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The American Bar Association's Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law established the national Mentor Program for: law students with disabilities prospective law students with disabilities, and recent law school graduates with disabilities The Program’s purpose is to give members of these groups the opportunity to learn from an experienced attorney. In a recent study conducted for the ABA, those immediately out of law school cited having a mentor as an important driving factor of satisfaction with their career. Career satisfaction, however, is just one benefit of having a mentor-mentee relationship. Practitioners, students, and academics have all praised the benefits of a mentor program for those with disabilities, namely the availability of advice, guidance, and support.  

The American Bar Association's Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law established the national Mentor Program for: law students with disabilities prospective law students with disabilities, and recent law school graduates with disabilities The Program’s purpose is to give members of these groups the opportunity to learn from an experienced attorney. In a recent study conducted for the ABA, those immediately out of law school cited having a mentor as an important driving factor of satisfaction with their career. Career satisfaction, however, is just one benefit of having a mentor-mentee relationship. Practitioners, students, and academics have all praised the benefits of a mentor program for those with disabilities, namely the availability of advice, guidance, and support.  

The nation’s top psychiatrist is calling on others in the profession to “transform what has become a culture of influence” surrounding financial relationships between physicians and drug companies. In a commentary in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel, tackles head-on the perception that psychiatrists are tainted by their relationships with pharmaceutical manufacturers.

When: Thursday, February 10th, 2011 Where: Southern Oklahoma Technology Center Ardmore Campus 2610 Sam Noble Parkway Ardmore, OK 73401 Registration: For more information and to register by mail Click Here To register online Click Here

Click here for registration materials What: It’s time to register for the 14th Annual Montana Educator Forum. The forum is an outstanding opportunity for Montana educators and leaders to come together to discuss important issues affecting classrooms and schools in Montana. Sponsored by the Montana Professional Teaching Foundation, MEA-MFT, School Administrators of Montana (SAM), and the State Certification Standards and Practices Advisory Council (CSPAC), the forum is intended to initiate engaging and important conversations between Montana educators and policymakers. Here is what one forum attendee said about the annual forum: “I always leave energized, excited, and enthusiastic about my year.” This year’s forum theme is “Building Relationships That Work.” Strong partnerships between schools and communities and between teachers, administrators, and students are essential for our students’ success. The 2011 Montana Educator Forum will showcase a few of the many examples of key relationships that Montana school districts are engaged in that are creating a bridge to student success. Registration materials are available at: http://www.mea-mft.org/our_foundation/programs/montana_educator_forum.aspx When: September 30, 2011 Where: Red Lion Colonial Inn Helena, MT

NEW YORK -- Rebuffing an intensive lobbying campaign, a task force of the American Psychiatric Association has decided not to list the disputed concept of parental alienation in the updated edition of its catalog of mental disorders. The term conveys how a child's relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other parent, and there's broad agreement that it sometimes occurs in the context of divorces and child-custody disputes. However, an acrimonious debate has raged for years over whether the phenomenon should be formally classified as a mental health disorder by the psychiatric association as it updates its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the first time since 1994.

Students' ability to learn depends not just on the quality of their textbooks and teachers, but also on the comfort and safety they feel at school and the strength of their relationships with adults and peers there.

A new survey tool that school districts and parent-teacher organizations can use to measure the quality of parent-school relationships has been created by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and released by SurveyMonkey, a Palo Alto, Calif., company, for widespread use by schools, districts, and parent groups. The 71-item "question bank" covers seven areas of family engagement—from how much help students receive at home to how confident parents are in supporting their child's schooling. Districts can adapt the survey to suit their individual needs, and parents responding to it can do so online or on paper.

College remains a hurdle for many with disabilities. Now a new study offers insight on what separates individuals with special needs who are ultimately successful in higher education from those who are not. In interviews with recent graduates with disabilities, researchers found that students who earned degrees shared the ability to self-advocate and persevere. They also had good insight into their abilities and limitations and often cited a strong relationship with at least one faculty or staff member on campus.

The concerns I hear from parents are mostly about placement, goals, and least restrictive environment (LRE). Yet, when I review a child's most recent Individualized Education Plan (IEP), there is little helpful information under the Present Levels of Academic Performance and Functional Performance section. The few lines that are written in the Present Levels are not helpful to the IEP Team. Often, I can find no relationship at all between the "present levels" and the "needs" and the "goals." Mark Kamleiter, Florida parent attorney (St. Petersburg) says that parents and advocates often focus only on the "last pages" of the IEP. That is what I see, too. Most of the IEPs I review have, at most, three to four lines of Present Levels. (Rarely, do they have Functional Performance levels). Remember, schools still tell parents, "We do not have to do that because it is not related to academics." Parents have to learn now to design accurate and up-to-date present levels. Advocates have to learn how to do this to and teach parents how to do this. It is one of the easiest things for parents to do because they know their child best. Until the Present Levels are accurate, parents will never be able to get the program, placement, or education their child needs.

The Journal of Adolescent Health released a special issue focusing for the first time on the relationship between bullying and suicide.  The special issue was assembled by an expert panel brought together by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The panel looked at the latest research that examined youth involvement in bullying as a victim, perpetrator, or both and found them to be highly associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors.  The panel also examined the association of youth involved in bullying who experience suicide-related behaviors and other risk factors for suicide, such as depression, delinquency, physical and sexual abuse, and exposure to violence.

Many stories and events related to people with disabilities never make it into the history books or shared public memories. Familiar concepts and events such as citizenship, work, and wars become more complicated, challenge our assumptions about what counts as history, and transform our connection with each other when viewed from the historical perspective of people with disabilities, America’s largest minority. Knowing these histories deepens understanding of the American experience and reveals how complicated history really is. In addition, when history comes through artifacts, distinct themes emerge—for example, the significance of place, relationships, and technology—that are less apparent when only books and words are used.

Much research probing the link between bullying and mental health has focused on how being bullied contributes to the development of issues like anxiety and depression. But a new study suggests the relationship goes both ways, finding that boys and girls with mental health disorders are three times more likely to be the bully.

For registration and more information click here! (PDF)What:Going Mental Over Math (a.m.)Participants will develop strategies for doing and teaching mental math, learn and apply mental math strategies, as well as plan for classroom implementation of mental math strategies.“Mental math provides both tools for solving problems and filters for evaluating answers. When a student has strong mental math skills, he or she can quickly test different approaches to a problem to determine whether the resulting path will lead toward a viable solution.”(NCTM President, 2005)Model Drawing (aka Bar Modeling) 101 (p.m.)Participants will learn how to adapt a Singapore approach to meet the needs of your American classroom, practice a strategy that appeals to diverse learners by encouraging students to reach the same answer in different ways,  learn how to develop the critical sense of number and number relationships , and learn how to help your students (and quite possibly you) conquer their fear of word problems.When and Where:February 28, 2012, Great Falls, MTHampton Inn February 29, 2012, Havre, MTFifth Avenue Christian ChurchContact:Region II CSPDPhone: (406) 265-4356 ext. 322

Basic Web Accessibility: Understanding WCAG 2.0 - Webinar - Nov 16, 2011 Click here to register What:If you're tasked with helping ensure your organization produces accessible web content, you've probably heard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). As the most widely used international guidelines on web accessibility, and the basis for many federal and local standards, it's important to understand WCAG. In this webinar, we'll explore the relationship between WCAG 2.0, WCAG 1.0, and Section 508. We'll also discuss how to apply the WCAG 2.0 guidelines to actual web content, and the differences between A, AA, AAA level conformance. Despite all the acronyms and abbreviations, this webinar is intended for people who are new to web accessibility or new to WCAG. Learning Goals: Learn how WCAG 2.0 fits into big picture of web accessibility guidelines and standards Understand what each of the guidelines means in practical terms Leave with a set of online references for achieving conformance When: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 11:00 - 12:00 Mountain Standard Time Contact:If you have any questions about the webinar, please contact Karen Sheehan, ksheehan@cforat.org.