well as the program at school and services outside of school. Each family will have a very individualized way of advocating. There are a few common threads that are present with strong parent advocating skills.
In the next few weeks, the posts on Monday will share some ideas for advocating before the first day of school. Please join me.
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