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Navigating Excellence - Parent Center Assistance & Collaboration Team
Region A E-News |
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Inspirational Quote
"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness."
~ Maya Angelou
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Message from Diana & Michele
 As we turn the page to a New Year in a world that sometimes seems to be mean and short of kindness, we want to recognize all that you have done to continue to support families even in these most challenging times. As we move forward, continue to be who you are, say what you mean and do what needs to be done. As always, NE-PACT is here to assist you. Wishing you all peace and good health in the coming New Year.
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Featuring...
Sinergia: On Tuesday, December 22, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m, Sinergia will be hosting an "Integrated Transition Program" that will focus on development of independent life skills, including self-advocacy, independent living, communication skills, and strategies for developing positive relationships. Sessions include a variety of community based outings, during which participants will put a previously learned skill into action. Parents will participate in a simultaneous support group, as well as a weekly session debrief, in which the participants will engage parents in the skill learned that day. Read more.
PPMD: The Maryland Department of Health came out with this resource guide for students and young adults. Use this guide to learn about coping during the 2020/21 school year. Read more.
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Upcoming Events/Dates to Remember
Region A Drop-In Call: The next Region A Drop-In Call will take place on Tuesday, January 5, 10:00am - 12:00pm. Our regular calls take place on the first Tuesday of every month. Check your calendar invite for additional details. Join the call. Please let us know no later than Friday, January 1, if you have any agenda items.
REAL Transition Partners Webinar on Turn-Keying Social Media: On Wednesday, January 13, at 1:00pm REAL will be hosting a webinar on turn-keying the REAL Transition social media. Join the webinar.
COVID-19 Drop-In Calls: The next call will be on Tuesday, January 19, 10:00am - 12:00pm. On these calls we will discuss what is happening in your state/territory/community, address any new developments, and identify any help you need that we can provide. Check your calendar invite for additional details. Join the call.
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Non-Profit Management Resources
A Guide to Effective Team Management for Nonprofits: Nonprofits are all about people coming together to do more than they could do alone so learning to work effectively in teams is a must. But why is it so hard much of the time? There are a lot of reasons teamwork can be challenging, but one of the biggest is making the wrong fundamental assumption: that teamwork "just happens," and doesn't require any special planning or skills. This article with accompanying resources from Personify Wild Apricot provides great information on effective team management for nonprofits.
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Family-Centered Services Resources
 Enhance Parents' Advocacy and Leadership Skills: Head Start is a strong national model of family advocacy and leadership. Parents and families promote their children's education and development. They hold key roles in Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Programs have always engaged families as advocates and leaders in their program activities, particularly through parent and policy committees and Policy Councils. Parents participate in decision-making, policy development, and activity organization in communities and states to improve children's safety, health, development, and learning experiences. Explore this series to learn more about the family engagement outcome. Review the tip sheets with parents to help them enhance their advocacy and leadership skills at home, in programs, and their community. This site contains a guide to enhance parents' advocacy and leadership skills; a series of tip sheets for families on leadership topics such as Everyday Leadership Skills, You Are a Leader, and Making Time for Leadership; a webinar series on engaging parents as advocates and leaders; and other resources. Check it out.
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Youth-Centered Services Resources
Building the Core Skills Youth Need for Life-A Guide for Education and Social Service Practitioners: All youth need to develop a set of core life skills to manage school, work, outside interests, and social relationships successfully. From the perspective of brain development, these skills include planning, focus, self-control, awareness, and flexibility-also known as "executive function" and "self-regulation" skills. No one is born with these skills, but everyone can learn them through practice. Check out this brief (4 page) guide from the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child.
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Staff Development Resources
Staff Development on Trauma: The contents of this page will help Parent Centers, families, and others build their knowledge base and understanding of what trauma is, what kinds of trauma there are, and how it affects children in particular. There's a section of Spanish language (and other language) materials on trauma, too. Read more.
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Absenteeism
A Novel Approach Improves Attendance in Urban Schools: Hedy Chang, Attendance Works executive director, recently interviewed Heiber, Concentric executive director, and Michael Gary Jr., Concentric chief operations officer. Concentric develops and supports school infrastructure to improve school climate as well as student attendance and academic achievement. Read the interview. |
Bi-lingual/LEP
The Challenges of Educating Students with Disabilities and English Learners During COVID-19: The closure of school buildings and the sudden shift to virtual learning last spring due to the coronavirus pandemic created many challenges for school districts in how they serve all students, including those with disabilities and those who are English learners. New results from an AIR survey examine how school districts responded to COVID-19 and the differences in that response based on certain community characteristics, such as income, size and community setting. Learn more. |
Bullying
The Relationship Between Bullying and Suicide: The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Prevention Control and Prevention issued this report on what we know about the intersection of bullying and suicide. Read the report. |
Child Welfare
Feds Reach Landmark Agreement on Rights of Parents with Disabilities, Michelle Diament, December 1, 2020. In a first-of-its-kind settlement, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services say that a state has agreed to change its ways after repeatedly discriminating against parents with disabilities. Read more. |
Choice/Charter Schools/Voucher Programs
Do School Vouchers Work? As the Debate Heats Up, Here's What Research Really Says: The heated national debate about whether families should get public money to send their kids to private schools is full of big questions. Do vouchers raise test scores or lower them? Do they help or hurt students over the long term? Do they damage public schools or push them to improve? Chalkbeat combed through some of the most rigorous academic studies to get the answers. Read them here.
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Cultural Competence
Building Culturally Competent Organizations: Section 7 of Chapter 27 of the Community Toolbox is all about combating racism and other "isms" and enhancing cultural competence. Section 7 of this chapter focuses on building culturally competent organizations, with an informational overview, checklist, tools and powerpoint.
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Data
50 Different Data Sets to Find Information You Need: Data is critical in our work. But gathering interesting data sometimes makes us want to pull our hair out! Piktochart scoured the internet and found 500 of the most interesting datasets; this article highlights 50 to start you off. |
Discipline & Positive Behavior Supports
Six Core Strategies to Reduce Seclusion and Restraint Use: Read this guide from the National Association of State Mental Health Directors.
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Dispute Resolution
Dispute Resolution in Early Intervention: While there are few formal disputes in early intervention, IDEA contains requirements that each state and territory have mechanisms to resolve disputes. Find out more.
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Dropout Prevention
School Disruption as a Dropout Risk Factor: Dr. Sandy Addis, Director of National Dropout Prevention Center, discusses the short and long-term effects of school disruption on the nation's dropout rates. View the video. |
Early Childhood/Early Intervention
COVID-19 Resources for Children from Birth to Age 5: The ED-funded Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Center developed a COVID-19 website with resources for states and local programs serving young children with disabilities and their families. One of its newest interactive infographics is COVID-19 Family Resources to help families navigate the ECTA website for COVID-19 tools and information to support their children's learning and development. This resource was developed by ECTA and the Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSy), with extensive contributions from parent training and resource centers across the country.
 Strategies for Supporting Young Students' Home-Language Development During COVID-19-and Beyond: An abundance of research shows that early, rich linguistic experiences are crucial to later academic success for all children-whether they grow up using only one language or several. With COVID-19 still affecting in-person education across the country, early childhood educators have had to find new ways to give students, especially those who are dual-language learners (DLLs), these experiences. Despite the disruptions COVID-19 has caused to in-person education, the pandemic may present an unexpected opportunity. Read more. |
English Language Learners
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Equity
Equity in the Education Workforce: Some estimate that prior to the Brown decision, Black teachers made up between 35 to 50 percent of the teaching force in the 17 southern states that mandated segregation. When schools in these states began to desegregate after the Brown decision and subsequent legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act, the onus was on Black students to attend predominantly white schools. This led to school closures in Black communities and inevitably to Black teachers being pushed out of classrooms. As a result, between 1954 and 1965, 38,000 teachers and administrators educating 2 million Black students lost their jobs. Over a half-century after Brown, the makeup of the educator workforce looks little like today's increasingly diverse student body. In the 2017-18 school year, teachers in the United States were 79% white, 7% Black, 9% Latinx, and 2% Asian. That same school year, principals were 78% white, 11% Black, 9% Latinx, and 1% Asian. Read more. |
Foster Care
Preventing, Identifying, and Treating Substance Use Among Youth in Foster Care: Check it out.
College Scholarships and Support for Higher Education: Access to higher education has become increasingly essential to obtain economic independence and success in today's world. The following resources provide information about accessing higher-education opportunities and financial scholarships for youth in or aging out of the foster care system.
Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs in Foster Care Brief: Child Trends examines the prevalence of children and youth with special health care needs in the foster care system. CYSHCN comprise about 24 percent of the foster care population. The brief provides an overview of the literature on CYSHCN and their experiences in foster care, an explanation of the study findings, and a brief discussion of practice and policy implications. Read the brief.
Kids, Families and COVID-19: Pandemic Pain Points and the Urgent Need to Respond: This KIDS COUNT policy report examines how households with children are faring during the pandemic. Its findings are primarily based on surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Read more. |
Health
Information for School Nurses and Other Healthcare Personnel Working in Schools and Child Care Settings: School nurses and other healthcare personnel (HCP) play an important role in opening schools and child care programs for in-person learning and other in-person activities and keeping them open during the COVID-19 pandemic. School nurses and other HCP will likely be evaluating children for symptoms or exposures, assisting administrators and teachers in implementing mitigation strategies, assisting with contact tracing, maintaining school-based clinics, assisting in school-based testing strategies, and supporting students, families, and staff. The information and resources below can help in performing these new roles and responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Resources for self-care are also included. Check out the site. |
Homelessness
Homeless Youth Awareness: One of every 30 children in the United States experience homelessness. Along with losing their homes, communities, friends, routines, and their sense of stability and safety, many homeless youth are victims of trauma. In November, in support of National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network provided resources to help communities, families, educators, and professionals better understand and assist homeless youth. |
IDEA/Special Education
PBIS.org/Resource: An Overview of Endrew F.: Implications for Student Behavior: This brief highlights some implications of Endrew F. Supreme Court ruling for IEP teams, including the importance of the input of parents in designing appropriate educational support plans for students with disabilities. |
Immigrant Issues
The Coronavirus Is Killing Westerners. Immigrants Are Saving Them: Foreign-born doctors and entrepreneurs are at the forefront of fighting the pandemic and resuscitating economics, but nativist politicians still want to keep them out. Read more. |
Juvenile Delinquency/Juvenile Justice
Promise of a new administration-Juvenile Justice Reform: Check out this article on the potential for juvenile justice reform under the new administration.
Zoom classes, truancy and juvenile justice: Is now the time to reform truancy rules? Some experts say yes. Read more. |
LGBTQ
The HRC Blueprint for LGBTQ Equality Under Biden: The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has released its Blueprint for Positive Change 2020, an important brief that includes 85 individual policy recommendations, reaching across the federal government, aimed at bettering the daily lives of LGBTQ people at home and abroad. Building on their expertise in administrative policy-making, the Human Rights Campaign's Legal and Government Affairs team evaluated existing and potential rules and regulations for possible improvement, reversal or implementation by a pro-equality President. Read more. |
Mental Health
How to Recognize if Your Colleague is Struggling: Recognizing when a colleague or employee is struggling can be vital to making sure they get the support they need in a timely manner. It's also great for productivity - employees who feel respected and supported are more likely to thrive in their roles. Read more.
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Military Families & Youth
Pilot Program of Attorneys in Special Education: The US Navy has instituted a pilot program with special education attorneys for EFMP families. Read more.
Struggling Military Families: The pandemic has left more military and veteran's families seeking emergency food assistance. Check it out.
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Native American
NAYA (Native American Youth and Family Center): On Tuesdays from 5:30 - 7:30pm, NAYA hosts an Early Childhood Program and Future Generations Collaborative host weekly roundtable discussions to provide support and perspective as we navigate parenting through a pandemic. All are welcome! Read more.
National Conference of American Indians (NCAI): We, the National Congress of American Indian Youth, unite to serve our peoples concerns and interests by enhancing the spiritual, mental, physical and emotional well-being of tribal youth for a better Native America. Apply today to join the Youth Commission for the 2020-2022 term. Read more.
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| Parent/Family Engagement (and Youth!)
Family Engagement in the Juvenile Justice System: Parental and family engagement by the juvenile justice system is proven to be effective for better youth outcomes. A National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report cited evidence that a relationship with a parent or other adult figure can have a positive impact on an adolescent, serving as a protective buffer against external negative influences. Other research has shown that family visitation for youth is associated with better behavior and improved academic performance (Villalobos Agudelo, 2013). And it is clear that most families want to play a bigger role: in a survey of family members, 86 percent said they wanted to be more involved in their children's treatment while they were incarcerated (Justice for Families, 2012). Check out a summary of this information.
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| Poverty
World Poverty Clock: Check out this running world poverty clock where you can see data on people escaping from or falling into poverty around the world, by urban and rural, female vs. male, all ages, as well as the number of people living in extreme poverty. You can also request data from the World Data Lab.
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| Remote Learning/School Reopening
PBIS.org/Resource: Supporting Students with Disabilities at School and Home: A Guide for Teachers to Support Families and Students: This guide highlights 5 key practices for teachers and families to support all students, including students with disabilities, at school and home. For each practice, the guide provides (a) tips for teachers to support students with disabilities during instruction; (b) tips for families that educators can share to support or enhance learning at home, especially during periods of remote instruction; and (c) free-access resources that include strategies shown to be effective by research (e.g., informational guides, downloadable materials, research-based programs).
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| Restraints/Aversives
Abuse and Trauma of Students in Schools: COPAA has released a report addressing the abuse and trauma of students in school. Read it here.
Schools Fail to Curtail Restraint, Seclusion of Students with Disabilities: Read this Disability Scoop article.
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Social-Emotional Learning
PBIS.org/Resource: Family Plan for Positive Behavior at Home: Families can use this resource to make a family schedule, choose family expectations, and make a plan to teach, remind, reward, and respond to behavior at home. Check it out. |
Technology
What Technology Lessons Will Nonprofits "Carry Out" From The Pandemic?: Nonprofits and individuals have adopted technology to communicate, deliver programming, and maintain operations like never before. Learn more.
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Transition to Adult Life/Youth
Engaging Transition-Age Students: With many schools closed, you may find it challenging to find activities to engage with your students. Although NCCEP's Career & College Clubs was designed to be a peer-to-peer program, we have modified some activities for students to complete on an individual basis. We are providing these activities to the community, for free, and we encourage you to use these activities with your students so they can continue with their college and career learning. Check it out.
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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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