Adventures in Advocacy / Get To Know Them Before You Need Them

Hello fellow families of children who have CVI and deserve a free and appropriate education (FAPE!),

As you blaze your child’s personal trail in your local school system, I hope it is an easy trail to blaze.

I hope your school has ample educators who have heard of Cortical Visual Impairment. I hope these educators (and support staff) understand how children with CVI are NOT incidental learners (See blog post on Incidental Learning if you are unfamiliar with this term. It’s important.)

I hope your child has access to a Teacher of the Visually Impaired who is a Perkins-Roman CVI Endorsee.

I hope that TVI has a small caseload and can devote the time it takes to train your child’s educational staff and to modify the materials your child needs to have ACCESS to her curriculum and her school environment.

While I’m hoping, let’s just add a Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist (COMS) who is also a Perkins-Roman CVI Endorsee.  And, let’s hope that COMS also has a small caseload of students and ample time to help your child navigate and make sense of her physical environment.

I hope your child’s teacher and support staff have ample time to make and modify materials since your child needs to have ACCESS to learning on a daily basis… like any other child.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that my hopes haven’t been realized yet.

For the sweeping changes in educational policy that need to occur for children with cortical visual impairment to finally have access to learning, parents will need to reach out to legislators at all levels of government.

Talking points:  

• There is a national shortage of teachers of the visually impaired.
• There is a national shortage of Certified Orientation & Mobility Specialists.  (You may have to explain what that is.) 
• There is a national shortage of teachers trained to teach the children with the #1 pediatric visual impairment in America, Cortical Visual Impairment.  (You’ll definitely have to explain this one.)
• For children with Cortical Visual Impairment, vision can improve.  It is absolutely critical that children get diagnosed early and receive early intervention services from providers who understand CVI.
• Many states do not provide vision-specific early intervention for infants and toddlers with vision loss, including Cortical Visual Impairment.
• Our children cannot wait any longer for our education system to catch up to CVI.

Visiting your local school board meeting and asking them about shortages of teachers of the visually impaired and a lack of educators trained to work with children with CVI can get the ball rolling.  It can start an uncomfortable conversation, but it’s a conversation that needs to be started.

It will require sitting through school board meetings, but, as a CVI parent, you have sat through far worse experiences.  (Just a guess. For me, it was Eliza’s “sleep” studies or, more accurately,  “cranky-all night-Mom-wrestling sessions.” ) 

Mark Richert, Director of Public Policy at AFB (American Foundation of the Blind) has a couple of suggestions for parent advocates. 

Find your representatives and reach out to them before you need them.

Some folks don’t know who their local, state, and federal officials are.

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https://openstates.org

This site can help you locate your state representatives.

https://www.govtrack.us

Govtrack will help you locate your federal representatives.

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Open a line of dialogue with the people who work for your local representatives.  They are moms and dads just like us.  They care about children.  They care about their constituents.

Before a big “ask,” it is a good idea to get to know your officials and the people in their offices.

You can can call their local or D.C. offices and ask to speak to the staffer who works on special education issues.  Then, introduce yourself and mention a few talking points, or read from the example below.

An example email:

Dear Sen. Washington, 

I am one of your constituents.  I appreciated ___________________________  (something positive about your representative’s work). 

I wanted to take a moment to reach out to you to tell you that I am the parent of a child with special needs and vision loss.  My daughter has cortical visual impairment, the #1 pediatric visual impairment in America.  

(You can share more of your personal story and include a picture.) 

I wanted you to know that issues surrounding the education of children with special needs and sensory loss are very important to me and my family.  

I hope we can count on your continued support of our children.  

Thank you for your service, 

Thomas Jefferson

Someone from the office will write you back.  Then, you have a contact.  You can direct future issues and questions to this person.  If you are going to be in town, you can request a visit with your representative.  By establishing a relationship, you are laying the foundation to effective future advocacy.

(Sidenote:  You may think it takes a lot of people emailing about a topic to get someone’s attention.  Not so.  When legislators get more than 3 emails or phone calls about one subject they take note.  Every call, every email counts.)

When you are emailing your child’s educational team, cc: your senator, representatives, etc…

Mark suggested cc’ing your elected officials on emails regarding your child’s educational experiences.  This can help our legislators understand the scope of what we are facing when our children with CVI enter the school system.  It will certainly get the attention of your educational team.  I haven’t done this yet.  If you do, let me know what happens.  I’m intrigued.

P.S. I’ve heard that it’s better to take taxis rather than Uber or Lyft when you are going to advocate on Capitol Hill.  Taxis are plentiful in D.C. and street addresses are tricky.  It can be hard for an Uber or Lyft to find you.

Image: Edna Mode from The Incredibles stands with her arms above her head and yells “Go! Confront the problem! Fight! Win!”