Central Southwest Regional Forum
Regional Forum on Family/School Partnerships
Regional Forum Celebrates Special Education Partnerships
NH Connections Central Southwest Region Forum on Family-School Partnerships welcomed you to talk about how you are building Family-School Partnerships. And Boy! Did you have a lot of great things to say!
This year, we partnered with multiple school districts in the upper valley and beyond, to hold a forum for people interested in the importance of Family-School Partnerships in Special Education.
We know that when schools engage families in their children’s education, children do much better in school. But with all the demands upon you it can be a challenge to find the time to connect around best practices of building relationships.
The NH Connections central southwest regional forum will allow us to explore successful strategies on developing and sustaining partnerships in Special Education and how the region can expand them. And we used the forum to identify the subjects for three follow up events where we can dig deeper to enhance and share the great work from schools across our region.
There is great work going on!
NH Connections will help us share, so we can learn from each other.
The last forum was held on November 29th 2010, and heres what the region though were the top three topics:
- School & Family Communication: Making the connections
- Sharing and Accessing Community Resources
- Partnership Opportunities and Parent Mentor-ship
School Administrative Unit (SAU)#6 for Claremont, Unity and Cornish will host the kick-off event at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center. Representatives from Fall Mountain (SAU#60), Parent Links- a partnership resource and support group based in Claremont, Pathways of the River Valley and more are planning to ensure this event builds upon the local success of the Special Education Institute held this past summer. The forum planning group engaged many school districts in the central southwest region, including SAU#1 Peterborough, SAU#34, Hillsboro-Deering, SAU#43 Newport, SAU#71 Goshen-Lempster, SAU#75 Sunapee.
Whats next?
Three topical events are being planned to happen in 2011.
Why would you get involved?
Here are a few quotes from planning and publicizing the forum:
"It's so rare to have the time to just talk without the pressure of an IEP meeting" Fall Mountain Parent
"I wanted to hear what other schools were doing to support parents"District Administrator
"I feel I have a voice." Parent from Claremont
"Special Education is all about relationships." Retired Special Education Administrator
"Schools that are in need of improvement are finding that parent involvement is a huge part of their action planning, and I think their progress relies upon it." Focused Monitoring Consultant
"They really wanted to hear what I had to say!" Student from Keene
"It's great to have so many districts represented as this will promote a healthy and far reaching cross-pollination of ideas" Michelle Lewis: Program Director.
How can your school district get involved?
Please contact Denise Feeney dfeeney@picnh.org or 603.224.7005
Thank you for all you do to support Family-School partnerships in Special Education everyday!
