Hosted by

Scottsdale School District

April 14th and 22nd

6:30-8:30 p.m.

4/14 – Mohave District Annex

8505 E Valley View Road

Scottsdale, AZ 85250

4/22 – Desert Mtn. High School

12575 E. Via Linda
Scottsdale, AZ 85259

Spanish Translation Available

Pilot Parents of Southern Arizona Announces Partners in Policymaking A FREE Leadership Training for self-advocates & parents of children with disabilities. Partners in Policymaking is an innovative leadership training program for parents of children with disabilities and for adults with disabilities. The program is designed to provide information, training, resources and skill building to people with a disability and the parents of children with disabilities so that they can become better advocates for themselves or their children. Partners in Policymaking provides participants with opportunities to meet and talk to national and state leaders in the disability advocacy field.   Participants will have an opportunity to meet and unite with others who have similar concerns to create a powerful voice on important issues. Participants learn how the legislative process works at the local, state and national levels. The goal of the training is to develop productive partnerships between people who need and use services and those in a position to make policy and law. Topics To Be Addressed History of the Disability Movement Inclusion & Quality Education IEP Participation Community Supports People First Language Person Centered Planning Assistive Technology State & Federal Policy Legislative Process Planning for Transitions Organizing for Change.

Click on link for application and more information:
partners-application-20094

Special Education Training for Parents

Disability Empowerment Center of Arizona  

Second Floor/Room 208

5025 East Washington Street

Phoenix, Arizona

Thursday, April 23, 2009

9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

&

6:00 p.m. -9:00 p.m.

Do you have questions about the special education process?

Do you have questions about your child’s IEP?

Do you have questions concerning discipline?

Do you have questions about your rights?

Well, let’s get some answers !

The Arizona Center for Disability Law will be conducting an intensive training designed for parents to answer these questions and more. This free training will provide in depth information on the procedural safeguards set forth in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004, Bureau of Indian Education and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.  Highlights of the training will include information on the evaluation, the IEP, appropriate placement, transition services and discipline. In addition, the training will provide parents with practical advice and strategies for developing self-advocacy skills.

For more information or to reserve space in one of the trainings, please contact the Center, at

(602) 274-6287 (voice/TTY) 1-800-927-2260 or e-mail kvanhorne@azdisabilitylaw.org . Please notify the Center as soon as possible if you need any special accommodations or are unable to keep your reservation. The training is subject to cancellation if minimal registration is not achieved; you will be contacted as soon as possible if the training is cancelled. The training is limited to 25 participates.

For more information about the Center, please check our website at www.azdisabilitylaw.org

Funding for this training is provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Developmental Disabilities

For more details, please visit the website for the conference:  www.SpectrumTrainingSystemsInc.com/Conferences.html

Read below for the conference schedule.

Career Planning for Individuals
with Autism Spectrum Disorders
April 2-3, 2009

After several years of planning, Spectrum Training is delighted to announce that our two day Autism Career Planning conferences are now ready. After much dialogue with career planners, transition teachers, parents and other ASD concerned persons we planned these conferences to meet those specific, critical needs.
This high caliber career planning is the key to a successful future with positive long-term outcomes and is ESSENTIAL for:
* Career counselors, job developers/job coaches, rehab administrators, vocational coordinators
* Special education administrators, teachers, teacher assistants, case managers, therapists
* Students, parents, caregivers, young adults with ASD (16+)

Date and Location

April 2-3, 2009 Phoenix, AZ

Topic Schedule
Conference Schedule Day One:

Career Planning
A. Communication Skills in the Initial Interview
B. Interview Communication Graffiti Activity
C. Structuring the Interview Environment
D. Interview Structure Activity
E. Theory of Mind
F. Building the Career Portfolio
G. Career Portfolio Development Activity

Career Assessment
A. Creating the Evaluation Plan
B. Assessment Processes for Job Seekers With ASD
C. Skill/Interest Testing
D. Assessing Social/Communication Skills
E. Career Assessment Activity

Workplace Supports
A. Workplace Problems
B. Natural Support Development
C. Take Workplace Supports
D. Minnesota Work Adjustment Theory
E. Work Values Graffiti Activity

Conference Schedule Day Two:
Social Communication in the Workplace
A. Basic Self-Advocacy
B. Asking for Help Activity
C. Sins of the System Overview
D. Sins of the System Graffiti Activity
E. Courtesy Rule Card Activity
F. Social Skill Supports
G. Workplace Visuals Graffiti Activity
H. Workplace Social Story Make/Take

Implementing the Career Plan
A. Career Strategies in Action
B. Working with the Business Community
C. Final Wrap Up – Q & A Session

Presented by Spectrum Training Systems, Inc.

spectrumtrainingsystems@yahoo.com

(920) 749-0332 

 The link to YAC-AZ  website where we schedule our YAC-AZ events:  http://nyra.meetup.com/51/    The next YAC-AZ meeting will be February 21, 2009 and we will have someone from the Department of Education there to talk to youth about RSA services, voc rehab, and transition in education.

For more information please contact: 

George Garcia

Youth Coordinator for Set Yourself Free 

Southwest Institute for Families and Children

5111 N. Scottsdale Rd., #151

Scottsdale, AZ 85250

602-443-0706

480-222-8800

g.garcia@swifamilies.org

www.swifamilies.org

 www.azeapn.org

ARIZONA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION

Special Education Advisory Panel

This invitation is extended to parents of children with disabilities. Are you interested in serving on a panel charged with providing policy guidance with respect to special education and related services for children with disabilities? Then, the Arizona State Board of Education invites you to submit your application to serve a three-year term on the Special Education Advisory Panel. Applicants must be able to:

♦ Commit to six meetings a year (July-June);

♦ Be willing to actively participate in meetings; and,

♦ Be a parent of a child with a disability under the age of 26.

If you are interested in serving but would like more information, please visit us online at www.ade.state.az.us/ess/seap. For an application or if you have additional questions, please contact: Jeannette Zemeida, Arizona Department of Education, (602) 542-3855, jeannette.zemeida@azed.gov.

Save the Date!

When: Thursday, March 12, 2009
Time: 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.
Where: Tucson, Arizona
Place: TBA
Price: TBA

To become involved and/or to receive the latest details go
to www.pilotparents.org, e-mail ppsa@pilotparents.org or
call 520-324-3150

This special education and advocacy conference is being brought to you by:

• Pilot Parents of Southern Arizona
• Tucson Community A.C.T.I.O.N. Team
• and the TUSD Exceptional Parent Project

Pilot Parents of Southern Arizona
Announces

Partners in Policymaking

A FREE Leadership Training for self-advocates & parents of children with disabilities

Partners in Policymaking is an innovative leadership training program for parents of children with disabilities and for adults with disabilities. The program is designed to provide information, training, resources and skill building to people with a disability and the parents of children with disabilities so that they can become better advocates for themselves or their children. Partners in Policymaking provides participants with opportunities to meet and talk to national and state leaders in the disability advocacy field.

Participants will have an opportunity to meet and unite with others who have similar concerns to create a powerful voice on important issues. Participants learn how the legislative process works at the local, state and national levels. The goal of the training is to develop productive partnerships between people who need and use services and those in a position to make policy and law.

More information on the Partners in Policymaking program and the application

By Dan Coulter

Do you get angry? I get angry. Oh, I’m pretty calm about most things. But when I hear about kids taking advantage of a child on the autism spectrum, my first thoughts involve swift and terrible punishment. Then I peel myself off the ceiling and think in more practical terms.

I felt a surge of anger today when I heard about a mother I know who picked her autistic son up after school. He’s in special classes, but eats with everyone else in the school cafeteria. As he got into the car, her son remarked that he was really hungry.

Why? Didn’t he get to eat lunch?

No, he said.

It turns out the friend who usually ate with him had a schedule change, so he had to eat by himself. After he sat down, he realized he’d forgotten to get a drink. Leaving his tray on the table, he went to buy one. When he returned, someone had taken the tray. So, he went without lunch. Given the circumstances, it’s a pretty safe bet his food didn’t disappear out of good intentions.

As a dad of a son on the spectrum, it’s easy to get angry and to want whoever took the tray to be punished. Of course, you’d have to find him or them. And have evidence they did it. And, you’d have to be careful that you didn’t make the autistic student a bigger target in the future.

While I think it’s appropriate to pursue individual tormentors after the fact, our broader goal should be to prevent such incidents. For example, suppose just one student had seen others taking the autistic student’s tray and said, “Don’t do that.”

Looking back to when I was in high school, I was a member of a service club.
We did things such as delivering food baskets to needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

What a great service project it would be for any number of existing student organizations to educate their members about autism and Asperger Syndrome (and other special needs) and enlist them as advocates. Most colleges look for community service in their applications. Being a special needs advocate is a service that students can provide as they go about their normal school activities.

Of course, having peers help peers is not a new idea. Quite a few organizations encourage students to support each other. One of the better known is called, “Best Buddies.” Their website describes pairing children who have intellectual disabilities in one-to-one friendships with high school students.

If you can tap into a specialized organization such as this, more power to you. But enlisting the members of your school’s existing student organizations and clubs could also have a tremendous impact.

Perhaps a psychologist, school counselor, or member of a local autism support group can make a brief presentation to each club. It will help if you can arrange for club members to be introduced to students who have autism or Asperger Syndrome (and who wish to participate) and learn about their strengths as well as their challenges. Then the club members’ initial role might be as simple as to say, “Hi,” when they pass these students in the hall, visit with them occasionally, and find ways to include them in activities. And, yes, to prevent bullying. These interactions could open the door to additional contacts and friendships.

Some schools make understanding and accepting differences an integral part of their programs. I’d love it if more schools took this approach. But I realize we sometimes need to start with smaller steps. Whatever you can do to help your school encourage students to be more understanding and compassionate is worth doing.

I know from personal experience about classmates who, after seeing presentations about Asperger Syndrome, apologized to students on the spectrum for how they’d treated them. A little education can also lead classmates to make a special effort to include and look out for a student they now see as a person, not just, “that weird kid.”

The more students we can educate about special needs such as autism, the more we decrease the chances that one student will consider tormenting another. Or, if he does, the more we increase the chances that a third student will be ready to step up and say, “Stop.”

Let’s give as many students as possible the understanding to turn potentially demeaning and damaging incidents into actions that protect our kids and make us all proud.

That will be a lot more satisfying than getting angry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Coulter is the producer of the INTRICATE MINDS series of DVDs that help classmates understand and accept students with Asperger Syndrome and autism. You can find more articles on his website: www.coultervideo.com.

Copyright 2008 Dan Coulter All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.