Enlisting and Providing Support Blog 4

Blog 4

·        Questions I have for my colleagues to provide help and support for my presentation Advocacy Action Plan.

1.     I have printed invitation for the parent meeting on flyers and each one of the teachers has the information post on their classroom door. We have change the time to 2:00 for the parent meeting. Our children have to be picked up by 2:30 so this will encourage parents to come early and attend the meeting. We are going to verbally remind the parents of the meeting that morning. I would welcome any other ideas from my colleagues. I am going to offer refreshments. I have invited my supervisor and teachers to attend the parent meeting.

·        Resources and information I am seeking

1.     I am seeking information that will support parents and children with special needs. They are plenty of information from different organization but some of them want you to pay for the information or donate money to their organization. The families that I work with are low income of 5000-21000 a year. These children have no private insurance and are on Medicaid.

 

·        Resources and/or information you have found helpful and insightful

1.     One of my colleagues suggested giving a door prize to the teacher and assistance that had the most parents to attend the parent meeting. One of her ideas was to have a preplanned meeting for each month around the same time. This way parents can plan for this meeting in advance.

2.     I have asked parents questions about the services their child received and information they would like to know. This information has encouraged me to focus on the parents support and child’s service providers.

3.     I have shared this information with teachers and special needs providers. They have given me ideas to research on web sites.

4.     Good luck to my colleagues on their presentation and Advocacy Planning.  

My Personal Advocacy Journey Blog 3

My Personal Advocacy Journey for Blog 3 to provide suggested support group information to parents

My inspiration for my advocacy plan came from parents that had many question about where other families get services for their child that was diagnosed with delays. I suggested they talk to their child’s pediatrician for advice and referrals. Parents would ask me about other families who had special needs children. These parents seemed frustrated and overwhelmed with questions that I could not provide the answer.  Due to the confidential records I could not give them information they were asking. I can give them a suggested list of providers and support groups in our area. I am excited to plan a parent meeting and to give them my paper. I will offer parents and guest refreshments as they talk about the concerns they have with their child and I can share information on my paper. 

My challenges are to encourage parents to attend the meeting and to share my information with the whole group. Many of our parents work or they are not interested in staying for the meeting to be involved.

I might be able to overcome my challenge for parent’s attendance at the meeting by having the meeting at 8:30 in the morning after drop off time or at 2:00 in the evening before pick up time. In the past we have planed our meetings at 9:00 in the morning but Head Start moved our time for children to be here by 8:30 instead of 9:00. These strategies will improve my Advocacy Plan and the attendance for my parents at the meeting.

The anxieties I will face is speaking to parents, special needs guest, family advocate, and my supervisor in a parent meeting. I can hold a conversation with each one but to share my information for 10-20 minutes in a group for that length of time will be a challenge.

All of my colleagues have great advocacy plans and we have the strength through our past classes to build a terrific Advocacy Plan. I ask my colleagues to share with me what they would put in a paper and post it on their parent board about suggested service providers and support groups in their area.