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Navigating Excellence - Parent Center Assistance & Collaboration Team
Region A E-News
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Inspirational Quote
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." - Harriet Tubman
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Message from Carolyn & Diana
Each of us at Parent Centers have great dreams - including supporting children, youth and families to achieve
their
dreams! NE-PACT is here to help you uncover and enhance the strength, the patience, and the passion you already have within yourself and your staff so that you can reach for the stars and change the world! Don't hesitate to contact us at any time. (Emails are best). It was great to see those of you who attended the Military and Native American convenings earlier this month, and we look forward to seeing those of you who are coming to OSEP Leadership in July!
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Reminder about the NE-PACT/Region A Parent Center Workspace!
You've been invited to join NE-PACT: A group for Region A Parent Centers.
Check your email for this invitation to our
universal location to house all of our resource collections, materials, documents, and files, including the Transition Resource Repository, Trauma Toolkit, Drop-in call notes, webinar announcements and recordings, peer to peer and CQI applications, TA resources, and much more! Reach out to Rosslin Mensah-Boateng at
[email protected]
if you can't find your invitation or need other assistance accessing the new Region A parent center workspace.
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New Region A Drop in Call Login!
For our next and future Region A Drop in Calls we will be using the
Go to Meeting
platform which takes place every first Tuesday of the month from 10am - 12pm ET. This will allow a seamless transition to our TA presentations beginning at 11:30am. We will no longer use the conference line. Our next call will be on Tuesday, July 2nd at 10am. To join the call using your phone dial: (646)749-3122 Access code: 987-512-493.
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Featuring...
Starbridge: The May 2019 issue of Starbridge's newsletter focuses on executive functions: what they are, how to develop IEP goals to enhance them, tips and strategies to work on executive function, a personal perspective, and information on their upcoming webinar on July 11 at noon.
More information.
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Opportunity to Make an Impact
Proposal to Extend OSEP & RSA Parent Center Funding:
OSERS is proposing to extend funding for the OSEP PTIs whose grants end on 9/30/2019, and for all the RSA Parent Centers and national RSA Parent Center TA Center whose grants also are scheduled to end on 9/30/2019, for one year. The stated purpose is to align and coordinate, and improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and coordination of, training and TA services focused on transition age children and youth with disabilities and their families. For more information, read the Federal Register notice and comment. Comments are due by July 8.
Disproportionality in Special Education: As you have probably heard, a federal court has told the US Department of Education that their attempt to delay the significant disproportionality rule was unlawful and that the regulation must be implemented immediately. US ED has done two things: it has filed a notice of intent to appeal, and it has informed state agencies that they must immediately begin to implement the regulation, leading to a letter from the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) complaining about the challenge to states that this poses. In addition, US ED has requested comments on a proposed Significant Disproportionality State Survey. According to information in the Federal Register, "This new collection will collect detailed information on the State's use of the standard methodology, or another methodology based upon risk ratios and risk ratio thresholds, to identify significant disproportionality in the LEAs of the State. The Department will use this information to support States and LEAs in their efforts to comply with the statutory requirement at section 618(d) of the IDEA. Specifically, the collection will include information about the extent to which each State has implemented the standard methodology, and steps necessary for States to be in compliance with the December 2016 regulation, including anticipated obstacles States will face and the4 extent to which States have considered safeguards to ensure compliance with federal law and the U.S. Constitution. This information will allow the Department to determine the appropriate time and manner for the States to report their standards required under 34 CFR § 300.647(b)(7), and to fulfill its role of monitoring and enforcement for reasonableness under 34 CFR § 300.647(b)(1)(iii)." Comments are due on July 12th. Read more.
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Upcoming Events/Dates to Remember
National Family and Community Engagement Conference: Engaging Families: A Sure Bet, July 10-12, Reno, Nevada:
Find out more and register.
Breaking Down Barriers: Native American Conference on Special Education, September 16-17, Albuquerque: The Education for Parent of Indian Children with Special Needs' Native American Conference on Special Education has reached parents from across Indian Country and Canada for almost 2 decades. The conference is designed to provide resources to families of infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities, developmental delays, and special healthcare needs. Parents are taught skills and provided with information that will aid them in advocating on their child's behalf, thus creating opportunities that will positively impact systems, policy, and delivery of services that promote equity and quality service. Tribal leaders and special education professionals will learn from their peers, constituents, students, parents, and other advocates in promoting equal education opportunities for students with special needs.
Find out more.
National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health 30th Anniversary Conference, November 14-16, Phoenix, Arizona: A full day Serving on Groups Train-the-Trainer and half day Leading by Convening workshop will be featured at this conference, along with an array of other useful workshops.
Find out more and register.
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Non-Profit Management Resources
Model Guidelines for Non Profits Considering Partnerships:
A nonprofit's reputation for integrity, credibility, social responsibility and accountability is its greatest asset. As relationships between governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations and for-profit organizations grow in number and complexity, it is important for non-profit organizations to have clear policies and procedures in place to ensure that the relationships and agreements they enter into and contributions they accept are ethical, promote the mission of the organization, do not involve conflicts of interest, and do not promote activities, organizations or interests that conflict with the organization's goals. These guidelines are intended to address the most common practical and ethical concerns raised by relationships with and contributions from other organizations. By adapting these guidelines to their own situation, nonprofit organizations can minimize the risk that they will inadvertently enter into relationships that could be publicly embarrassing, internally divisive and counterproductive to organizational goals.
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Family-Centered and Youth-Centered Services Resources
Working with Arab-American Families of Children with Disabilities: Individuals of Arab descent residing within the United States currently number between 1.2 million and 3.9 million. These families are characterized by considerable diversity depending upon their nationality, religion, and extent of acculturation to both Western and Arab cultures. More recently, Arab families have immigrated to the United States in response to traumatic events, such as war, a situation that has complicated their subsequent adjustment and acculturation to life in the United States. The growth in the Arab American population suggests that school psychologists are increasingly likely to work with their children and families. However, despite the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP; 2000) and American Psychological Association (APA; 2002) ethical guidelines requiring culturally competent practice, little has been written to guide the school psychologist's work with this population. This
article draws on the available literature on Arab cultural values and acculturation to enhance culturally sensitive school psychology practice at the individual and systems levels. While the article is focused on School Psychologists, it contains information relevant for parent centers.
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Staff Development Resources
Best Practices for Non Profit Staff Development: Many small non-profits struggle to provide staff development due to time and budget constraints. This article provides an introduction to inexpensive and effective staff development solutions.
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Bilingual/LEP
Resources for Teachers of English Language Learners: English Language Learners (ELLs) continue to be a growing population in U.S. schools. In fact, nearly five million students, or one out of every ten students, in public schools is an English Language Learner. How can all teachers differentiate for ELLs in their classrooms? By getting to know more about ELLs' backgrounds, teachers can ensure that curriculum is relevant and meaningful for students. And through specific strategies to teach academic language, teachers can create language-rich experiences that allow for ELLs - and all students - to read, write, listen, and speak in any content area. Find a wide array of resources here.
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Child Welfare/Child Abuse and Neglect
How Well is the Child Welfare System Serving Youth with Behavioral Challenges: Child welfare systems were designed with a focus on ensuring the safety and stability of abused and neglected children. Today, though, these systems also serve as an alternative to secure confinement for juvenile offenders, who generally require behavioral health and rehabilitation services. The researchers view this as a potential mismatch between individual youth needs and professional capacity, and in this study they looked at the effects of the mismatch. They found that youths with behavioral problems experience more changes in placement and are placed in more restrictive settings, such as group homes and residential centers, rather than with foster families. They also found that youths placed entirely or in part because of behavior problems are at greater risk of subsequent arrest when compared with youths placed only for abuse or neglect. Since child welfare is often the only resource available to vulnerable families struggling with behavioral issues, they suggest improving the collaboration between child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Read the Knowledge Brief.
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Data
National Scan of Early Childhood Metrics:
In the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in early childhood health and development and its impact on long-term health outcomes. This interest has sparked the birth of new frameworks, programs, and policies that support the health and well-being of young children and families. While the influx of early childhood investment is overwhelmingly positive, programs and systems are limited by a lack of common early childhood measures-metrics to understand and assess children's well-being and observe changes over time. To help lay the groundwork for a common set of early childhood measures, NICHQ and the Center for the Study of Social Policy conducted a national scan of metrics used by early childhood systems and initiatives: Metrics for Early Childhood Systems: A National Scan. The report, available to all early childhood stakeholders to better understand the state of current metrics and advance measurement and data use to improve early childhood outcomes, provides:
- Ten high-level observations and recommendations about the state of data in the early childhood field, and recommended actions to advance it
- A summary of all measures divided into six domains, depending on the aspect of development they address: overall assessment, health, learning, social and emotional development, family context, and community context
- An overview of the metrics scan methodology
- A detailed list of all measures reviewed
Understanding Data:
Check out this interesting You tube video on understanding data.
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Discipline
Corporal Punishment: SPLC Report Highlights Disproportionate Use of Corporal Punishment on Students of Color and Students with Disabilities:
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has released a report on the continued use of corporal punishment in public schools. The report found that over half of schools that still use corporal punishment use it disproportionately on students with disabilities. Furthermore, the report found that black boys were almost twice as likely as white boys to be subject to corporal punishment and black girls were nearly three times as likely as white girls. Recommendations include banning corporal punishment in public schools and replacing it with evidence-based practices such as positive behavioral supports. Read the sad story
The Harsh Discipline of No-Excuses Charter Schools: Is it Worth the Promise?: In a recent study,
"To Be Strict on Your Own': Black and Latinx Parents Evaluate Discipline in Urban Choice Schools," many interviewed parents questioned whether a system of harsh discipline was worth the promise of academic achievement.
Read the article in Education Week, and the
study.
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Early Childhood/Early Intervention
Prenatal Risk Predicts Executive Function: In an article released in Child Development, researchers tested direct, mediated, and moderated associations between prenatal risk factors and preschool Executive Function (EF) and IQ in a longitudinal sample of 1,292 children from the Family Life Project. Researchers found that "a composite of prenatal risk factors (i.e., low birth weight, prematurity, maternal emotional problems, maternal prepregnancy obesity, and obstetric complications) significantly predicted EF and IQ at age 3, above quality of the postnatal environment." The researchers also report that this relationship was indirect and mediated through infant general cognitive abilities. They further found that the quality of the postnatal home and child-care environments did not moderate the cascade model. Researchers suggest that their findings highlight the role of prenatal experience as a contributor to individual differences in cognitive development. Read more.
Promoting Success for Young English Language Learners: CEELO and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) published the "Practical Guide for State Education Agencies to Promote Success of English Learners PreK-Grade 3." This guide aims to support state education agencies and early education partners develop coherent, research-based policy by guiding thinking, discussion, data collection, and gap analyses of current practices and policies that can lead to more intentional decision making relative to young dual language learners (DLL) and English learners (EL). Read this practical guide.
Research on Head Start: This month, the Head Start community is celebrating Head Start's 54th birthday and Early Head Start's 25th anniversary. Over 54 years, Head Start has had far-reaching impacts on school readiness, academic achievement, health, family stability, and long-term success for more than 36 million children. To celebrate, the National Head Start Association has published a new research compendium that compiles summaries of several key recent studies that represent the best knowledge to date about Head Start's effectiveness.
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Education Reform/Every Student Succeeds Act/School Improvement
 ESSA and Early Learning: A Look at State and District Implementation: With the passage of ESSA in 2015 came new opportunities for states and school districts to expand early learning access, birth through third grade. Two summers ago, CEELO and New America partnered on the original blog series highlighting how states could incorporate early learning into their ESSA plans and discussing examples from some state plans at the time. From family engagement to teacher and principal professional development to accountability systems, some state leaders included strategies in their state plans taking advantage of the new flexibility afforded and the expanded inclusion of early learning under ESSA. These plans are of course important as they help establish educational priorities for the state. Implementation, though, is where the rubber meets the road. What programs are states putting into place? What kinds of guidance are states providing to school districts? And, what challenges are state and district leaders running into as they implement? Check it out.
How Well Do State Legislatures Focus on Improving School Efforts to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching & Re engage Disconnected Students? The National Center for Mental Health in Schools and Student Learning Supports has completed their analysis of education legislation enacted by states to identify the extent to which they focus on improving school efforts to address barriers to learning and teaching and to re-engage disconnected students. Read their findings.
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Equity
Child Care and Early Education Equity: A State Action Agenda: Child Care and Early Education Equity: A State Action Agenda outlines the important role state policymakers can play to ensure equity in their states' early education efforts. High-quality child care and early education is critical for child development and family economic security-and it can have a particularly positive impact on the well-being of families with low incomes. CLASP's action agenda describes key state early education programs, significant challenges such as racial disparities and underinvestment, and recommendations for how state leaders can meaningfully improve policies and programs. State leaders have many options and opportunities to significantly improve their child care and early education programs. They should consult a range of experts-including those with lived experience-offer professional development for providers and expand services to underserved populations. Above all, states should meaningfully invest in child care and early education, which is an investment in the present and future well-being of their states.
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IDEA
Using MTSS Data to Improve Graduation Rates: To facilitate problem solving within an MTSS, SEAs and LEAs need efficient systems and processes for analyzing and integrating data across initiatives. Creating the infrastructure to support data-based problem solving can be a challenge. This
spotlight shares how three states use different approaches to promote data use within an MTSS to improve graduation rates for students with disabilities.
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Immigrant
Immigrant Families and Child Welfare Systems Emerging Needs and Promising Policies: Drastic changes in demographics and immigration policy enforcement have important implications for child welfare programs. This report reviews the policies and practices of state and local child welfare systems in 21 jurisdictions (14 states, 6 counties, and NYC) working with immigrant families. The report includes recommendations in nine key issue areas: organizational structure, training on immigrant related issues, language access, licensing, placement of a child with a caregiver outside the US, MOUs with foreign consulates, screening for immigration benefits, confidentiality and information sharing, and policies when parents are in immigrant detention.
Read the report.
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Inclusion
 Guiding Questions to Navigate your Journey to Inclusion: Just like the mariners of old, we know that we must chart our course for increasingly successful inclusive schools and societies. What tools do we need? What questions must we ask and answer? Whether we are ambitiously charting our course for deep space, medical advance, new worlds, or inclusive schools, we recognize that we have work to do, experiences to enjoy, and friendships to build! Many of us recognize that we have more steps to take to reach our goals of a fully inclusive school culture. As you continue your journey, consider these
navigational questions in order to chart an exciting and successful trip. And start getting ready today for the 2019 Inclusive Schools Week, December 2-6, with the theme of Charting the Course for Inclusive Schools.
Learn more.
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Juvenile Delinquency/Juvenile Justice
Removing Youth from Adult Jails: A 50-State Scan of Pretrial Detention Laws for Youth: While proponents of criminal justice reform around the country were celebrating the passage of the First Step Act in December 2018, that was not the only major legislative victory signed into law that month. On the same day the First Step Act was signed into law, the president also signed the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018 ("JJRA"). The JJRA reauthorized the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA)1 for the first time in sixteen years and, in addition to many other important reforms, the law will now require states to remove all youth, including those transferred to the adult system, from adult jails and lock-ups pretrial.
Access the report.
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LGBTQ
Resources for LGBTQ Youth by State: Lambda Legal has developed this list of
resources for LGBTQ youth by state.
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Mental Health
Behind the Asterisk: New Report on Young Adult Mental Health: Nia West-Bey & Marlen Mendoza from CLASP recently released a report titled
Behind the Asterisk: Perspectives on Young Adult Mental Health from "Small and Hard-to-Reach" Communities. Behind the Asterisk describes findings from focus groups in "small and hard-to-reach" white rural; Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI); and, urban Native American communities, along with a diverse group of young adults experiencing homelessness. These communities are often relegated to an "asterisk" in research and excluded from national policy discourse because their numbers are too small to be considered reliable or are hard to reach using typical research methods. This
report, brings these often-overlooked young people whose experiences are largely left out of policy discussions to the forefront.
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Military Families & Youth
 Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP): The Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) is a Department of Defense program that helps military dependents with special needs. EFMP Family Support staff, along with an installation's School Liaison Officer, are your primary points of contact for installation-based trainings, access to families on installations, and insider information about family engagement. This article gives you essential background on EFMP services to help you build relationships with EFMP staff and serve military families effectively.
Read the article.
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Native American Families & Youth
One Parent's Story: Check out this
video with one parent's perspective on Native Education and Disability.
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| Parent/Family Engagement (and Youth!)
Confident Parents, Confident Kids: This blog carries the tagline:
"A site for parents actively supporting kids' social and emotional development." On it you can find lots of practical strategies to use at home, support for school-home communication and partnership, links to research, and many helpful ideas for parenting children ages 4-21. The site is focused on skills promotion and prevention, not on problems.
Check it out.
Parents 2018: Going Beyond Good Grades: Learning Heroes was founded to help parents become their children's best education advocates. Since 2016, they have conducted extensive research to understand how K-8 parents think, feel, prioritize, and talk about their children and their public schools in order to better equip parents with the information they need to help their children succeed. Over three years, one alarming finding has remained constant: Nearly 9 in 10 parents, regardless of race, income, geography, and education levels, believe their child is achieving at or above grade level. Yet national data indicates only about one-third of students actually perform at that level. In 8th grade mathematics, while 44% of white students scored at the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2017, only 20% of Hispanic and 13% of African-American students did so. Last year, they delved into the drivers of this "disconnect." They wanted to understand why parents with children in grades 3-8 hold such a rosy picture of their children's performance and what could be done to move them toward a more complete and accurate view. By having a more informed and holistic picture, parents can find the best resources for their children at home and partner more effectively with teachers to keep their children on track for college and life success. They also can demand more of their schools.
Read the report.
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| Poverty
Economic Instability and Household Chaos Relate to Cortisol for Children in Poverty: A Journal of Family Psychology study examined the relationship between aspects of economic adversity and cortisol levels (an indicator of stress) in young children. They analyzed variables that represented family income, material hardship, financial strain, economic instability, and household chaos. The study examined 374 children, ages 3-5 years old, who attended Head Start preschool in Philadelphia and their primary caregivers. Almost all the children in this study were from families that were living on less than two times the federal poverty threshold. Researchers found "a statistically significant indirect effect of economic adversity on child cortisol via economic instability and household chaos, as well as statistically significant direct effects of economic instability and chaos on child cortisol, and a significant indirect effect of economic instability on cortisol via household chaos."
Find out more.
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Social-Emotional Learning
 Why We Really Need SEL NOW!: We live in a stressful world, and our nation's children and young adults are coping with new and prevalent emotional realities we can't ignore. Research indicates that when educators work to teach learners how to alleviate and manage stress, students become more likely to learn deeply, avoid negative behaviors and achieve successful outcomes with long-term effects. Social-emotional learning (SEL) practices are the focus of copious research studies - and it's a good thing they are because SEL is needed more than ever. So just what is social-emotional learning? And more importantly, why do we need it?
Read on.
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Systems Change and Improvement
Evaluating your State Systemic Improvement Plan Infrastructure Improvements: The What, Why and How: This PowerPoint presentation, delivered by Silvia DeRuvo and Susan Hayes of the National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI), addresses the value of and strategies for evaluating infrastructure improvements. It also provides an opportunity to learn from one state's approach to the evaluation of the State Systemic Improvement Plan's (SSIP) infrastructure improvements.
Access it.
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Transition to Adult Life/Youth
Annotated Resource Scan 8th to 9th Grade Transition Services and Programs: The Graduation and Post School Outcomes Cross State Learning Collaborative selected the transition from 8th to 9th grade as a topic to explore that reduces dropout and promotes graduation.
The Annotated Resource Scan: 8th to 9th Grade Transition Services & Programs provides a foundational tool for this exploration and includes research and resources that promotes the successful transition from middle to high school and supports the critical 9th grade year.
Access it.
Transition Planning: The National TA Center on Transition has a landing page of
resources on transition planning available. It includes Getting Started, Best Practices, and Key Resources.
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Trauma, Toxic Stress, and Resilience
Helping Young Children Exposed to Trauma: A Systems Approach to Implementing Trauma-Informed Care: The Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut (CHDI) has published a new report on child trauma. The report provides a summary of the research on the effects of early trauma exposure, discusses what Connecticut is doing across systems to support young children who have experienced trauma, and outlines a framework to expand Connecticut's robust system of trauma-informed care for older children to include younger children. As always, CHDI's work is adaptable for efforts taking place across the country.
Access the report.
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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) -  located 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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