3 Tips for Advocating for Your Child in an IEP Meeting

Being an advocate for your child can make a world of difference when it comes to the services and supports written into their IEP. The IEP meeting can be intimidating, especially if you’re new to the whole process, but you don’t have to advocate for your child’s needs all on your own.

On May 26, 2022, we sat down with parent Isabelle Smith and Undivided Navigator Kelly Hatfield to hear about their collaborative kindergarten IEP experience and how they worked together to advocate for inclusion with supports for Isabelle’s daughter. Here’s what the conversation taught us about strong parent advocacy!

One of Isabelle’s recommendations is to educate your IEP team about your child, their diagnosis, and their needs. That can include educating them about why inclusion is so important and why your child would benefit!

During our live chat, Iris B commented, “We shared this resource with our school district when we requested the inclusion specialist. There are grants for schools that want to become more inclusive [in California] to pay for that inclusion specialist. No excuses!!”

If you missed the event or want to review what we learned, you can catch the full recording here.

To learn more about helping your child get the supports they need, be sure to attend our next live event to ask your questions in the chat and hear from our experts and fellow parents! Keep an eye on our Facebook page to learn more about upcoming events, and join our private Facebook group to keep the discussion going.