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ONLY One: Service Name of Service: Parent University Organization: Urban PRIDE

Name of individual completing this description guide: Charlotte Spinkston, Executive

Director Relevance of this Product or Service. Relevance is defined as the degree to which a product or service addresses current educational problems or issues.
For the second year, Urban PRIDE, in collaboration with Boston Public Schools, Parent University, is conducting a series of trainings on special education advocacy for family members of children with disabilities and professionals working with students with disabilities and their families who live in the City of Boston. The need to expand our capacity to provide information, training and support to underserved families, and professionals is highly relevant. Doing so addresses significant longstanding and current needs, particularly with regard to the need for support to the most underserved families. Boston Public Schools is among the most segregated school districts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with 41.2% of all students receiving special education services being placed in so-called substantially separate classrooms. With a special education enrollment of over 19%, the vast majority of student receiving special education services (77.5%) are low income, and more than 50% of those students are limited English proficient (20.7) and/or are from homes where the first language is not English. (31.9%) Further, a large majority of the students receiving special education services are classified under so-called judgemental categories such as Intellectual Disabilities, (1,260 students) Emotional Impairments, (1,325 students) Specific Learning Disabilities, (4,071) and Developmental Delay, (1,021 students). In addition, a local legal advocacy organization has recently filed a class action suit against the City of Boston for not providing services to more than 200 3 year-olds that have aged-out of early intervention and who have been found to be eligible for early childhood special education services. (The school district has proposed to re-open one of the 18 school buildings shuttered at the end of the last school year in order to accommodate the young children it has not yet placed, thus creating a completely segregated early childhood school program.) The Parent Advocate Certificate is a series of eight (8) four-hour intensive workshops that will provide participants the knowledge and skills to support parents to successfully advocate for appropriate early childhood, special education services and transition services for children and young adults ages 3 22 with an IEP or 504 plan.

R - 1. Describe the important problem or critical issue the product or service is designed to solve. Empowering families by contributing to their increased knowledge and understanding of educational programs and effective educational strategies is at the heart of the direct support, training and capacity building services offered by Urban PRIDE. Urban PRIDE will develop the leadership capacity of families by implementing the Neighborhood Peer Parent Consultant program in collaboration with the Boston Public Schools Parent University. Through this program, cohorts of up to15 parents each year will receive intensive training to serve a peer parent advocates. For years one and two, Boston Public Schools will provide a stipend to NPPC graduates who complete the program. Upon completion of the program, NPPCs agree to accept referrals from Urban PRIDE to provide TA and direct advocacy for families of children with disabilities in the neighborhoods where they live at no coast to those families. Through the NPPC program, up to 50 additional families will receive direct support from parents who also have children or family members with disabilities in the Boston Public Schools.
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R - 2. Describe the extent to which the product or service matches the problem or issue facing the audiences for your product or the recipients of your service.
The NPPC Project through Parent University meets the needs of service recipients in that the requests for the types of direct support provided by Urban PRIDE far outstrips our ability to provide that support. Providing peer support and advocacy to underserved families who require direct support improves access to underserved families, and builds the capacity of service providers to better support families they are working with who have children receiving special education services.

R - 3. Describe the extent to which the content of the product or service is applicable to diverse populations within the audiences for your product or the recipients of your service.
The NPPC/Parent University project as a product is particularly applicable to meet the needs of a highly diverse and underserved population of families confronting multiple challenges. Urban PRIDE provides free standing community based training for families and professionals in accessible community locations and many families take advantage of this service. For some families however, navigating the maze of the special education system is simply overwhelming. Whether the issue is related to the parents struggle with literacy, lack of social/emotional and family supports in the community, native language, or their own disableling conditions, for some families the ability to access what we have to offer is largely determined by the support we can provide to facilitate action.

Quality of this Product . Quality is defined as the degree to which a product or service is consistent with current research or policy. This product or service is Policy-Based Depending upon your response above, respond accordingly, below: For a policy-based product or service: Q - 1. Describe the underlying policy basis for this product or service.
Almost 35 years of research and experience has demonstrated that the education of children with disabilities can be made more effective by strengthening the ability of parents to participate fully in the education of their children at school and at home (section 601(c)(5)(B) of IDEA). Urban PRIDE is a federally funded Community Parent Resource Centers (CPRC's) specifically designed to meet the specific needs of parents who experience significant isolation from available sources of information and support in the City of Boston. 90% of the parents served by Urban PRIDE include low-income parents, parents of limited English proficient children, parents who are racial minorities and parents with disabilities.

Q - 2. Describe how the policy is integrated into the product or service.

Urban PRIDE integrates the IDEA requirements into this product by targeting the recruitment of parents and professionals from diverse racial and linguistic groups from across Bostons very distinct 17 neighborhoods. Urban PRIDE developed these services based on information collected through surveys conducted as part of our workshop evaluations and also gleaned from responses to surveys and assessments conducted by Boston Public Schools in planning the Parent University.

Q - 3. Describe the steps you took to assure the consistency of your interpretation of this policy with OSEPs interpretation.
The founder and Executive Director of Urban PRIDE has written proposals that have been consistently funded, in part, based upon consistent alignment with OSEPs interpretation of IDEA and has attended presentations and TA activities over the 11 years of the project related to the identified needs of traditionally underserved families and has conducted such presentations.

Usefulness of the Product or Service. Usefulness is defined as the degree to which a product or service can be readily and successfully used by consumers. U - 1. Describe how easy it is to understand the content of the product or the service rendered and how that understanding can be used to address the identified problem or need.
The special education laws are highly complex. One of the most important strategies for ensuring the product can be used to address the identified need is to take more time to present that content. (One of the most frequent responses to the evaluation question what would you change about this workshop? Is more time) We also use a broader variety of training strategies to present the curriculum, including the use of case studies, role plays, inventories, film, and hands on activities and clinics. Strategies such as these can be used more effectively in a 3.5-hour training over several weeks or months.

U - 2. Describe how likely it is the product or service will be used by the audiences for your product or the recipients of your service to achieve the benefit intended.
First, the intended benefit of this product is to ensure that underserved families have information that is useful to them when they need it. Providing extensive training and ongoing coaching and support to NPPCs exponentially extends the reach of our project by (potentially) doubling the numbers of families that can access project services. (Over time) Second, partnering with professionals such as those involved in working with high-need families such as the Childrens Behavioral Health Initiative and (CBHI) homeless families and children builds the capacity of the community address the needs of very high need families and their children disabilities. This simply cannot be accomplished with the small staff and limited resources of a CPRC. Third, the approach taken deliberately builds a more comprehensive network of support in the community for families. These things, taken together render the product as highly likely to achieve the intended benefit of the training.

U - 3. Describe how likely it is the product or service will be used in more than one setting successfully over and over again to achieve the intended benefit.
The product is assured to have impact and to be used across several settings multiple times, including in schools, (through parent advisory councils) through community service providers, high risk youth networks, foster care services, homeless service providers among others as each of these groups is/has been represented by parents and/or professionals attending the training series. Urban PRIDE has been asked to conduct the series for child and family serving organizations but lack of funds to support this effort present a barrier.

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