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Navigating Excellence - Parent Center Assistance & Collaboration Team
Region A E-News
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"We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond." ~ Gwendolyn Brooks |
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Message From Diana & Michele |
It was inspirational to see so many of you again in person at the National Family Leadership conference! The power of 450 diverse leaders of Parent Centers and Family to Family Health Information Centers in person in DC was palpable! We hope that you learned from the workshops and plenaries, had the opportunity to network with your peers (and even develop new relationships), and get in a Hill visit or two. We especially enjoyed spending more intimate time with you at our Region A dinner. Please remember that the workshops were all recorded so that others on your staff who were not able to attend either in-person or virtually during the conference will still have the opportunity to learn from the depth and breadth of the information presented in workshops. |
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The Disability Rights Center of the Virgin Islands (DRCVI) is the only territory-wide advocacy organization established by Congress that provides legal services to eligible persons with disabilities in the U.S. Virgin Islands. They offer a large list of parent resources covering a wide range of topics including education, law, IEP, behavior, special education and so much more. These resources are available through their youtube channel DRCV -TV, their radio show DRCVI-Ability Radio, and can be downloaded easily. Check it out and let them know what you think.
Maine Parent Federation (MPF): MPF’s Youth Survivors Network is a virtual community hosted by Dylan Campbell, the MPF Youth Coordinator and Parent Trainer. The virtual community is for young brain injury survivors (16-25 years old) in northern New England and is a resource for all. They share experiences, collaborate on projects, and create a platform for youth and young adults navigating life with brain injuries. They are looking to work with others so click here to join one of their meetings.
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Upcoming Events/Dates to Remember |
Region A Drop-In Call: The November Drop-in call will take place on Tuesday, November 1st, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm. Our featured technical assistance presenter will be Joanne Cashman from National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE). The NE-PACT Drop-in calls are on the first Tuesday of every month. Check your calendar invite for additional details. Please let us know if you have any agenda items. Click here to join.
Information Sessions: Integrated Dataset on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Join the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and RTI International (Research Triangle Institute) to learn about the Integrated Dataset on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a data project that aims to learn about the supports and services people with ID/DD use and their outcomes. The information session will take place on November 7th from 1pm to 2:30pm. Click here to register. Participants include people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (ID/DD), caregivers of people with ID/DD, ID/DD service providers, those working at a state Medicaid or developmental disability agency, and ID/DD researchers and advocates to join. After the information session, there will be three question and answer sessions, each with a different focus area. Use the links below to register for the question and answer sessions:
COVID-19 Drop-In Call: The next COVID-19 Drop-In call will be on Tuesday, November 15th, 10:00 - 11:15 am. We will discuss what is happening in your state/territory/community, address any new
developments, and identify any help you need concerning COVID-19. Click here to join
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Non-Profit Management Resources |
Mission Matters Most: To thrive, a non profit must develop and adhere to a clear statement of its core purpose. Read this article from the Stanford Social innovation Review about how to craft a mission statement that can help your organization be truly “mission-driven”.
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Family-Centered Services Resources |
Family Strengths: Family strengths are those relationship qualities that contribute to the emotional health and well-being of the family. From a family strengths perspective, it is important to look at families who are doing well in life, and find answers to the question, "How do families succeed?" The family strengths perspective is a positive, optimistic world-view or orientation toward life and families, grounded in research with more than 21,000 family members in twenty-seven countries. It does not ignore problems, but relegates problems to their proper place in life: as vehicles for testing our capacities as families and reaffirming our connection with each other. Researchers looking at families from a strengths perspective have developed a number of propositions derived from their work with families that they believe merit serious consideration. Read more. |
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Youth-Centered Services Resources |
Teens and Young Adults with Disabilities: Be Your Own Best Advocate: Self-advocacy is the best first step for individuals with disabilities to understand their wants, needs, and strengths. Professionals can support by using the strategies, opportunities for advocacy, and other resources available with PACER Center. Find out more. |
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Staff Development Resources |
Family Leadership Conference 2022: We encourage you to invite your staff to watch and listen to any of the recorded workshops for the Family Leadership Conference to learn about effective strategies, tools and resources to improve their work and impact. Link coming soon! If you attended either in-person or virtually, feel free to share the resources you have already accessed with all of your staff!
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Beyond Chronic Absenteeism: The Dynamics and Disparities of Class Absences in Secondary School: Student absenteeism is often conceptualized and quantified in a static, uniform manner, providing an incomplete understanding of this important phenomenon. Applying growth curve models to detailed class-attendance data, we document that secondary school students' unexcused absences grow steadily throughout a school year and over grades, while the growth of excused absences remain essentially unchanged. Importantly, students starting the school year with a high number of unexcused absences, Black and Hispanic students, and low-income students accumulate unexcused absences at a significantly faster rate than their counterparts. Lastly, students with higher growth rates in unexcused absences consistently report lower perceptions of all aspects of school culture than their peers. Interventions targeting unexcused absences and/or improving school culture can be crucial to mitigating disengagement. Learn more. |
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Long-standing Limitations of English Learner Academic Assessment Data Persist: The monolingual approach to assessments in the US often prevents us from truly grasping how ELs are doing academically. Not only are ELs not represented in the student groups used to norm standardized tests, but every test, whether it be science, math, or social studies inadvertently tests the English skills of these students. This means that any test can present language demands on ELs that may get in the way of their ability to show what they know. Read more. |
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Bullying Prevention: Tips for Parents of Middle School Students: Bullying is most frequently reported in grades six through eight. In 2019, about 28% of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders reported being bullied at school during the school year. In high school, the percentage of students that reported being bullied was lower by about 19% on average, according to the National Center for Education Statistics Annual Report. To prevent bullying, you need to know the warning signs to look for, what your school does to address it, and how to handle it if your child experiences or contributes to bullying. Find out more here.
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Child Welfare/Foster Care |
Kinship Care and the Child Welfare System: Factsheets for Families: This factsheet, created by Child Welfare Information Gateway, is designed to help kinship caregivers work effectively with the child welfare system. It also includes resources such as links to more detailed information and places to find support to help caregivers learn about and navigate the child welfare system. Find it here. |
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Choice/Charter Schools/Virtual Schools/Voucher Programs |
What Parents Need to Know about School Vouchers: School vouchers or similar programs are an option in 32 states and the District of Columbia, and they are becoming more common. Most voucher programs are not available to all students. Instead, they often target certain criteria such as family income or the performance of a student’s neighborhood school or district. Read more about the basics and common debates of vouchers.
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How to talk about disability sensitively and avoid ableist tropes: Disability can be difficult to talk about sensitively because of how embedded ableism is in our language, biases and perceptions of disability. Learn more. |
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US Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection (CDRC) - Check out this webinar hosted by National PLACE with the Office for Civil Rights on what’s in the Civil Rights Data Collection and how to access it and use it.
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Discipline & Positive Behavior Supports |
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See You in Court! How to Avoid IDEA Transition–Related Mediations and Due Process Hearings: School compliance with IDEA transition requirements has been an issue of concern to parents, special education attorneys and advocates for a long time. This article reviews literature on legal cases, describes a small-scale study that investigated the most common transition-related issues mediated by special education attorneys in California, and makes recommendations to school districts on how to avoid transition-related legal disputes. Learn more here. |
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Dropout Prevention Month: A Parent’s Playbook for Keeping Kids in School: October is Dropout Prevention Month because it’s about the time in the school year when struggling students find they are too far behind and have little hope of graduating on time with their classmates – so they drop out. Read more here. |
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Early Childhood/Early Intervention |
Responding to your Child’s Bite: Many toddlers and young children bite. Developmentally, most toddlers don't have enough words to express how they are feeling. Biting is one of the ways toddlers express their needs, desires, or feelings. This 4 page handout provides information on why children bite, what to do and what not to do, and when to seek professional help. Available in
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Discrimination Based on Pregnancy and Related Conditions: US Dept of Education’s Office of Civil Rights reminds school communities, including students, faculty, families, and educators, that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects students and employees from discrimination based on pregnancy and related conditions. Find the 3 page fact sheet here. |
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Wake up Everybody: Join show host, Clete Adams and special guests, as they launch their new series. Wake Up Everybody is an unapologetic offering to the community concerned with Equity in Education, Juvenile Delinquency and the Social Emotional needs of the children of color. Listen to the podcast here. |
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Grandparents as Caregivers |
A Grandparents’ Guide to Autism: This guide will provide grandparents with a better understanding of autism and arm them with tools and real life stories to guide them as they support their family immediately after the diagnosis and beyond. It will help grandparents form a positive relationship with their grandchild and provide the encouragement their child needs to raise a child with autism. Read it here. |
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National Genetics Education and Family Support Center: Are you working with families who have children with genetic conditions? Connect them to the National Genetics Education and Family Support Center, a project of Genetic Alliance in collaboration with SPAN, Family Voices, and Parent to Parent USA.
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NYC’s homeless student population increased last school year despite enrollment drop: data
The number of New York City students experiencing homelessness increased last school year even though the Department of Education saw a significant drop in enrollment over the same period, according to data obtained by the Daily News. The data, compiled by Advocates for Children of New York, shows that about 104,000 students across the city’s public school system suffered from homelessness in the last school year (September 2021 through June 2022). That’s a 3.3% uptick as compared to the 2020-2021 school year, when 101,000 students were identified as homeless by the advocacy group. “If these 100,000 children made up their own school district, it would be a district larger than 99.5% of all other districts nationwide,” said Kim Sweet, AFC’s executive director. Read more here.
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Physical Education for Students with Disability: The US Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has issued policy guidance to clarify requirements related to the provision of physical education, including adapted physical education and the least restrictive environment, to children with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Read the Policy Letter here. |
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The Impact of Immigrants on HealthCare in the United States: Immigrants play an outsized role at every level of the United States healthcare system. Immigrants make up 13.6% of the U.S. population, but 28% of the country’s 958,000 physicians and surgeons, and 37.9% of the 492,000 home health aides. The latter group is especially key for meeting the needs of the United States’ rapidly aging population. Geriatric care is one of many areas where the U.S. healthcare system is facing worker shortages. Immigrant workers are especially likely to serve where the need is greatest, filling a disproportionate number of jobs where shortages are especially acute. Read more here.
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A Summary of the Evidence on Inclusive Education: There is clear and consistent evidence that inclusive education can confer substantial short- and long-term benefits for students with and without disabilities. A large body of research indicates that included students develop stronger skills in reading and math, have higher rates of attendance, are less likely to have behavioral problems, and are more likely to complete secondary school than students who have not been included. This report shares benefits of inclusion, consideration in implementing inclusive education and much more.
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Juvenile Delinquency/Juvenile Justice |
Young People Need a ‘Truly Just’ Juvenile Justice System: OJJDP Chief: The federal government will accelerate a shift in focus from punishment to community-based programs aimed at helping young people “make good choices for the future,” says Liz Ryan, the new administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). “Our children deserve better,” Ryan told a webinar Wednesday. “[They] need a juvenile justice system that is truly just. Read the full article here. |
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What You Can Do to Support the Mental Health of LGBTQIA+ Loved Ones: Being an ally goes further than the acceptance of different sexual identities. Members of the LGBTQIA+ communities are at higher risk of mental health conditions and need support from families, friends, and allies. Read more on what you can do to support the LGBTQIA+ community here. |
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Beyond the Classroom: How Mental Health First Aid Helps Your Professional Development: MHFA is more than vital awareness and education training. Learning how to recognize and respond to signs and symptoms that may indicate a mental health or substance use challenge in a colleague or friend will make you a more valuable asset to your organization and your community. Learn more here.
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Military Families & Youth |
DoD Schools Ranked Best in the United States on Nation's Report Card: Fourth and eighth-grade students attending Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools led the nation in scoring on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading and Mathematics Assessments. DoDEA students' average scale scores ranged from 15 to 23 points higher than all corresponding national average scores and held steady or increased while all national average scores decreased. DoDEA was the only state/jurisdiction to see a score increase for any grade/subject on the first NAEP administered since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Learn more here. |
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Mental Health within Native Communities: A Story of Resilience, Recovery, and Employment: Launching on November 1, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. ET, the first of a four-part dialogue will focus on employment opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Native individuals with mental health conditions. This virtual dialogue offers perspectives from Native people who have navigated mental health conditions and/or substance use disorder while also seeking employment. Click here to learn more.
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Parent/Family Engagement (and Youth!) |
How the Revised CAEP Standards Affirm the Affirm the Importance of Educator Preparation for Family Engagement: Read this blog by the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement on this important topic and the revised Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation.
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Debunking the “Pull Yourselves Up by Your Bootstraps” Myth: Read this piece from The Good Men Project website on how victim-blaming myths about the poor are so deeply embedded into our cultural consciousness and the truths that debunk this mythology.
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Remote Learning/School Reopening |
Math and Reading Scores Plummet on National Test, Erasing 20 years of Progress: In a grim sign of the pandemic’s impact, math and reading scores for 9-year-olds across the U.S. plummeted between 2020 and 2022. The declines erase decades of academic progress. In two years, reading scores on a key national test dropped more sharply than they have in over 30 years, and math scores fell for the first time since the test began in the early 1970s. Read the details here. |
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Not all schools use restraint or seclusion practices on students. Here’s a look at some alternatives: Backed by research, alternative approaches show controversial practices may not be necessary at all. Each year, tens of thousands of American students in K-12 schools are restrained — physically held or bound with mechanical devices such as straps — or secluded — isolated anywhere from a closet to a specially designed room. These interventions – which are performed by a variety of school employees, including teachers, aides, administrators and other staff – lead to hundreds of serious injuries annually and in rare cases have resulted in death. While some teachers and administrators consider these interventions necessary to keep students safe, critics argue that they risk physically harming and even traumatizing students, while failing to address the problems underlying their behavior. Students with disabilities account for the vast majority of restraint and seclusion incidents nationwide, and Black students are also far overrepresented in the totals. Some states severely restrict, if not altogether ban, the practices, while the federal Department of Education has for years advised that the techniques should be “avoided to the greatest extent possible.” Read the full article here. |
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Social-Emotional Learning |
Schools are Adding Counselors. But Can They Make the Gains Permanent?: For years now, there’s been a growing push to provide more and better counseling services to students at all levels of the public school system. But in the last two-and-a-half years, especially, the need for counseling professionals has been recognized like never before. Find more information here. |
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iOS v. Android: Mobile Accessibility Features: Android and iOS have helped revolutionize the world of mobile communication technology. In 2019, it is estimated that 2.7 billion people owned a smartphone. Of those 2.7 billion users, approximately 15% are estimated to live with at least one disability. Since handheld devices and mobile operating systems have begun to replace traditional desktop computers, providers are working continuously to improve the accessibility of their products for users with disabilities. Here we list some of the most user-friendly accessibility features of both these systems and how they are helping people who need to use assistive technologies access the web. Read more here.
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Transition to Adult Life/Youth |
11 Disability podcasts that give advice, support and humor: Podcasts are a great media source for information, education, laughter, escapism and relaxation. You can listen to them anywhere – at home, in the office, in the car, on public transport and even on holiday. Plus, you can easily access them on any device at no cost. Check it out here.
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People are Developing Trauma-Like Symptoms as the Pandemic Wears On: Read this piece from NPR.
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ABOUT THE REGION A PARENT TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE CENTER
The Navigating Excellence-Parent Assistance and Collaboration Team (NE-PACT), the Region A Technical Assistance Center, provides technical assistance to federally-funded parent centers -- Parent Training and Information Centers (PTIs) and Community Parent Resource Centers (CPRCs) - NEPACT Logolocated in the states of CT-AFCAMP, CT-CPAC, DC-AJE, DE-PIC, MD-PPMD, ME-MPF, MA-FCSN, NH-PIC, NJ-SPAN, NJ-ASCF, NY-AFC, NY-CIDA, NY-LIAC, NY-UWS, NY-Starbridge, NY-INCLUDEnyc, NY-Sinergia, NY-PNWNY, PA-HUNE, PA- ME, PA-PEAL, PR-APNI, RI-RIPIN, VI-DRVI and VT-VFN. These Parent Centers are independent non-profit organizations. We also provide support to emerging parent centers and parent organizations serving families of children with or at risk of being identified as having disabilities. In addition, we work with early intervention and education agencies (local, state and federal level) seeking information regarding best practices in involving parents of children with disabilities in systems improvement.
The center activities are specifically designed to:
- Enhance the capacity of parent centers to provide effective services to families of children with special needs and to work effectively with their states to improve special education and early intervention systems; and,
- Facilitate their connections to the larger technical assistance network that supports research-based training, including educating parents about effective practices that improve results for children with disabilities. For more information click here.
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