2BSD Blog

We want to award $$ to help you create more self-determined lives, including your own!
2BSD invites students and educators (preK-postsecondary) to apply for a limited number of grants to support new activities to advance students’ and educators’ self-determination. These projects can help promote an individual student or teacher’s self-determination or it can be submitted as a group initiative.

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We are creating a list of work being done in schools to promote self-determination. Please send us a paragraph about your efforts so we can share information about your work with others. Don’t worry about spelling or punctuation. We’ll take care of that! Just tell us a little bit about the setting in which you’re working, the types of students you are serving and any outcomes you have observed. A single paragraph is all we need, but if you want to send more, that’s fine too. There is a prize waiting for the first example received! Please send descriptions to sharon@beselfdetermined.com.

I had the opportunity to talk with Cathy Pantelides, Transition Specialist for the Long Island Regional Special Education Technical Assistance Support Center (LI RSE-TASC) and President of New York State DCDT, this week. Wow! They are doing some energetic and innovative things to promote self-determination and student-directed IEPs for students with disabilities throughout their region. Over the past five years, they have had a comprehensive effort to provide teachers with professional development and access to resources to encourage student self-determination. Beyond providing teachers with existing resources, they have also supported teachers to be self-determined and develop their own curricula to promote student self-determination. A strong sense of community has evolved that enables teachers to share ideas and information while having fun together at the same time.

A few quotes from participating teachers illustrates the initiative’s impact:

“The end result was so rewarding and empowering for the student and everyone in the room.”

“There was a different energy in the room by having them take the lead, rather than talking about them in front of them. I also learned that we need to add more positives when writing the IEPs and not just focus on the needs-based goals.”

“I will continue to select students to experience this every year! It’s been amazing!”

Would you like to learn more? Contact Cathy Pantelides at cpanteli@esboces.org or 631-218-4197.

In honor of the 2016 Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT) in Myrtle Beach, SC we are making a draft version of our Early Steps to Self-Determination curriculum available for preview for a limited time. We hope you are all enjoying the beach, the sunsets and each other. We also hope you enjoy trying out the curriculum. We welcome any feedback that you have for us.  Click below to download.

early-steps-to-self-determination

Helping students learn to be more mindful can make significant contributions to their self-determination. Mindfulness increases self-awareness and focus and decreases negative aspects of stress. KORU is a mindfulness program designed specifically to meet the needs of emerging adults and they are currently offering new on-line training programs. For more information, see www.korumindfulness.org.

Dr. Michael Ward played a key leadership role in promoting self-determination for persons with disabilities as a federal policy initiative of the U. S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services beginning in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. Many of us think of Mike as the guy who started it all when we think about self-determination for students with disabilities. We interviewed Mike to find out what he thinks about where we have been, where we are and where we need to go to foster self-determination.

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Research has demonstrated that academic coaching is an effective strategy to increase student self-determination. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Institute for Achievement and Learning at Lynn University. Wow! They are doing some great things to make coaching, and other practices that support self-determination, available to their students. Lynn has 11 coaches and 40 tutors on staff. Care is taken in the assignment of coaches to students to help assure that the particular skills of individual coaches are a good match for the specific needs of the students they will be working with. Every coach also has a clear understanding of what faculty and students are experiencing in the classroom because they each teach two courses/year in the general curriculum. They have developed on-line courses for their faculty campus-wide on key topics that help promote self-determination in the classroom such as universal design, metacognitive instructional techniques, executive functioning and strategies to increase internal motivation. It was a joy to meet with staff members who were so highly motivated, energetic and creative……in a word, self-determined! It was a great reminder that when a climate of self-determination is established for faculty and staff, good things happen! If you want to learn more about the good things that are happening with academic coaching and supports at Lynn, contact Rebecca Coffy at 561.237.7064.

Research has shown that self-determination is a powerful tool to decrease the risk of depression. A recent book by Linea and Cinda Johnson, Perfect Chaos, illustrates how important  self-determination is to navigate the mental health system and manage mental health conditions after diagnosis. Perfect Chaos tells the story of Linea’s struggle with bi-polar disorder and what she, her mother and family went through to triumph over the disease. 

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All of us have our own reactions to experiences of the season. What do I enjoy about Autumn? I love to hear the leaves crunch under my feet, I like to rake the leaves (yes I actually enjoy raking…..it provides such a feeling of accomplishment, but in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t hire out), I love the clear blue skies and, of course, looking at the leaves as they turn. I enjoy cider and hot doughnuts at our favorite cider mill. I don’t like the rain (even though I’m from Seattle) or when it gets too windy and cold. I don’t like the anticipation of the cold Midwestern Winter that is about to come when I find it becomes more difficult to get from here to there. So what does all of this have to do with self-determination? This type of reflection is one way we can learn about what we like, what we need and what our strengths and weaknesses are. My lesson is that I’m happier when I’m mindful (when I notice the leaves crunch, or I look up to see the blue sky or the changing leaves); I need to feel a sense of accomplishment (the big piles of leaves I rake up are exquisite!); creature comforts are important to me (hot cider and warmth); and sometimes I worry a little too much (snowy roads are hopefully a long ways off).

A simple reflection like this is easy to do and can do so much for us. If you’re working with others to promote their self-determination, or if you just want to try this out for yourself, you might try posing a few questions about the season. You can also support development of writing or speaking skills depending on how you ask people you’re working with to respond.

What are your favorite things to do in the Fall?

What do you like most about Fall?

What do you least like about the Fall season?

and then……

What do all of these things say about you, your likes and dislikes, your needs, your strengths and preferences?

 

 

Understanding our moods and emotions helps us develop greater self-awareness. Regulating our emotions helps us make our emotions work for us, rather than against us, as we take action to reach our goals. These are both important keys to becoming more self-determined. Drs. Marc Brackett and Robin Stern at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence have developed an app for iphone that can help us become aware of, understand, and regulate our emotions. The app is evidence-based, visually appealing, user-friendly and, I can say from personal experience,  it’s fun! To learn more about the app, go to www.moodmeterapp.com.