Helping Children with Special Needs Together

Focus Group Opportunity

Your opinion is worth $100!

Opportunity to Participate in a Focus Group Regarding the Prevention and Treatment of Influenza in High-Risk Persons.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the assistance of Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, is seeking participants for a focus group discussion in Boston.

Participants will be asked to share their opinions and practices regarding some health-related issues. Your answers can help efforts to provide accurate, helpful information to health care workers and patients regarding prevention and treament of Influenza (flu) in high-risk persons. If you agree to participate:

• You are not required to answer the questions.
• This session should last about one hour.
• You will receive a $100 incentive for participating in the discussion.
• You are free to leave at any time during discussion without losing the cash incentive or other penalty.
• Parking validation will be provided.

For more information, call 617-542-5500 and ask for Steve Gallant and the “Influenza” project. Learn more about this study now.

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“Managing Chronic Stress: How to stay calm when everything is falling apart?”
March 24, 2010, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
75 Mt. Auburn St., second floor, Monks Library

Join Jeanne Mahon, Director of the Center for Wellness at the Harvard University Health Services, for a talk about self care and managing chronic stress.

This event is free and open to all Harvard affiliates.

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“Chat with a Pediatrician – Difficult questions about your child’s health and development”

February 24, 2010; 12:00 p.m.

75 Mt. Auburn St., second floor, Monks Library

If you are worried about your child’s health and development, join Dr. Maureen Lynch, Chief of Pediatrics at the Harvard University Health Services, for a questions and answers session about difficult health issues and child development in general. Dr. Lynch will answer parents’ questions and advise what a parent can do if a child’s development is not meeting the typical norms, and how and where to seek further help from specialists.

Dr. Lynch is also an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Medical School, Assistant in Pediatric Medicine and Attending Physician in the Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology Clinic at the Children’s Hospital, Associate Pediatrician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Assistant Director for Clinical Services at the Harvard University Health Services.

For more information about the Pediatric Services clinic, visit: http://huhs.harvard.edu/OurServices/PediatricPrimaryCare.aspx

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The group has “migrated” from the bulletin board to a listserv — http://lists.hcs.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/networkingforkids. The bulletin board is still “open” but there’s no activity, while the listserv has had a few interesting discussions and gets a lot of forwards from other discussion groups (information about upcoming meetings, summer programs, Q&As, etc.)

As in the case of the bulletin board — only members who sign up with a harvard e-mail address get approved.

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Networking Meeting

Wednesday, January 13, 2010; 12:30 p.m.
1033 Mass Ave., Room M11, Cambridge, MA

This is going to be a “needs and leads” session – where parents will get to ask a question and see if other parents have any advice (most likely they’ll do). If you can’t come but do have a question you’d like to ask the parents who come, please post a question as a comment to this post.

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I received information from one of the members of our group about an upcoming workshop — The Asperger’s Association of New England is accepting registrations for a workshop “Making School Work for Your Child with AS”

Three dates:
December 8, 2009; February 9, 2010; or April 13, 2010.

Unfortunately, there is a registration fee ($40 per person for AANE members; $50 per person for non-members).

For more information visit:
http://www.aane.org/upcoming_events/Making_School_Work.html

Disclaimer: I am not a member of AANE and I have not been contacted directly by the Association to advertise their workshop. I am simply posting a message that one of the members of the group sent me.

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Disability Law Center, Inc. is offering a free training and clinic for parents on special education transition services for children with disabilities, ages 14-22.

The morning session will include a presentation on transition services and planning for children with disabilities and during the afternoon parents will have an opportunity to get some individual consultation time with attorneys from the Disability Law Center and other legal service agencies.

For more information see:
http://www.dlc-ma.org/_conf2/sped.asp

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One of the group members sent this to share with everyone — the attached file, distributed by Cambridge Public Schools to parents of children in the district, helps them understand the MCAS reports.

How to Read Your Student’s MCAS Report

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“Special Education Advocacy” workshop

December 2, 2009; 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.

Harvard Center for Workplace Development,

124 Mt. Auburn Street, third floor, room 3311, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Sarah Whiting, a second year student at Harvard Law School and a student advocate in the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, a joint effort of the Massachusetts Advocates for Children and Harvard Law School, will lead a discussion on special education advocacy.

Also present will be Susan Cole, Esq., senior project director of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, and Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor in the Special Education/Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative Clinic.

The presentation will cover the following:
-Legal definition of a disability
-Establishing a prima facie case to receive special education
-Procedural Protections of the IDEA and a Timeline for When Things Should Happen
-Comparison of the IDEA and 504
-Suggestions for advocating on behalf of your child
-How to find and work with an independent evaluator (this includes financial considerations)

The event is free. Registration open through PeopleSoft.

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One of the parents in the group wanted to share with everyone information about Title I Program for Free Tutoring. This information is about tutoring in Cambridge, MA but other districts might be doing it as well.

As Cambridge Public School’s brochure about Title I, says

“Title I provides additional resources and instruction to improve the educational performance of low achieving children in high poverty schools. Its goal is to help those children meet challenging state academic content and performance standards. A “regular” or targeted assistance Title I school is one in which services are provided to a select group of students targeted as failing or most at risk of failing to meet the state’s academic standards.”

If you live in Cambridge, you can look at information about Title I funded tutoring opportunities offered through Cambridge Public Schools. Deadline for supplemental service requests is November 20, 2009.

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