The Navigator
March 2017
Developmental Disability Awareness Month

The Arizona DDD website is currently featuring stories of individuals with Developmental Disabilities. View, Mark Mendibles' story below. Mark is a graduate of the Arizona Partners in Leadership program.
 
  Watch Video
In This Issue
Supreme Court Unanimously Rules in Favor of Special Education
  
In a major win for the disability community, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school districts must give students with disabilities the chance to make meaningful, "appropriately ambitious" progress. In Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1, the high court rejected the "merely more than de minimis" standard set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver. That language had been used in a precedent-setting opinion in another special education case by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, who sits on the 10th Circuit appellate court.
"Of course this describes a general standard, not a formula," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion. "When all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing 'merely more than de minimis' progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all," he wrote. "The IDEA demands more," he added. "It requires an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances."
 
Advice for Parents that have Children with Disabilities
  
Blogger, Jillian Benefield, of News Anchor to Homemaker interviews recent co-graduate of the AZ Partners in Leadership program Gaby Ficchi-Bremekamp. Gaby shares experiences from her life and offers words of wisdom for parents raising children with disabilities.
Read Jillian's Blog Post Here
How Can Families Help Develop Financial Capacity Among Youth?
  
The National Collaborative on Workforce & Disability for Youth has created an info brief on this topic. Parents are one of the most significant influences on the financial knowledge of children both through their example and through the conversations that they have with their child about money. This InfoBrief contains tips and useful links to help parents develop financial capacity with their youth.
 
  
OSERS is seeking input from users of the IDEA.ed.gov website as part of their effort to provide updated, easy-to-navigate IDEA resources to children with disabilities and their families, teachers, administrators, advocates, and other stakeholders. To find out more information and offer input click here.
 
National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability
  
The Arc received funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the U.S. Department of Justice to create The Arc's National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability® (NCCJD®). This is the first national effort of its kind to bring together both victim and suspect/offender issues involving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (or I/DD) under one roof.
 
NCCJD® will serve as a national clearinghouse for information and training on the topic of people with I/DD as victims, witnesses and suspects or offenders of crime. The Arc will partner with a broad spectrum of criminal justice professionals, including those in the law enforcement, legal and disability fields at the national, state and local levels to create safer lives for people with I/DD who become involved in the criminal justice system.
 

Pilot Parents is excited to participate in this year's Arizona Gives Day, a statewide, 24-hour giving marathon, and hope to help break the record! Please consider investing in Pilot Parents of Southern Arizona to help us assist families as they navigate the various service delivery systems, train future advocacy leaders, provide support to siblings and much more.