Reach to Teach is a valuable resource for parents and teachers to use in educating elementary and middle school children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). It provides a basic introduction to FASD, which results from prenatal alcohol exposure and can cause physical, mental, behavioral, and/or learning disabilities, and provides tools to enhance communication between parents and teachers.
This guide is intended to help you plan for the personal and financial future of your family member with a physical, mental or developmental disability. It will cover trusts and estates, wills, government benefits and services.
"Special Education in Plain Language" provides information for parents and families about laws, regulations, and policies affecting special education programs and services.
Medications can help children and teens in foster care, but they can also further impair them, derail them, and sabotage them. Without a clear understanding of their mental health issues, misdiagnoses can be made and incorrect medications can be prescribed.
This guidebook gives caregivers the tools they need to understand how mental illness might look in a person with a developmental disability, and information on what to do and where to go for help. It was written in order to help caregivers to partner with health care providers.
OPWDD's Guide to Understanding Supports and Services. The Guide was developed to inform families about the wide range of supports and services available to qualified individuals and to assist them in accessing those services for their loved one with a developmental disability.
For children placed in foster care because of parental incarceration, visits are important to avoid permanent placement. These visits assure children that their parents have not voluntarily abandoned them to strangers.
The Special Diagnositc Program seeks to meet the diagnostic and treatment needs of patients with known or suspected prenatal exposures to neurotoxic substances, such as alcohol. The program works with families to help them to better understand their child’s diagnosis, and help them obtain needed community and/or school services for their child
Across the country, child welfare systems suffer from a lack of suitable resource families due to inappropriate recruiting and inadequate support. Resource families play a critical support role in any child welfare system, although many agencies fail to give them the respect, support and attention they deserve.
NYS regulations require that agencies have a comprehensive recruitment strategy/plan for establishing a pool of waiting foster and adoptive parents that reflects the racial and ethnic diversity of the children in foster care.
