In someone else’s shoes

Today I tried a little experiment: researching individualized education plans, or IEPs, from the perspective of a parent who needed to get a specialized education for their child and had no prior information. Here are the things I learned in a nutshell:

1) To get any relevant information, you first have to know that what you’re looking for is called an IEP.

2) The paperwork is pretty horrendous, and very intimidating. It is nine pages not including specific attachments and a case worker would have to fill it out.

3) There is a lot of jargon that made me feel daunted—I’d finally found what I was looking for, but it was over my head.

4) If I wanted to be able to track my child’s progress, I’d probably need to attend at least one seminar on writing an IEP, but there are quite a few seminars offered about many other things I should know about what services my child has access to.

It was an interesting exercise—and I’m sure if I had a child who needed an IEP the exercise would have been exhausting and I would have had many more questions (but I also would have been more aggressive about finding answers). I would have loved a hotline where there was a dedicated expert to talk me through the IEP process instead of me stabbing in the dark for an afternoon. I’d like a to a more in-depth look at what kind of energy and time commitment it takes to learn the system for special needs education, then make it work for your child, and I’d also like to learn from parents who have gone through it and what advice they have to offer.