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Choosing an Advocate
 Who is an Advocate?
What does an Advocate do?
What should an Advocate Know?
What to Avoid
Advocacy Self-Assessment Questionnaire
advocate - to speak on behalf of or in partnership with someone else such as a child or parent in order to procure needed services.
Who is an Advocate?
There are four types of educational advocates. They include:
- Self advocates � Teens and young adults who advocate on behalf of them selves.
- Parent advocates � Parents who advocate on be half of their own child or young adult.
- Lay advocates � Usually parents or professionals who advocate on behalf of someone else child or young adult on an in-kind basis.
- Professional advocate � Trained and experienced person who advocate behalf of someone else child or young adult for a professional fee.
Currently, Illinois does not have any formal advocacy training system or require certification of any kind for special education advocacy. As a result, many families of children with disabilities, as well as the students, are unable to effectively advocate for themselves, their families or others. Inexperienced, untrained and/or partially trained self-advocates and family members of students with disabilities are often ill-equipped to appropriately advocate for students in both informal and formal settings. As a result, the climate for advocacy has become increasingly hostile in the state and, unfortunately many parents and lay advocates inadvertently alienate children with disabilities from their home districts. This leaves the needs of qualifying students at risk, and often unmet. The effectiveness of an advocate depends on their level of training and experience.
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What does an Advocate do?
Qualified advocates can keep the team's focus on the unique educational needs of the child while facilitating outcomes that produce an appropriate education.
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What should an Advocate Know?
Special education is a product of evolving statutes and case law. The advocate must have a working knowledge of the basic rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). These statutes, and their subsequent cases, provide a framework for building an appropriate plan for any child. Your advocate should:
- Understand and implement basic components of IDEA and NCLB.
- Understand and evaluate the components of a FAPE.
- Understand and be able to identify the basic components of an IEP.
- Understand and be able to identify the participants in an IEP.
- Understand and be able to identify the components of an evaluation.
- Understand and be able to identify the components of the Least Restrictive Environment.
- Understand and be able to identify the components of parent/student notice and participation.
- Understand and be able to identify the NCLB student/teacher standards.
The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is the blueprint for the education of a special needs child. All protections and recourse for the child must be addressed in writing in the IEP. The effective advocate can help construct an enforceable IEP that secures appropriate education for the child. The advocate should have an understanding of the IEP process and what all those boxes and check marks really mean. Your advocate should:
- Understand who needs to be at the IEP.
- Understand and be able to identify core elements of the IEP.
- Understand and be able to identify eligibility designations.
- Understand and draft measurable goals.
- Understand and draft measurable benchmarks and short-term objectives.
- Understand and be able to identify the need and type of related services for a child.
- Understand and address placement concerns.
An effective advocate must be able to persuade a school district to adopt a particular strategy or brainstorm for a new approach . Advocates should be able to view the child objectively to negotiate effectively.
Your advocate should be able to:
- Sustain Relationships Among Team Members.
- Keep the Focus on the Child's Needs.
- Provide an alternative Plan.
- Build the Record.
- View the Child from Differing Perspectives.
- Listen Actively & Objectively.
- Encourage Love for the Child.
- Demonstrate Good Faith.
An effective advocate must be able to understand the basic documentation in a school file. They must also understand the importance of gathering information and decipher what the main issues are and the student needs . Your advocates should be able to:
- Understand the importance of parent, student and other interviews in gaining an understanding of the issues and student needs.
- Evaluate whether IEP's are drafted properly.
- Determine which items in the record are relevant to supporting your position and supporting student need.
- Understand the components of a Functional Behavioral Assessment and Behavior Modification Plan
- Be familiar with proper disciplinary notices and paperwork.
An effective advocate must be familiar with the various specific disabilities and their impact on learning, access to curriculum and support. They must also know where to look and who to talk with in order to gather additional information or expertise with regards to a specific disability. Your advocate should:
Testing plays a very large part in the development of a child's educational plan. An effective advocate must be reasonably familiar with common evaluation tools, and must be able to connect them to a particular child's educational needs in order to develop an appropriate plan. Your advocate should:
- Understand the different tests that schools use when conducting a case study evaluation.
- Understand how to interpret all those reports and score that are read and discussed during the IEP meetings.
- Understand IQ testing: what are the measures of intelligence?
- Decipher basic educational evaluations.
- Effectively use the testing in preparing your child's education plan.
- Learning disabilities: identify how do different educational tests show specific or unspecified learning disabilities?
- Autism: determine what are the acceptable tests and criteria for determining eligibility and planning on the Autistic Spectrum?
- Behavioral Disabilities: determine what tests and criteria accurately demonstrate eligibility and planning for Behavior Disorders
What your advocate knows about your school and district and how schools are structured can play a vital role in your success. An effective advocate should understand the schools. The more you know how resources are configured, who make the decisions about resources and how to navigate the bureaucracies of schools, the more effective advocate you will be. Your advocate should:
- Understand and be able to identify the types of school districts in Illinois.
- Understand and identify the various models of support used to provide support to students with disabilities.
- Understand and identify the relationship of special education cooperatives and the school district.
- Understand and identify the players and the roles of teachers (general and special education) administrators, therapists (speech & language, physical, occupational), psychologists, school nurses, social workers, outside agencies and their relationship to students with challenges and their families.
- Identify changing and emerging roles for special and general educators.
- Understand the make-up and importance of collaborative teams.
- Understand what are building level and student level teams and their role in support of students with disabilities.
- Learn about traditional and untraditional program, and services available for students with challenges and their families.
The advocate should encourage investing the student in their plan.
To become effective leaders, students need to learn to be involved in educational planning and decision making. The key to involvement is that the student is an active, rather than passive, participant in his or her education plan. Your advocate should:
- Understand what is self-advocacy and self-determination.
- Identify the keys to choice making.
- Understand and identify how students can participate in IEP development.
- Understand and identify 11 steps to self-directed IEP's.
- Identify key communication skills that are important to self-determination.
- Understand and discuss the educational benefits of student involvement in the planning and decision-making process.
- Identify skill areas in which students could receive instruction in order to assume a leadership role in their planning meeting.
- Identify and discuss strategies or programs that promote general self advocacy skills.
The inclusion of students with disabilities into classrooms continues to be a challenge that most families face. Advocates must know the fundamentals of inclusion and the strategies and components to making inclusion work and advocating for the Least Restrictive Environment. There are various ways of getting supports and services in the least restrictive environment and advocates need to know how and what to ask for. Your advocate should:
- Understand historical, philosophical and political issues pertaining to inclusive model of education and explore the implications.
- Understand and be able to identify what inclusion is and is not.
- Understand and identify the essential attributes of successful inclusive schools.
- Understand and identify how inclusion compliments and enhances other school reform initiatives.
- Understand and identify how and what to ask for in regards to the least restrictive environment.
Transition planning is a very important aspect of a child's education planning. Good person-centered transition planning is the bridge between the student's school career and life after graduation. An effective advocate should understand the Transition Planning process, and why it is so important. Your advocate should:
- Understand and delineate practices that promote an effective school to post school transition.
- Understand and demonstrate how to develop a transition plan for your child.
- Understand and identify the ways in which quality transition assessments can be used to improve the quality of life outcomes.
- Understand and identify what transition is and is not.
- Understand and identify transition related legislation and how it can support your needs.
- Understand the importance of a holistic approach to transition planning.
- Understand and identify the principles of shared responsibility transition planning.
There are many ways that parents can effect positive change in our schools. An effective advocate should explore how parent can effect positive change in their schools. Your advocate should:
- Understand and identify strategies for effectively collaborating with schools on behalf of their child.
- Understand and identify strategies for improving home/school communication .
- Understand and identify how parents can come together to be the voices for all the children.
- Understand and identify how to start a parent group and using those collective voices to effect positive changes within schools.
- Identify existing parent groups and support organizations that can help.
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What to avoid and what is not effective advocacy
As previously mentioned, there are many inexperienced, untrained and/or partially trained advocates working with families. Ann Marie Robinson in 1990 identified the following �Advocacy Problem Personalities�. Upon review, you may happen to know of or have worked with such personalities.
The Policeman Personality
From the time the staffing begins, this person makes sure that everyone knows that they are up-to-date on all laws. During the staffing they spend most of the tome looking for legal technicalities. Since most of their energies are spent on �catching the district� the needs of the child take a backseat.
The Lawyer Personality
The Lawyer personality is also caught up in his legal rights, only his focus is on �taking the district to court�. When ever there's a problem, his basic solution is to take the district to Due Process. Because he uses this threat so often, no one takes his threats or even his good ideas seriously.
The Dictator Personality
The dictator is always well prepared, but has no desire to work as part of any team. She enters every meeting angry and takes control by demanding things for her child. She begins most sentences with �You will,� and �I want�. People hate working and even communicating with her. Because of the way she acts, teachers and therapist don't contact her with problems, and they are eager to move her child along, so they don't have to deal with her anymore.
The Minnie Mouse Personality
Minnie Mouse knows her rights, shows up at every meeting, but never asks a question or disagrees with anyone. Even though she knows her child's program is inappropriate, she goes along with everything for fear someone will �take it out on her child�. Everyone in the district likes her, and describes her as one of the �easiest parents to deal with�.
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Advocacy Self-Assessment Questionnaire
Knowing whether or not you need an advocate/consultant can sometimes be a difficult question to answer. Take a few moments and check off the statements that may apply to determine for yourself if you need additional assistance.
Check all that apply:
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