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Navigating Excellence - Parent Center Assistance & Collaboration Team
Region A E-News
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"You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it's important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages." ~ Michelle Obama
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Message From Diana & Michele |
COVID has continued to push everyone to their limits yet the limit keeps moving forward. We continue to surprise ourselves by showing strength and resilience. The NE-PACT team is in awe of all that you have and continue to accomplish. If we can assist in any way, please let us know. |
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Advocates for Justice and Education (AJE): The Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington has selected Advocates for Justice and Education, Inc. to be part of the Class of 2021-22 “One of the Best Nonprofits”. View the press release here.
REAL Transition Partners: Explore the REAL Transition Partners website for useful links, websites and archived webinars on Disabilities and Sexuality, Health, Supported Decision Making, Train the Trainers, and more. Check it out here.
New Hampshire Parent Information Center (NH PIC): On August 17th, New Hampshire’s Commissioner of Education, Frank Edelblut, joined PIC to talk about some exciting programs the NH Department of Education has launched including Scholarships, Learning Pods, Free Tutoring and more for nearly 100 people. Check out the recording.
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Upcoming Events/Dates to Remember |
Data Collection Drop-In Calls: CPIR will host multiple Data Collection Drop In calls where you can access assistance and ask questions related to both Part 1: Quantitative Data and Part 2: Program Measures Survey of the Data Collection process. The dates to choose from for the calls are: Thursday, September 30th at 2:00 pm, Thursday, October 7th at 2:00 pm, Thursday, October 28th at 2:00 pm, and Thursday, November 4th at 2:00 pm. Follow this link to join any of the Drop-In Calls. You can find information and resources here.
Region A Drop-In Call: The next Region A Drop In Call will take place on Tuesday, October 5th, 10:00 am – 11:00 am, to be followed by a REAL Transition Partners forum at 11 am. Our Drop In calls take place on the first Tuesday of every month. Check your calendar invite or email Michele Tyler for additional details. Please let us know no later than Friday, October 1st, if you have any agenda items. Here is the link to join the call.
REAL Day: Tuesday, Oct. 5, 11:00 - 12:30 - Vocational Rehabilitation and the Individualized Plan for Employment. Registration is not required. Join here.
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Non-Profit Management Resources |
Non-Profit Trends 2021 Technology: Today’s nonprofits and community organizations rely on technology to get more done. The right technology helps non-profits to deliver essential services more effectively. It is also changing the way people support community causes. And 2021 is seeing apps and services that increase flexibility and accessibility for volunteers and donors. Read more.
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Family-Centered Services Resources |
Family-Centered Approach to Working with Families: The Child Welfare Information Gateway landing page on family-centered approaches to working with families features videos, articles, blogs, and reports. Check it out.
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Youth-Centered Services Resources |
COVID-19: I'm not ready to go back to normal: The pressure of going back to normal is greater than in past years. Youth and young adults are concerned and have fears of going back to "normal" in-person environments. Learn how to break the barriers and make it easier to return to "normal." Read more. |
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Staff Development Resources |
Five Ways to Improve Employee Development at your Company: Every company has its own set of priorities to help take it to the next level, and knowing which initiatives will make the greatest impact can be tough. But what makes a business prosperous and truly differentiates one organization from the rest is not the product it sells or the service it offers, it’s the people within it. And what people at your organization deeply crave are more opportunities for employee development. Read more.
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Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Years: A Critical Component of Covid-19 Recovery: New America invited Hedy Chang, Attendance Works executive director, and Louise Wiener, Attendance Works senior fellow, to explain why addressing challenges to attendance in the early school years is so important, and to offer some potential solutions and resources. Read more.
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New English Learner Accountability Hub: One-Stop-Shop for State-Level EL Policies: Nearly six years have passed since the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law in December 2015. ESSA was significant because it replaced state and federal accountability systems established under No Child Left Behind, but more importantly, it ushered in a new era of accountability for students most affected by inequitable access to education, such as English learners (ELs). Learn more. |
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Videos to Help You Talk to your Kids about Bullying: StopBullying.gov has shared some great short animated videos that can help you start a conversation with your kids about bullying. Explore resources that show how different young people overcame being bullied in middle school. Find it here. |
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The Indian Child Welfare Act: A Primer for Child Welfare Professionals: The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 is one of the key components to protecting the rights and culture of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and families. Unfortunately, not all child welfare caseworkers are aware of how to apply ICWA or the troubling history that prompted the law to be enacted. This factsheet provides caseworkers with an overview of current and historical issues affecting child welfare practice with AI/AN families, practice implications, and cultural considerations. Find it here. |
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Choice/Charter Schools/Virtual Schools/Voucher Programs |
Identifying Indicators of Distress in Charter Schools Part 1: The Role and Perspective of Charter School Authorizers: The National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC) sought to identify and describe characteristics observed in schools experiencing difficulty in achieving the ESEA’s definition of a high-quality charter school. They call these early warning signs indicators of distress. This report provides the indicators of distress authorizers regularly encounter as a school’s quality begins to decline. Find it here. |
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Shifting Your Perspective: Lessons and Insights from Spanish-Speaking Families: What’s it like when you speak Spanish and are raising a child with deaf-blindness in the US? In this webinar, hear from a dynamic panel of Spanish-speaking families who’ll discuss their personal experiences, struggles and successes. Find out what it’s like learning the diagnosis, accessing services, and locating support, and hear what they want other families and providers to know. This webinar was conducted in Spanish with English captions and live English interpreters. Click here to view. |
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Human Development Data Center: Interested in learning about human development in the US and around the world? Check out the Human Development Data Center. Its data are sourced from international data agencies that collect national data on specific indicators within large categories including education, health, demography, income, inequality, work/employment, and many others. The data are presented in two sections: a Data page, with over 150 global indicators and composite indices, and a country profiles page. Datasets include definitions of indicators and sources for original data components and full source details in the statistical references. Check it out. |
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Discipline & Positive Behavioral Supports |
The classroom management field can’t stop chasing the wrong goals: When do we stop trying to manage children? How often are teachers encouraged to control their students rather than to consult and support them? Click here for some strategies.
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Effective Strategies for Alternative School Improvement: A practice guide that offers a clear and actionable process and guiding questions that school leaders can use to analyze their alternative schools and programs and to make changes to improve student outcomes.
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Early Childhood/Early Intervention |
Impacts of the Pandemic on Young Children and their Parents: Initial Findings from NIEER’s May-June 2021 Preschool Learning Activities Survey: Here are some key lessons from the Spring 2021 Preschool Learning Activities Survey such as: Rates of social-emotional problems reported by parents on a standardized scale continued to rise and about 1 in 10 young children with an IEP were still reported to receive no services. Click here to read more.
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US Department of Education Climate Adaptation Plan September 2021: The mission of the U.S. Department of Education is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness. Fulfilling this mission requires that we confront the rapidly changing climate, its impact on students, educators, and infrastructure, as well as its implications for the future world in which the United States competes. Read more of The Department’s vision for enhancing resilience in the face of the challenges presented by climate change.
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Removing Police from Schools: In the past, normal adolescent behavior, including schoolyard skirmishes, practical jokes and angry outbursts, could land a student in the principal’s office. But today, such incidents can place students behind bars. Proponents of the movement to remove police from schools cite research indicating that school resource officers (SROs) don’t make schools safer, but they do increase the likelihood that students, particularly Black and Brown children, will enter the school to prison pipeline. Read more here. |
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Grandfamilies and COVID-19: Families of Unique Origins Face Unique Challenges: A report from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sheds light on families and the particular challenges they are facing as the world grapples with the coronavirus. The report found: almost half of grandparent caregivers are age 60 and older and at heightened risk for COVID-19, more grandparent caregivers have disabilities than parents and also are likely at heightened risk for COVID-19, and children being raised in grandfamilies are more likely to be Black or Native American than white. These are the same populations that are much more likely to be impacted by the pandemic and die as a result. Click here to read more.
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Are Consumers Already Living in the Future of Health: Pandemic-accelerated trends in consumer behavior have the potential to transform various aspects of the healthcare system. How can organizations meet consumers’ changing needs and move toward the future of health? The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the health care system upside down and challenged consumers’ sense of well-being. In many ways consumers are taking charge of their health more than ever before. They are learning about their health risks, communicating with their doctors in new and different ways, and changing their attitudes about data privacy. Each of these factors has a significant influence on how consumers are feeling and interacting with the health system. Going forward, how will these events and factors change consumer behavior? Are we more or less likely to see empowered health care consumers? Read the results from, and implications of, the 2020 Deloitte Center for Health Solutions’ biennial survey of US Health Care Consumers.
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Supporting Homeless Children and Youth with Disabilities: Legislative Provisions in the McKinney-Vento Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Many homeless children and youth have disabilities that create additional challenges for educational progress. The National Center on Family Homelessness reported that children who are homeless, as compared to other children, have three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems, are four times more likely to show delayed development, and have twice the rate of learning disabilities. Click here to read more.
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Return to School Roadmap: Child Find Under PART B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has received multiple requests from a diverse group of stakeholders asking that the Department issue new guidance interpreting requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in light of the many challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Q&A reaffirms the importance of appropriate implementation of IDEA’s child find obligations, which requires the identification, location and evaluation, of all children with disabilities in the states. An effective child find system is an ongoing part of each state’s responsibility to ensure that free appropriate public education (FAPE) is made available to all eligible children with disabilities. Find it here. |
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The International Community Must Develop a Well-Coordinated Protection Strategy for Afghan Refugees: There is no doubt that many Afghanis will need protection in the weeks and months ahead. What remains shrouded in uncertainty, however, is the magnitude of need and where to offer that protection. Read more. |
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Specialized Support: The Far End of the Continuum: One of the primary goals of education is to provide equitable, quality learning opportunities that enable students to achieve post-school success. This goal is the same for all students, including students with disabilities. Until the past decade, students that needed extra support and were eligible to receive special education services were typically sent out of the general education classroom to receive those services. Today, educators are motivated to include students in the general education classroom setting as much as possible and to use services delivered outside of the general education class as a last option. This decision is based on the needs of each individual student and is known as specialized support. This article will take a closer look at how the need for specialized support is determined and at the quality standards that should be met.
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Juvenile Delinquency/Juvenile Justice |
Juvenile cases in 2019 dropped to the lowest level in 14 years, federal data shows: Juvenile offenses involving property, drug and public order offenses, combined, declined in 2019 to their lowest levels since 2005, according to recently released National Center on Juvenile Justice data also showing that probation, rather than detention, increasingly was assigned in five categories of juvenile crime. Read more here. |
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School is Back in Session: Going back to school after an extended period has its challenges. LGBTQ+ youth and young adults have to deal with the unique challenges of returning to school with COVID concerns and seeking a safe, inclusive space. Learning how to navigate public spaces is important as part of the LGBTQ+ community is an important process. Read more. |
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How to Help Anxious Students Re-Adjust to Social Settings: Strong emotional reactions and increased social discomfort are predictable responses as youngsters emerge from more than a year of isolation and altered routines caused by the pandemic. Read more.
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Military Families & Youth |
Lessons on Child Care, From the Military: The military transformed what was once an underfunded, scattershot child care system into one of the best in the country. Some see it as a model to emulate. Learn more.
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Northwest Native American Center of Excellence: 7 Free Native American Culturally Appropriate Videos to Share and Use as Models. These films are used as a powerful tool to tell Indigenous stories and communicate important information to tribal people. Click here to view a series of PSAs to help keep Indigenous people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide inspiration to young Native people on their journey toward the health professions.
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Parent/Family Engagement (and Youth!) |
Can New Forms of Parent Engagement be a Game Changer Post COVID? While there are many schools and organizations around the globe that have long practiced and advocated for teaching and learning approaches that employ innovative pedagogies and put student agency at the center, they have until now remained the exception rather than the norm. The question is: will the COVID-19 pandemic help change that? In particular, will parents’ recent insight into their children’s learning be a new driver for change? Many parents from rural communities in Botswana and India to urban centers in the United States and the United Kingdom have seen up close—and likely for the first time—inside the black box of classroom activities. Will parents’ unprecedented exposure to children’s education shape their beliefs about what a good education looks like over the long term? Read more.
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The Basic Facts about Children in Poverty: Nearly 11 million children are living in poverty in America. Here is how the crisis reached this point—and what steps must be taken to solve it. Read more. |
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Remote Learning/School Reopening |
Remote Learning and School Reopenings - What Worked and What Didn’t? The Center for American Progress (CAP) has been tracking key trends during remote learning and school reopening efforts across the United States. CAP has also applied a racial equity lens to understand how different communities, educators, and students have been affected by these trends. Throughout the past year, states, school districts, and schools across the country have taken vastly different approaches to education. As districts and schools plan for the upcoming school year and life after the pandemic, these trends can help inform best practices to apply and pitfalls to avoid. It is important to note that because most decisions around responding to the pandemic and reopening schools were left to districts and schools, national, and even state-level, data are limited. As such, looking at trends and individual examples is one of the most effective ways to understand what has been happening in education during the past year. Read this article on the good, the bad, and the ugly of key trends.
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Restraint on Students Under Scrutiny after School employee pins girls neck with knee: Experts say this incident is a reminder that Black and foster students are disproportionately restrained and punished at school. Read the details here. |
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Social-Emotional Learning |
The (Potential) Role of Technology for Young Children's Social-Emotional Learning: During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: This commentary explores the potential role of technology and government in promoting social-emotional learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. A focus on technology that promotes appropriate social and physical experiences for young children is necessary. Click here for some examples.
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COVID-19 shapes future of accessibility services at WVU: While ensuring that students received equal access to courses and lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic, West Virginia University’s Office of Accessibility Services developed a new Transcriber Mentorship Program to meet the nearly-doubled increase in demand for those services. Combined with the closed captioning Work-Study Captioning Program, which saw a 900% increase in requests during the pandemic, the Office of Accessibility Services reduced outside expenses by nearly a quarter of a million dollars over the last two years. Read more.
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Transition to Adult Life/Youth |
Family Perspectives on a Successful Transition to Adulthood for Individuals with Disabilities: When researchers evaluate adult outcomes for individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (ID/DD), the perspective of families is not always considered. Parents of individuals with ID/DD answered an online survey about their definition of a successful transition to adulthood. Click here for more.
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The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child growth and development: a systematic review: The tools used to mitigate the threat of a pandemic such as COVID-19 may very well threaten child growth and development. These tools — such as social restrictions, shutdowns, and school closures — contribute to stress in parents and children and can become risk factors that threaten child growth and development and may compromise the Sustainable Development Goals. The studies reviewed suggest that epidemics can lead to high levels of stress in parents and children, which begin with concerns about children becoming infected. These studies describe several potential mental and emotional consequences of epidemics such as COVID-19, H1N1, AIDS, and Ebola: severe anxiety or depression among parents and acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress, anxiety disorders, and depression among children. These data can be related to adverse childhood experiences and elevated risk of toxic stress. The more adverse experiences, the greater the risk of developmental delays and health problems in adulthood, such as cognitive impairment, substance abuse, depression, and non-communicable diseases. Read more.
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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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