Getting Started on Self-Advocacy Instruction

Getting Started with Your School

Encouraging self-advocacy may be a challenging concept for your colleagues. Your fellow teachers may resist when students first start requesting accommodations. Initial self-advocacy attempts may sound unreasonable. Creating an awareness of why students need to develop these skills will help. Request time at a staff meeting to share your plan. If your colleagues know the reason students are requesting accommodations, they will be better prepared to assist them.

Going to counselors and career center staff may be difficult for some students. Encourage these relationships early in the students' high school career. Recognize that students with disabilities may need more support than counselors have time to give. Discuss how you can work together to meet this need.

Getting Started with Your Community

Look to the community for assistance. Bring in outside experts to help raise student awareness. Students may find the voice of a college student with a disability more credible than yours. A disability services coordinator from a local college can share information with the students in an objective way. Hearing from these outside experts can be a powerful impetus for students to undertake these new responsibilities. In Washington State and Oregon, use the Post-ITT Web site where you can quickly identify contact information for the disability services office in a college near you.

Getting Started with Parents

Parents can be of great help if they understand the impending changes for their child. Informing parents of the changes that lie ahead and enlisting their help in Post-ITT Guidance Activities is a good starting point. We recommend that you send a letter to parents explaining the Activities. Attach a copy of the Guidance Activities Introduction for Parents. Refer them to the Post-ITT Web site during the first year. This gives them time to understand the post secondary guidelines and procedures.

Many parents believe that special education exists in college in much the same way it does in the high school. To help you help them change this perception, Post-ITT has a Web Orientation for parents! Another valuable resource called Virginia CollegeQuest has been developed by the The Virginia Department of Education Training and Technical Assistance Center at George Mason University and the Advocacy Institute.