Special Needs Advocacy Resource

Special Needs Advocacy Resource Book: What You Can Do Now to Advocate for Your Exceptional Child's Education is a unique handbook that teaches parents how to work with schools to achieve optimal learning situations and accommodations for their child's needs. From IEPs and 504 Plans, to IDEA and NCLB, navigating today's school system can be difficult for even the most up-to-date, education-savvy parent. Special needs advocates Rich Weinfeld and Michelle Davis provide parents and professional advocates with concise, easy-to-understand definitions and descriptions of legal terms and school regulations, along with checklists, tips, questionnaires, and other tools. Topics covered in this handy guide include gathering accurate information about a child's education, navigating school meetings, understanding education law, and best practices in the classroom, working effectively with parents and school systems, discovering educational options beyond the standard, and much more. Parents and advocates not only will feel informed by Weinfeld and Davis' vast knowledge of the inner workings of the school system—they'll be empowered to help their kids succeed in school. Educational Resource

School Success for Kids With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders gives parents and teachers of students with Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, mood disorders, or other emotional and behavioral disorders the strategies they need to help these kids overcome their struggles and find success in school. Based on the experiences of psychologists and educators working with kids with these disorders, this book provides help for children needing to control their emotional outbursts and strategies to teach kids to monitor, review, and change their behaviors. The chapters cover topics such as managing the classroom, dealing with struggles with homework, choosing from options such as time out or restraint to control behavior, helping kids develop self-advocacy strategies and independence, and planning services and accommodations for these disorders. The book also includes multiple tools for parents and teachers to reproduce and use immediately to help their students with emotional and behavioral problems overcome their challenges.

Offers advice to parents on how to obtain the best education for children with special needs, providing information about legal issues, the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process, child evaluation, educational options, and other topics.

Aimed at parents of and advocates for special needs children, explains how to develop a relationship with a school, monitor a child's progress, understand relevant legislation, and document correspondence and conversations.

Parents of children with disabilities often situate their activism as a means of improving the world for their child. However, some disabled activists perceive parental activism as working against the independence and dignity of people with disabilities. This thorny relationship is at the heart of the groundbreaking Allies and Obstacles. The authors chronicle parents’ path-breaking advocacy in arenas such as the right to education and to liberty via deinstitutionalization as well as how they engaged in legal and political advocacy. Allies and Obstacles provides a macro analysis of parent activism using a social movement perspective to reveal and analyze the complex—and often tense—relationship of parents to disability rights organizations and activism. The authors look at organizational and individual narratives using four case studies that focus on intellectual disability, psychiatric diagnoses, autism, and a broad range of physical disabilities including cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. These cases explore the specific ways in which activism developed among parents and people with disabilities, as well as the points of alliance and the key points of contestation. Ultimately, Allies and Obstacles develops new insights into disability activism, policy, and the family.

Offers advice to parents on how to obtain the best education for children with special needs, providing information about legal issues, the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process, child evaluation, educational options, and other topics.

This book gives strategies for advocating for better provision of special education in schools. Cohen's insightful manual gives a practical vision of how a parent or a professional can become an advocate to achieve a more inclusive and rewarding education for the child with a disability.