An Examination of the Impact of Developing Partnerships Between Educators and Advocates to Engage Families of Students With Disabilities

Introduction

Decision-making is the most utilized professional practice in a school building (Kirkland & Bauer, 2016). Within the many teams that exist in a school building, people are making decisions daily. These decisions almost always directly impact the futures of the students. According to Kirkland and Bauer (2016), schools are political environments through which decision-making practices are executed with politically-charged motives. The ways in which decisions are made around students identified with disabilities are particularly important due to the legal and equity implications that can have significant impacts on student s` success. Within the special education department, teams of professionals gather and utilize data to inform decisions on ways to provide support for students. These decisions are derived from meetings arranged by an evaluation team, an instructional team, and an individual education program (IEP) team. The IEP team for each student varies according to student need. Some IEP teams consist of the school psychologist, the special education leader, the special education teacher, related service providers, and the parents. Instead, other students require more extended team members, which may include professionals from outside organizations and special education advocates. These teams, regardless of their unique makeup, work to make decisions for the assigned student’s education, fostering a collaborative partnership with the goal of increasing student academic and social outcomes.

Critical to the functioning of these teams are the levels of engagement of the members of the team. Research exists around the importance of parental engagement in the decision-making processes for students with disabilities. Hayes (2019) explores the idea that, while parents may be aware of their children’ disabilities, they may not have a full understanding of the educational impact that may result from the decisions made for their child. The gap in parental understanding that exists is the basis for the argument that advocacy for students identified as needing special education services is vital to the IEP process. The existing literature assigns the role of advocate to the parents, working toward theories that create alignment between practices to increase parents’ understanding of impact and to support them through the IEP process (Hayes, 2019). Additional research focuses on creating a partnership between the parent and an assigned special education advocate in ensuring the best IEP for students (Kourkoutas et al., 2015; Rodriguez et al., 2019). Ultimately, when there is an intentional focus of advocacy, students with disabilities can thrive in varied situations and exhibit self-guided and motived success.

Various roles must be considered when developing meaningful and active engagement for families of students with disabilities. As parents and students engage with multiple members of the administration and staff at the school level, they are also engaging with advocates, as they seek the best possible outcomes for their children. When these partnerships are meaningful and reliable for all parties involved, especially for families being served, the trust built between them leads to better outcomes for students. Traditionally, the relationship between educators and advocates has been disjointed and adversarial, placing an additional burden on families. Families are often caught in the middle of ongoing disputes, instead of experiencing an amiable partnership that maximizes the expertise, knowledge, and skills of each entity. Consequently in recent years, there has been a push for a more integrated and collaborative approach between schools, families, and advocates. To date, no research has included the advocate–family–school triad. Such research is needed to have a holistic understanding of the advocacy process (Burke et al., 2019).