Before beginning the special education process, it may be useful to review the skills that can help you build a collaborative relationship with your school so that you and the school staff can develop an effective special education team. When a student is determined to have learning deficits or a disability, parents often find themselves thrust into a new role as a special education advocate.

In addition to learning about their child’s specific deficits or area of disability, they also need to learn the skills necessary to communicate effectively with school staff members and to become a member of their child’s education team. It is important that you develop a relationship of mutual respect and trust. Parents and staff members need to express thoughts in direct, honest, and appropriate ways while retaining and displaying respect for the rights and opinions of others.

In this downloadable PDF, you will find hints and tips will be useful when you prepare to attend a meeting about your child, whether it is an eligibility or IEP meeting or an informal meeting to discuss your child’s progress and/or your concerns. They will help you become a more effective member of your child’s education team and help you develop a positive, collaborative relationship with your child’s teachers.

Click below to download The Importance of Good Communication Skills.

This brochure by the Florida Department of Education identifies accommodations and modifications that may be needed by students with disabilities in mainstream and specialized secondary and postsecondary career education and adult general education programs. Federal and state legislation requires the provision of accommodations and modifications for students with disabilities.

These accommodations and modifications are identified on transition individual educational plans (IEPs) or 504 Plans (for secondary students) or other plans that may be used for individual students with disabilities at the postsecondary/adult level.

Click below to download the brochure.

Stress is a state of bodily and mental tension that affects performance. Stress has become part of our hectic everyday lives and is, indeed, a fact of life. It can be an obstacle that makes quality of life difficult to achieve for families affected by disability. However, there is some good news about stress:

• Mild to moderate stress helps motivate people to achieve.
• Each person and family can choose their attitude about stress: to be a survivor or a victim.
• Each person and family can also choose to cope by understanding themselves and by using a variety of ways to cope.

This pamphlet educational pamphlet has been written for parents of persons with disabilities, individuals with disabilities, friends and professionals by the Florida Developmental Disabilities Council. The three goals of the pamphlet are to:

• Increase understanding of signs and sources of stress
• Provide tips for preventing and coping with stress
• Suggest support resources to help people cope with stress

Click the button below to download the pamphlet on Disability Related Stress.

The completion of high school is the beginning of adult life. Entitlement in public education ends, and young people and their families are faced with many options and decisions about the future.

The most common choices for the future are pursuing vocational training or further academic education, getting a job, and living independently. For students with disabilities, these choices may be more complex and may require a great deal of planning. Planning the transition from school to adult life begins, at the latest, during high school. In fact, transition planning is required, by law, to start once a student reaches 14 years of age, or younger, if appropriate. This transition planning becomes formalized as part of the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP).

Transition services are intended to prepare students to make the transition from the world of school to the world of adulthood. In planning what type of transition services a student needs to prepare for adulthood, the IEP Team considers areas such as postsecondary education or vocational training, employment, independent living, and community participation. The transition services themselves are a coordinated set of activities that are based on the student’s needs and that take into account his or her preferences and interests. Transition services can include instruction, community experiences, the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives, and (if appropriate) the acquisition of daily living skills and functional vocational assessment.

This Transition Summary provides ideas and information on how students, families, school personnel, service providers, and others can work together to help students make a smooth transition. In particular, this document focuses on creative transition planning and services that use all the resources that exist in communities, not just the agencies that have traditionally been involved.

This publication also provides:

• Definitions of some terms used in transition planning
• Lists of individuals and agencies that can help the IEP Team create a successful transition plan
• Guides to finding the groups and agencies that provide transition services
• Examples of creative transition plans
• Ways to improve the transition system by working at the community level

Download the full publication to learn more about transition planning.