Transcript- Reaching and Serving the Youngest Youth


okay
yeah recording
we'll be starting the webinar in about
five minutes
just a few more minutes
hello everyone and welcome i am kim
gibson the executive director of
disability link in atlanta georgia
and your vice chair of the april board
and i
am your facilitator of the call today we
have
john who is the asl interpreter
i just have brittany as our host and
alicia as
our captioner thank you for joining us
for this workshop very important topic
reaching out and serving the youngest
youth we have i'm going to i knew i'm
going to mess this up
asha jones paige maxwell and miranda
cannot pronounce that last name um as
are talkers today are our presenters
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hi
can you all hear me
i think all right okay i just want to
make sure
i am paige maxwell um i am from abel
south carolina if you couldn't hear the
y'all in my in my twang
um and i am with aja today and
we're gonna chat through um reaching and
serving our youngest youth
um uh and and we'll talk about who
exactly that is and
and who we're we're talking about when
we say our youngest youth
um and and a little bit about our
programs and other things so
like i said i'm paige maxwell i'm the
director of our youth transition
programs for
able south carolina and i'm going to let
aja introduce herself
hi everyone my name is aja jones and i'm
an equip leader at able south carolina
[Music]
all right awesome um so like i uh
i said we're going to chat a little bit
through our youth programs and and who
we're already serving and
highlight um in particular some lessons
that we've learned
from serving uh elementary school
students um
and as well as some success stories from
that and kind of where we came up with
this
this concept of talking about our
youngest youth and why it's so important
um aj is going to really dive into the
importance um
and and really kind of that aisle and
that still perspective of serving our
our younger youth um and and we're gonna
try and intertwine all of this with some
personal experiences um because we feel
like that always makes things
a little more interesting and a little
more
tangible um so goals for our session are
to learn from our mistakes um i think
it's really important to share out
our experiences with one another i
i'm sure you all have joined some of the
connect calls that april hosts i know
the youth coordinator connect is um
extremely valuable for me and and
getting to hear what other youth
coordinators are
up to and what's working and what's not
um
so we're going to start with some wish
we had knowns to share with you all
um goals we're hoping that you will join
us in recognizing that our our youngest
youth
um and serving them through that
independent living philosophy
and through peer mentoring is just as
important as those transition age youth
and everyone in between
and then hopefully walking away with
some ideas of how you can maybe start
this
how you can improve programs if you're
already serving these youth
um just kind of starting as a few
starting points
all right so i'm going to lay out the
the foundations of kind of what we're
already up to
and and who we are serving and and how
how
how it's going um so i've got an image
on the screen
of the state of south carolina and it's
divided up into our counties just so you
can kind of get an idea of
where we are and what we're coming from
and who we're serving um so there are 46
counties
in the state of south carolina and able
south carolina serves 23.
there are three centers in total
in our state i know that's on the
smaller side compared to some other
states
so we've got two sister sills
accessibility and walton
options and together they serve
16 of those remaining counties
and so that leaves nine kind of unserved
counties but thankfully through other
programming and contracting that we do
we get to serve those counties as we can
um so we have served in this past fiscal
year um 1
675 youth in that
0 to 29 age range um
and i i'm very proud of this number
because i i think it's so important and
i know we're serving more and more
every day and i think we can all agree
that serving youth
and catching them young and and really
building them up is
is really important and we serve them
through a number of ways
um through our our independent living
skills so that one-on-one
through a lot of our pre-at services
that i'll talk through
in just a moment um some some peer
mentoring through the equip
program that asha will touch on a little
bit
um and then through some other trainings
and and things of that nature but
um i really want to share this this
number because even though
it's it's so big and i'm so excited
about it i think a majority of
of those that we serve in this zero to
29 are really that transition age so
this
uh pre-ets that 13 to 21 and then
um kind of beyond that that 22 to 29.
um so we're missing a huge chunk of that
very
big age range um and so uh when we
looked at this we were kind of like we
need
we need to do more um so that was kind
of where we got started
um so i'm gonna try and be brief because
i i know um this is kind of boring stuff
but the nuts and bolts are helpful so um
like i said we're serving you through
pre-employment transition services like
a lot of other sales are i know i'm
preaching to the choir here
our state vocational rehabilitation and
commission for the blind are separate
um which i know is is different from
state to state
um so they work together to contract us
and the other sills in the state
um to do those those classic priets
curriculum and trainings
that we know are so important and then
our
department of education the office of
special education services
um contracts us as well to do
pre-ex-related things but it's a little
bit broader so
i listed the curriculum that we do under
our priets
um with vr but beyond that we'll do some
healthy relationships disability pride
disability history
teachers will request all sorts of
random things that they'd like us to see
um so that's that's how we're serving a
large majority of
of that youth number that i shared
and then ylf our youth leadership forum
we do this with our other sister stills
in the state and our dd council funds
this
um and and i know a lot of other states
have ylefs
um so i think that this is a really
another great way that we're serving
youth
um and we're recognizing um that it's
that older age range those youth that
are transitioning
um out of high school and into college
and that's important
um and then i'm gonna let aja chat
through our
equip program and what that looks like
um paige this is kim gibson
and i have a question that um you may be
able to answer
okay is the youth age defined state by
state
in allah ohio the youth age ends at 24.
just curious and that comes from angie
burton
yeah i i think maybe state by state
i know um for us when we were thinking
youth
our pti gave us that number that zero
through 29
and then um and then that priets
is that age range that 13 to 21 through
the wioa so
um i feel like it's a pretty broad term
i think in general under 30 is safe
but hopefully that answers their
question
hi i'm going to talk a bit about equip
so equip
is um funded by the
developmental disabilities council
it has several different functions so
um equip has monthly hangouts
um and these are both in um generally
these are
online and in person right now these are
the pandemic it's only online and they
take place
at the greenville and columbia offices
at able south carolina
um
and what happens here is there's
generally different topics
the youth get to choose the topic
suggests
the topics and the equip leaders will
um create um
a hangout or it's like an informal
lesson
and discussion about that specific topic
there's also a week-long summer series
it's a leadership summer series and you
learn about
things like disability rights
self-advocacy
leadership and independent living skills
and it's over the course of a week and
they learn from facilitators and they
learn from each other
um it's very similar to yls except it
is only during the day rather than ylf
which is um
day and night uh then there is
the one-on-one peer mentoring um
and this is where equip leaders interact
with consumers and they provide
one-on-one support and they share from
their uh
learned experiences um and this is
generally
an informal kind of support working with
youth on their
goals um and it's uh again self-directed
you know the goals that they use
themselves choose um
another thing about equip is uh that an
important aspect of it is the young
adult leaders on
able sc staff so um
equip is um
equip is um in a large part
run by uh youth that are in the same
age range that uh we serve um the equip
age range is
from uh 13 to 28
um and these leaders
have different responsibilities they you
know facilitate the monthly hangouts
they uh facilitate lessons at the summer
series then they go into schools with
youth independent living specialists and
they also provide that one-on-one
peer mentoring
i'm going to jump in really quick too
and and say that this program is really
neat because it's essentially
run by young adults
with disabilities within able so it's
almost like a smaller
youth sill within our sill um so
pretty exciting
i can put my camera back on um
so when we were looking at our trends
and the youth that we were serving
we we noticed that we were missing kind
of that
um younger um middle school
before that priyat's age of 13
and and really um below that so
elementary school and so we applied for
um
with one of our smaller regional united
ways
um a grant that we had titled equip for
future success and
the original intent was to bring in our
equip leaders to lead some sessions in
um elementary schools and they at the
time
um there the request for proposals that
they put out
a lot of them were career and job
focused
and so we thought that we could take
this on and so we did
six kind of preset classroom visits uh
about job and career awareness with
upper elementary
and we thought that was a little bit
more appropriate so third through fifth
grade
um and uh our equip leaders would go
into the classrooms with some of our um
youth independent living specialists so
younger
staff members with disabilities and talk
about all sorts of things related to job
and career awareness they talked about
how hobbies translate into jobs
the concept of job versus career which
was really difficult
for elementary age so that was a lesson
learned that maybe job and career
awareness is not the most
exciting and tangible uh material
for elementary school students to learn
um but we did find success in bringing
uh our young adult
um leaders and our young staff into the
classroom
um and especially if there was a visible
disability or really talking about
disability
openly and so that that peer modeling
and peer mentoring was really really
important we got lots of positive
feedback from teachers and school
administrators and students were
definitely engaged and asking lots of
questions
and being really excited to identify
themselves and so that's always a cool
aha moment to watch
um and so we tried to incorporate a lot
of our other staff members to come in
and and speak about their
their first ever job experiences or um
what that process was like
and setting goals to have jobs and
careers
um so we overall found this
pretty successful um what we did
learn was that getting in elementary
schools is incredibly difficult
they have a lot of things going on
there's a lot of
really fun things that come to
elementary schools like i feel like
firemen bring their big trucks and
there's just a lot of exciting things
that that young kids want to do
and so um they get packed out in their
schedule
so connecting with our elementary
schools and our admin
early was something that we learned
so if you're if you're looking to head
into elementary schools i highly suggest
that um
catching admin in the summer i think is
really really important
and helpful um and and
the idea of um disability awareness and
um and career focused uh
concepts were not on the top of teachers
radars um so they were definitely
looking at
programs that support you know um
reading and
and math and some of those those um
those core competencies that students
are really focused on in elementary
school and
and and so it was a little bit of a
harder sell
um so i think content wise uh making
sure that it's something that your
elementary school
teachers and ad administrators are
really really interested in and i'm
going to talk a little bit about another
program that we did that we pivoted um
from learning on this
job and career awareness as not being
the most accessible and interesting
for um the youth and the teachers
um and then a lot of what we learned too
is that we have to have a lot of
personal contact with elementary school
teachers and really like
putting a lot into those um
relationships to get ourselves in the
door and to get us
open and um allow us uh to come in and
and trust us
um something else that we learned is
that a lot of these um
classes uh there are self-contained
classes in
in south carolina but um uh
some of the students we saw were were
resource students that were in their
pull-out resource
time um but a lot of the classes we were
invited into
were the general education settings so
we got to serve
um an inclusive setting for students
with and without disabilities which made
some of the programming more powerful
and really open and talking about that
and so we really love that aspect i feel
like when you head into
um middle schools and high schools with
priets you're already
kind of ruling that option out and so
this was something that we were really
excited about
um so this funding unfortunately um
ended but it was a great pilot for a
couple of years for us to really learn
what worked and what didn't
um and so from there
our department of education the office
of special education services reached
out to us
in march when everyone went home and and
they were looking for a lot of resources
and and support
for their teachers and for their
students and families
and a big topic that kept coming up with
social emotional
learning um and especially for our
younger students and
and so they kind of threw out would you
be up for this is this something you can
provide and we said absolutely
and um and so this kind of allowed us to
continue
um to work with elementary school
students in a different capacity um
obviously but we were very very excited
about this and so
um we utilized um
a pretty uh well-known and researched
um curriculum sanford harmony and we
kind of
pulled from their their their main
topics and some of their activities
and looked at um some of their models
for learning and
and um twisted it into our own but they
were definitely
our our starting point um and so the
topics they had for social emotional
learning for elementary school students
were diversity
inclusion community peer relationships
and problem solving um which i feel like
are pre-eps topics
um and just general topics that everyone
needs to be discussing and understanding
and
um so we we ended up
taking these topics creating a website
um and i have all the links in here and
i'll make sure that this updated
powerpoint is sent out to everyone
um through through our april people but
um
what we did was we had it was just a
google site that we utilized and we had
a lesson for kindergarten and first
grade and
it was one of our staff members and um
and some
animation with a powerpoint and some
other things and they talked through
um the first concept was diversity so
they talked through what diversity was
and it was interactive and youth could
follow along and then
there was an activity video and it was
um someone explaining what
what an activity was um to kind of test
and learn those concepts and put those
concepts in their practice
and then there was a sheet of all these
extra activities that they could do at
home with family and friends and
neighbors
um and and so we did this for each
kind of grade chunk so kindergarten
first second third fourth and fifth
um and and that worked really great and
we got a lot of positive feedback from
that and um
we're excited to continue doing this um
and department of ed has reached out and
said we want to do more
and when you can go back into classrooms
we want you to do this in classrooms so
this is really kind of blossomed into
a far better thing than job awareness
not that that's not beneficial but
we're really excited about this um and
then this also included some mindfulness
in yoga so we were able to incorporate
some of our other staff's
um uh expertise on that and and
and this was also really positive so um
and and there was a website that had
activities and videos similar
um so all of that's still up and
available if you want to check it out or
have questions
um for me about it kim was there a
question
i'm trying to get catch in between your
breasts there
sorry different questions this came up
kind of related in this area so there's
four that i have for you i'll just do
one and then
um so the first one comes from debbie
from washington that says i'm guessing
south carolina is using il part b for
youth outside of the
wioa age range
yes um and then united way
um funding served some of that now um
department of ed
is is doing some of that and then we
partner with our
our pti which is perfect because i have
that on the next slide thank you for
that
transition so um yeah uh partnering with
our
our uh family connection of south
carolina allows us to serve um
some of some of these students as well
um
and there's and there's uh multiple
other funding streams and i'm happy to
kind of dive through that um
and i and i know i'm missing some i'm
positive that i am because i'm not the
the numbers person um uh and then
equip is a part of that too so um
grace was originally going to present
with us and she's had some medical
things that have kept her
at bay um and so i uh she's got a really
wonderful success story that i wanted to
share of her working with
an elementary age student so she's a
nine-year-old
um and i interrupt you because there is
a question
specific that's really important
to my silk is equip an acronym
if so what does it stand for as far as
this topic goes
um no it is not um it is just the name
of the the grant and the um programming
that we do
um so it is it is just a name
um i hope that helps um
so our um our equip
leaders so those young adult leaders on
staff
um provide peer mentoring and grace had
a really wonderful opportunity
um as a youth was really struggling
um with the switch to to virtual and
being at home
and not really understanding the virus
and um some behaviors were coming out
and mom was also getting frustrated
and so um they ended up on our doorstep
and and grace took on this peer
mentoring relationship and
and actually really mentored not only
this young adult through this process
but also
mom and and kind of was an in-between
for them and sharing
um grace's personal experiences that
young adults um
experiences and and then mom and kind of
being
almost like a translator is how i
picture it
um but that ended up being a really
positive relationship that we've
continued to grow
um and that i think is really important
and it just shows um
you know connecting with youth at a
younger age is is just so beneficial
not only for that youth but for their
family um kind of that whole picture
um and then so we do a lot of that
through our equip funding that
peer mentoring really kind of informal
or as formal as that that youth and the
family want to pursue
and then some independent living skill
work
as consumers um and we do that a lot
more with our our pti funding
um asha i'm gonna pass it over to
you
hi everyone this is ozza and i'm here
and i'm going to continue
having some echoing going on um
and i'm going to continue talking about
uh the peer mentoring and independent
living skills
um i also want to make a point um
about equip we used to have this t-shirt
um talking about being equipped it's
kind of like equipping youth with
disabilities with the skills that they
need to
lead self-advocate and achieve their
goals
um
could someone go to the previous slide
for me
all right thank you um
so i'm going to share some experiences
i've had with
middle school peer mentoring um so again
i work on
less specific goals um so for example
i've worked with youth on things like
conversation skills by just having
conversation and bringing people into
conversations
and are helping you find ways to pursue
their interests
um this can also happen in group
settings like summer series and equip
hangouts
and again as one or as one-on-one peer
mentoring
all right next slide please rojo this is
kim
um again we had a question and since you
just ran over it
what does the acronym pti stand for
i think i'm going to let paige handle
that one
parent training and information
thank you
all right um so now the who
and the why um so who are we talking
about when we say youngest youth and
why do we need to serve them alright
next slide
so we're talking about elementary school
students this
is grades kindergarten through fifth
grade
um and generally ages 5 through 11
as well as middle schoolers grades six
through eight
um generally and ages 12 through
um sorry ages 12 through
um so some of us see middle schoolers
more often than others
um and then some of us and a lot of
times we don't get to
work with the younger middle schoolers
um paige did you have something to add
to this slide
no you're good to keep going asha
awesome
next slide please all right so why there
are three main topics we discuss when
creating this presentation
um that we really feel point to the
importance of serving
young people with disabilities from a
peer-based approach
and from the approach of independent
living philosophy
they are disability awareness
self-directed services and habits and
learned behaviors
next slide please
all right um so disability awareness
um acknowledging and understanding what
i mean by this is acknowledging and
understanding that you
are an individual with a disability for
our younger youth this means
understanding what a disability is
may include awareness and education
around their specific disability
um and what their disability means to
them and also includes
um may include awareness about other
people with disabilities around you a
lot of times you throw in classrooms
with other youth with disabilities and
kind of
they're scanning awareness that you know
they share something in common with
these youth
that might be why that in a specific
classroom
um and building this awareness early
makes it easier for a youth to be able
to label verbalize and express their
needs
or when they feel like their needs
aren't being met so
um and so this is helping them develop
that self-advocacy um
and um another thing that's important
when it comes to disability awareness is
building personal disability pride um
so the earlier that you it's better for
you to understand early
that disability is a part of life and
not a negative thing to be
hidden um and it's not shameful
to be a person with a disability um
it builds resiliency so youth get an
opportunity to educate their peers
earlier um about what it means to be a
person with a disability and they can't
teach their peers if they're not aware
themselves
um it also supports self-awareness and
self-advocacy skills
so we know that self-awareness and
self-determination are key factors in
post-school outcomes so we really
shouldn't be waiting till middle school
and high school uh to start teaching
this
um self awareness and to start teach uh
this self-determination skills um
and so an example i have with this is um
i attended a um
a event at a middle school um
and i had been in a presentation earlier
um
that day in the auditorium and i shared
um a bit about myself and what i did at
able and what i was currently doing
um and i
mentioned in the presentation that um
what my disabilities were um
and later while i was helping with an
outdoor activity
this year youth ran up to me i was very
excited to share
that they had one of the same
disabilities i had
um and was just
kind of really exhibiting some
disability pride
um and i think that once you hear about
disability in a positive way
um they're they're shy they're excited
to share that they are
people with disabilities especially when
they get to hear
that positive information from other
people with disabilities
next slide
okay um so the next
point i want to cover are self-directed
services um at the age that we're
speaking of right now
um these are general i generally
individualize education plans um so ieps
are often the first formalized services
that youth get to navigate
um themselves or have input in uh but a
lot of the times it's not until high
school that we think to include youth or
give them
that permission uh to start
giving their input in these meetings
so it's really important that in with
individualized education plans
you start participating in these early
and that they have meaningful engagement
um so understanding why they're
in that meeting and what the meeting's
about um
and it's important that uh
so youngest you can start engaging
in ieps early and often and it leads to
a better understanding of disabilities
a better understanding of services and a
better understanding of accommodations
um and any and all participation at a
young age
will translate into more meaningful
engagement as youth get older
um including buy-in to their educational
and vocational goals
so um that brings me to the third point
of understanding long-term
goals and impacts um
right now in south carolina there is no
alternate pathway
to a high school diploma um there's
essentially one way to get a high school
diploma
and that is and that means being put in
a non-diploma track
means not earning your diploma uh we
have to take a certain amount of certain
certain classes to get a high school
diploma um and you have the right to
choose and know for themselves
i have been in many situations with
youth where
uh they're in high school they're just
starting to engage in their
um ieps and they find out that they're
not
in a diploma track and that makes the
road ahead of them if they decide that
they definitely want to get a diploma
very difficult
rather than if they had been able to
make that choice themselves earlier on
ieps also connect to understanding
service navigation
um so this is great practice for
navigating other services that people
with disabilities may utilize
and they get to also learn what
accommodations work for them
it's also a safe environment to catch
and redirect self-advocacy skills
to be the most effective um
so it's um
so youth get to try out different
advocacy tools
and approaches to find how they best
advocate for themselves
and they get the practice expressing
what they need um and this is a skill
that they're going to need throughout
their entire lives while navigating
services
applying for jobs etc this is a really
important skill for
all youth but especially youth with
disabilities
i remember personally when i was younger
attending a meeting about accommodations
with my teachers and
i had no idea what was going on i didn't
know what accommodation was i didn't
know i had a disability
and quite frankly i thought it was some
sort of punishment that i was in the
meeting in the first place
um so uh it's really important to start
you know
having an understanding of what these
meetings are
so that youth are able to better
advocate for themselves
later on rather than trying to play
catch-up later
next slide please
um the third point that we made
sorry i said third point before but this
is like the third major point
uh that we wanted to make with this was
uh habit and learned behavior
um so it's easier to teach good habits
rather than
than to break bad ones when we connect
to youth at younger
ages as peers and
introducing that independent living
philosophy we can create
good habits both with the youth and with
their families
rather than breaking bad habits that
have formed when we finally engage with
them
at 15 years of age and beyond
um this kind of eases that burden of
having to
unlearn um any detrimental
um habits uh that were developed earlier
um uh
and just learning how to do things in a
more positive way the first time
um and it also helps address
disparities and gaps and opportunities
that
um that
youth may with disabilities
face um in comparison to youth without
disabilities
um it helps them better develop their
decision-making skills
um so i want to give an example of what
i mean by that um
so for me uh something that i had
struggled with
as a youth was picking out the right
clothes to wear
i had a hard time understanding that the
weather
correlated to the clothes that i should
wear and for a very long time
my mother would simply pick out my
clothes for me therefore i was not
learning the skill
of how to dress myself um
eventually um as i got older and
uh i hadn't learned the skill i my
mother realized that
we would have to find just a different
way to teach this to me and so we
developed something where i would call
into like this
automatic phone messenger i'm not
expecting so what they call it but it
would give me
the time the temperature for the day
and the date and based off of that
temperature we developed um
a method of okay this number means that
i should wear long sleeves
this number means that it's okay for me
to wear short sleeves this number means
that i
should probably wear a sweater um and
that way
i was able to learn how to pick out my
own clothes and so i was able to
i was able to do something that my peers
without disabilities were doing
um and i was able to make decision make
better my decision making skills by
being able to
uh choose what it is that i would like
to wear and what was appropriate for me
to wear
um based on the weather um
and i want to revisit the gaps and
opportunities youth with disabilities
are often presented with less
opportunities for learning and growth
and if we start showing those
possibilities and offering opportunities
early they will continue to seek out new
opportunities despite the barriers that
they have to face
all right next slide
uh does anyone have any questions for us
i'm gonna if it's okay with you aja i'm
gonna jump back real quick and then
we'll take questions
um just to chat through uh as i was
listening aj and i have been talking
through these three points a lot in the
past couple weeks and i think
um a lot of us can agree and i know
we're preaching to the choir with
with why these things are so important
but i think these ones kept coming up
because we see them as
as as almost these learned barriers that
that are older youth with disabilities
that we're serving and i say older
they're all still young but
um we're seeing that there's
if they aren't aware of their disability
and they're not identifying then it's a
lot harder to get them
to to know their accommodations um if
they haven't ever been involved in their
iep process it's harder for them to know
their accommodations and what they need
and then that that habits and learned
behavior how many youth have we seen
that have just never been given an
opportunity for some type of decision
making or they've learned that that
mom will always tie their shoes and so
they they they didn't feel like they
needed to learn that skill
um so that's just i wanted to like paint
the picture of where aj and i were kind
of plucking these out and
and why we were turning them over so
much is that we just feel like
these are the things that when we're
talking about serving youth
that are older and we're like man if we
had gotten to them
a little bit younger and shared these
things a little bit younger like we
might not
be having these conversations so late in
life where we're having a change of
stigma that's so much harder
than if we had open and honest
conversations a lot younger
um so just wanted to share that all
right
bring on the questions
okay this is kim again so we have
several
so coming from stevie how do you
accomplish an inclusive group in the
classroom
um so i the job and career awareness was
was fairly easy with with our our young
adults um because we weren't talking
about disability specifically but we
were talking a little bit more about
what a job is what a career is and it
was a person with a disability leading
that session and they
they threw that out there they talked
about it um but it wasn't that that main
focus point
um and as we got to know the youth a
little bit because we did it over six
um you know 30 to 45 minute sessions so
we got to know them
um so it it made things a little bit
easier
um we tried to do um fun
activities that were interactive with
multiple modes
of of processing you know pictures
things that you could manipulate
drawing this is when we didn't have to
worry about um
sharing materials as much as we do now
um but i think it just it happened
naturally
and i think uh that elementary school
setting really opens up
to to making that process a little bit
easier
um because they're using so many of
those tools already
the classroom is so visual and so um
easy to navigate and move around and i
feel like teachers are utilizing that a
lot
as we head into these social emotional
concepts so that
community diversity inclusion um
um peer relationships and problem
solving i feel like
uh the an inclusive classroom is the
perfect audience for that
um because because then we're really
able to talk about
what inclusion looks like and diversity
in our community
of our classroom and our community as a
whole what that looks like
um so i hope that answered that question
okay this is kim again from jamie lou
karen i think this is great
how do you get elementary school
students to understand the topics of
disability history awareness
do the youth do this how often do they
meet
um so like i said we um have really done
a lot more of that disability awareness
and the history with our middle school
and really our high school students um i
have
multiple versions of a disability rights
timeline
um there's so many events and and
figures and moments in history that are
so so important
um so i have a harder and harder time of
of trying to narrow down some of those
key things
um something that i think works really
great is looking at some of the
textbooks and the history lessons that
students are already learning
and putting some events side by side so
brown versus board of education is one
um that they know and understand and are
learning and
um putting you know the idea next to
that and then looking at the
timeline gap between you know that's a
20-year difference why was that
and um and so relating it to some of the
concepts so that that they're already
learning
um and i think that lends itself more to
some of those upper elementary
um and then i also find that uh
our equip leaders are young adult
leaders um like asha and
and her other fellow staff are are
the best ones to lead this um because
they are
a little bit more relatable um to to the
young
students there and they're a little bit
more excited to to chat with someone
young and exciting that's not quite a
teacher
i have some a point to add to them
yeah so um something that came to mind
uh when
i heard that question is like uh
something i've done with elementary
school age
youth is uh we pretend that we're going
to a disability pride parade
um and so they make their signs and um
we explain like what's something you're
proud of and then here's what people
with this
this is what the disability community
has to be proud of and then you can
teach
like before this people didn't have
these people with disabilities didn't
have before the ada people with
disabilities didn't have these rights
how would you feel if you if you know
and you just kind of
um make it very
take it sometimes take it to an
individual level so they understand how
certain things that happen in history
affect them and also have
like an activity to go along with it
thank you asha this is kim again and so
the next question comes from sydney and
i'm going to follow up with steven's
question because they
both kind of go into each other so
sydney were
were you in inclusive classes or did all
the students in the classroom have
disabilities and stephen asked what's
the youngest
age that you the youngest age of
participants that you work with in your
program
sure so it was a mix of both depending
on which school we were going to so some
schools
um we saw um self-contained students
that were in that same classroom all day
long and they have ieps
um we saw some students that were in
their resource class so it was the time
that they were being pulled out for some
of those
iep services um with other peers with
disabilities
um and then we went into one or two
general education classrooms
um during uh uh some type of period
where they could have
guests come in and we weren't disrupting
um all of their learning and we were
checking off some of their their boxes
um and those teachers
um were super awesome and we enjoyed
them and then we really
um our youngest ones were third grade um
and we've done some smaller
presentations um i i have a co-worker
that went to
an um a preschool class um one time
uh to chat and that was really great um
but we're not doing it consistently
um and with consistent programs so
programming so i'm hoping with this
social emotional
and kind of diving in um that uh
with this newer funding that we've got
that we can really kind of target
all that that all um excuse me all
elementary age so that kindergarten
through fifth grade but for the most
part right now it's been third through
fifth
okay great so the next question this is
cam again
um comes from david a non-diploma track
how does that not violate the ada
um so we have um
and i know uh every state does does
different things
but um so we've got our our typical high
school diploma
and there are very few ways um to get
that diploma there's um you know a
strict number of carnegie credits and
and all of that
um and there are you know a few classes
that you can
sub out or um but it's very limited in
its scope and i know that there are some
other states um
west virginia comes to mind where
there's there's quite a few
alternatives and um things that you that
count or have the same weight um so the
the course load looks a lot different um
we do
have a it's a newer statewide
credential and only students with
disabilities
can earn this credential and it has some
carnegie credits
it has a required number of work-based
learning hours that students are having
to take there's employability classes
um that have that cover certain content
and then
um and so there's work being done to to
around
um educating employers since it's a
newer um
track uh to take as to what
uh if a student puts that on a resume
what does that mean
um obviously there are flaws in that um
that process that um we are are working
to change
um uh with our uh partners at department
of ed
um and then there's the third option
which is purely a
certificate of attendance so
it's i encourage you if you're not
familiar with it
within your state to really check and
see see what um state diplomas look like
and what alternative diplomas look like
it's
very um i don't know if interesting is
the right word but um yeah there's a lot
there's a lot out there um if you're not
entrenched in the world
um you don't really realize it's
happening okay the next question
um we have about five more minutes to be
able to answer a few more
so janet george asks i have a student
who completely refuses to admit
he has a disability even though it is a
packing as education
how do you work with these students so
they gain disability awareness and
disability pride
um and that's that point of of
it's almost feels like a barrier for
that student that they if
they could just like comprehend it that
then we can move forward with
with all the things that they do want to
accomplish um
i i'm going to let aja speak a little
bit on this one
as well because a lot of my go-tos i
share about my disability in a classroom
um but i am only relatable to so many
students
um so i always try and bring our young
adult leaders
um with with me um to
to share their experiences because they
are younger and they're
um they're a little bit more of a peer
than myself
um to really kind of share their journey
and their
um their opinions and um it's a slow
process uh but i i honestly feel like
that
that peer portion is just so
important um and really seeing yourself
um for youth seeing
so many different people with different
disabilities and then obviously their
own disability
um and just seeing it over and over
again
and knowing that that person is a part
of their community and there to support
um slowly opens up and i think there are
some students that
i don't know if if we can ever kind of
um turn that
that leaf for them um which breaks my
heart um
but it it is certainly a challenge and
that's kind of where we
we came to this idea of man if we could
be serving these youth
a little bit younger asha do you want to
add anything
uh yes so uh it's something that's very
hard to
uh necessarily convince them within
one meeting um it usually
um progress
can be made talk to a youth for a longer
period of time
i think it's really important um a lot
of times that it comes from a peer
i find that again sharing
that i am their peer i am a person with
a disability
um and
kind of being positive about it and
sometimes even being kind of
even if it's like neutral about it like
yeah i have a disability
um and i also
um et cetera so
um i think a lot of times
youth sometimes at home they're being
told that they don't have a disability
either or they're being uh confronted
with the message that you know this is a
bad thing or they're being made fun of
for being in the class that they're in
so there's a lot of complicating factors
um but
i definitely think um starting early
that's why one reason starting early is
critical
and also just kind of presenting
disability
and a positive and not like a false
theory positive but like in a
positive and sometimes even neutral can
be helped really helpful too
way okay this is kim
and this will be kind of the last
question um
i believe that you answered this
question so i'm going to combine it so
you can say yes or no
sydney wanted to make sure that you were
in inclusion classes or did all the
students in the classroom have
disabilities
can ask what connections do you make
with the parents to reinforce what
you're teaching
and the a similar question that
came out of that was how from an
anonymous attendee how do you manage
pushback from parents that are not on
board with their children
child to be independent um
yes so uh some of uh those classrooms
were
inclusive being gen ed students students
without disabilities and students with
disabilities and then some of them were
specific for just students with
disabilities so um
a little bit of this um
remind me that that second question
kim sorry
okay the the next two kind of
went hand in hand it says how do you
manage pushback from parents that are
not on board with their child learning
to be
independent and then that kind of goes
how do you what connections do you make
with the parents to reinforce what
you're teaching
yes yes um thank you um
so um i mentioned before we
partner with our um uh
parent and information train uh parent
parent training and information center
are pti
um which is family connection of south
carolina so we get a lot of referrals
um from them and they are a parent-run
organization um so uh some partnership
there
has been helpful when they see parents
that um
are are really struggling and um so
we've done a lot of
referrals and making sure that we're
connecting that way
there are um some parents
with disabilities on our staff um and i
think that that
um is a really cool role that sometimes
we try and make sure that those
those staff members are reaching out and
connecting and
um kind of showing that like hey
your your child might be a parent one
day and like
you know here here are some some growth
points and i also understand because i
am a parent and here's what i know as a
parent
um uh which i think is you know just
as many peer avenues as you can put in
there i think are really really
important um and then so
a lot of that connection is really those
yeast that we work with one-on-one
so um not as much as those youth that we
see in those group classroom settings
um we're kind of um communicating with
parents through teachers so teachers are
sending home
notices and permissions and all of that
for us to come
so our direct communication with parents
is is not um
there when we're talking about classroom
visits um
we have created some webinars and
resources that we share and make sure
that parents know that we're a resource
and that they can connect with us
um uh but for
some of these more um these youth that
we are connecting with one-on-one
um their their parents are sometimes the
ones that bring us
uh bring them to us and so we're able to
kind of facilitate that
um from the get-go grace's story comes
to mind
for me um with this parent that was kind
of on their wits end and
and this youth that was also on a wit's
end and and
and she was kind of able to balance in
between
um we uh try and
separate out parents and youth too
and then also bring them together um
especially if there's
if there's some friction there um
obviously we want to serve the youth if
they're ready to be independent we will
we will find ways to do that um whether
a parent is on board or not
hopefully we can get the parent on board
with that um but i think it's really
it's kind of nuanced on on what that
that case looks like and what that
parent looks like
um but a lot of times we end up pulling
in staff members that can relate
or have similar experiences so that we
can kind of make sure everyone feels
supported
this is kim and um there's one last
question and i know that some people
may exit because we're running really
close on time
um so don't forget your evaluations
so we have a live question if the host
can let's
very last question and then we'll sum it
up
hey this is britney the person who had
their hand raised
actually left so thank you with the
questions no longer there
okay that
that's you guys can sum it up and again
please do your evaluations this is kim
[Music]
thank you um and and so i've put on the
screen
um aja and i's contact information
um and it's in included in the
powerpoint which i believe
um is available to you all but please
feel free to reach out to us
um i'm happy to brainstorm through
programming and
ideas for funding and all of that all
day long um it's
it's one of my favorites and um i think
aja has some really valuable information
on
connecting with youth that i i encourage
you to pick her brain about
um but yeah thank you so much for your
time
um i do have an evaluation
link to send y'all if you don't mind
um i'm gonna stop sharing my screen
okay and then i believe i can throw this
in the chat
is that correct
i'm hoping so here we go all right
if you don't mind filling out this for
us as well that would be extremely
helpful
um and thank you all for your time and
your energy and i hope you're enjoying
the conference
um and thank you april for for having us
and um
and thank you aja for presenting with me
and again we're available to chat at any
time thank you so much
you