Overview

=Overview=

Voices form the Edge: Accessing and Coordinating Alternative and Ancillary Services for Students with Special Needs

 * Introduction**. The Voices from the Edge Summer/Fall Institute is designed to encourage student inquiry into the diverse theoretical frameworks and common practices found in alternative and ancillary services designed for students with a broad spectrum of special needs. Issues in service delivery and the co-ordination of services between school, divisional, and community-based provisions and programs, especially as they relate to developing communications and liaison, accessing and providing appropriate services, and assessing service outcomes, will be explored. Approaches that promote inclusion for children and youth with disabilities and diversity characteristics will be explored and critiqued.


 * Participants**. The Voices from the Edge Summer/Fall Institute is an interdisciplinary experiment designed to engage both PBDE and Graduate Program students in a shared educational experience and help educators qualify for provincial special education certification. It will bring inclusive special educators, classroom teachers, school administrators, clinicians, divisional and community-based service providers, and others responsible for the welfare of children and youth into a shared professional growth experience. Our goal is to explore the implications of diverse alternative and ancillary services in the teaching, learning, socialization, and personal care and growth of students with special needs, including those with disability and diversity characteristics.


 * Rationale**. Meeting the physical, health, social, vocational, educational, and personal growth needs of students with disabilities and diversity characteristics often requires complex, multidisciplinary, on-going relationships between classroom teachers, inclusive special educators, school administrators, clinicians, parents, students, and a wide variety of government and community partners that provide a wealth of alternative and ancillary services. However, these services may be under-funded, difficult to access, require extensive collaborative planning and inter-agency coordination and cooperation to maintain, and necessitate advocacy, assessment, programming, decision-making, funding and accountability in complicated and sometimes difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, educators, students, and parents often are much less aware of the mandates, missions, resources, and provisions of alternative and ancillary services than practitioners in those services are of the purposes and methods commonly employed in schools. In addition, educators may be unfamiliar with the differing professional values, ethical codes, training, and common practices of the wide range of practitioners in alternative and ancillary services. These factors create challenges for all stakeholders in the inclusive special education enterprise. Consequently, the purpose of the Summer/Fall Institute is to create a forum for exploring how to understand, coordinate, and improve collaborative relationships between home, school, and alternative and ancillary services in the best interests of children and youth with disabilities and diversity characteristics.


 * Community Partners**. A visiting scholar, guest presentations, and student inquiry projects will ensure a "hands-on" dimension to the Summer Institute. Community partners have helped to inform the development and design of the Institute and will contribute to it as presenters and advisors. In this Summer/Fall institute, a variety of education and alternative and ancillary services personnel will present their insights into best practices in working collaboratively with educators. Guest presenters will include: (a) individuals with disabilities, (b) parents/foster parents of students with disabilities, (c) representatives of clinical support services in areas such as psychology, behaviour therapy, social work, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, etc., (d) practitioners from psychiatric, juvenile detention, and other services and facilities for children and youth in crisis, (e) alternative education program teachers, (f) representatives of alternative learning centres for children and youth with specific disabilities, (g) social, cultural, and linguistic advocates and service providers, (h) disability advocacy and services personnel, (i) recreation and youth activity centre personnel, (j) representatives of post-secondary vocational and educational options for students in transition, and (k) researchers investigating topics related to the themes of the Summer Institute.