Community Inclusion Ambassadors Inc.: August 2022

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Special Education Starts with Child Find

U.S Federal Regulations:

IDEA Sec. 300.111 Child find

https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/b/300.111

The State must have in effect policies and procedures to ensure that—

(i) All children with disabilities residing in the State, including children with disabilities who are homeless children or are wards of the State, and children with disabilities attending private schools, regardless of the severity of their disability, and who are in need of special education and related services, are identified, located, and evaluated; and

(ii) A practical method is developed and implemented to determine which children are currently receiving needed special education and related services.

Indiana Special Education Rules:

Article 7 511 IAC 7-40-1 Child Find

https://www.in.gov/doe/files/art-7-english-may-2019-update-index.pdf#page=56

Sec. 1. (a) The public agency shall establish, maintain, and implement written procedures that ensure the location, identification, and evaluation of all students three (3) years of age, but less than twenty-two (22) years of age, who are in need of special education and related services, regardless of the severity of their disabilities, including students who:

(1) have legal settlement within the jurisdiction of the public agency;

(2) attend a nonpublic school, are served by an agency, or live in an institution located within the jurisdiction of the public agency;

(3) are homeless students as defined at 511 IAC 7-32-46; (4) are wards of the state;

(5) are highly mobile students, including migrant students; and

(6) are suspected of being student

Saturday, August 13, 2022

We need family input about monthly respite events.

Hello Families

We are working to start monthly respite events. Free To Be Me Respite events will be for 4 hours once a month and have Art & Crafts, Musical, Recreational and Bible study activities for the children with disabilities to take part in with a volunteer buddy. As the children are at the respite events parents can have the time to rest and focus on their self care needs.

We are in the last step of approval with a church in Orange county indiana that has a handicap accessible youth center ( As soon as we have approval we will send out the church name) . We will have access to children's classrooms, a nursery and Student center ( a large room we can use for games, and larger group activities) This will be a Pilot program and will be reviewed at 3 months to discuss continuing the respite events long term.

What we need help with

Parent input for planning- We need families that would be interested in taking part in a monthly respite event to fill out a short google form it lets us know what times would work best for families, how you would feel about your child taking part in a 30 min childs bible study at the respite event, if you would like to take part in a parent bible study, if a sibling group would be helpful for your family, how you feel about the proposed logo ( You will see some post with Free To Be Me Respite for now but its subject to change based off parent input), and a option to share your contact info so we can share updates about respite and let you know when respite sign-up starts.

Click Here to fill out the parent input for respite events form

Volunteers- Do you know of someone that has a heart for helping children with disabilities / special needs? We would love to have their help in making respite available to families. We are asking all potential volunteers to fill sign-up using VolunteerMatch All volunteers will have to have a current background check on file as part of our child safety system. Please share this link with anyone that you feel would be a good match for helping build our respite team. https://www.volunteermatch.org/search/opp3575249.jsp?fbclid=IwAR0q4_mJRjvQRFSWwNw9Fh8fDgXLk6ybfG_5sXRXC4MF_tnAqJTdUkpOGa0#.Yvbuluwuun4.facebook

Community Partners- The church will be opening their doors but our Non-profit will be responsible with funding the respite program itself. If you know of any area business that may become a community partner in helping make respite events available in our area please let us know. We would love to talk with them as we work together to bring more resources and support to our area for families caring for a child with a disability.

The proposed logo and name for the respite program