|
en
Español
About
Us
What do
you do when you discover your child has special needs? You're
shell-shocked, you're frightened, and you're wondering how
this could have happened to you. Where do you turn?
How do you begin the process of reorienting your life and
learning about things you never imagined you'd have to know?
You're frustrated and overwhelmed. This isn't the life you
imagined, this isn't the child you imagined. You feel isolated
and unsure. How do you move forward? How do you secure the
educational and other support services necessary to enable
your child to progress and succeed? Ask A2Z Educational
Advocates. Each of us has confronted these questions with
our own children, as well as with our clients. THIS IS
WHO WE ARE; let us answer your questions:
 N
Jane DuBovy, M.A., J.D. Attorney at Law, Certified Mediator:
When
my son was diagnosed with Autism at age 3, I was temporarily
defeated. I didn't know what to do or where to turn. I was
lucky. Very quickly I plugged into a supportive network that
strengthened my resolve to give my child the best opportunities
available. My team developed a therapeutic approach that has
resulted in my child being mainstreamed in the public school
system. It wasn't easy. There were many obstacles placed before
me, including the passage of time. I made full use of the
expertise of my advocates. Based
on my team's success, along with my standing as an attorney,
I decided to become an advocate to fortify other parents in
their fight against a stagnant and overwhelming system.
Karen
Acedo, Advocate: In
1980 I asked my school district for educational services for
my three year old son who would eventually receive a diagnosis
of autism. I was told that because he did not display normal
intelligence they could not provide special education to him
and I should bring him back when he was five. Like many others,
I discovered that my unanticipated
task of becoming a good mother to a child with special needs
included not only learning what my child needed, but also,
how to deal with public school systems that
did not want to provide what he needed and was entitled to
receive. Obviously I needed to gain better understanding of
how the system was supposed to work so I went to the local
public law library and read everything the librarian said
they had regarding special education. By the time my son was
seven he had three fair hearing decisions and I began assisting
other families to obtain educational services. It’s
been my privilege to help over two hundred families individually
receive more appropriate educational services for their children.
As a result of class action civil rights complaints I filed,
I obtained better services for thousands of others. I receive
tremendous satisfaction by empowering parents. This isn’t
just a job for me, it is a passion.
 Carolina
D. Watts, Advocate: My
first exposure to children with disabilities came during my
work as a legal intern at the Office of the Child Advocate
in Georgia. Through my contact with the child welfare system,
I discovered how many children with special needs were not
getting the services that they needed – whether it was
from the department of family and children’s services,
the mental health system or the school system. My
investigations often revealed that it was the children with
disabilities that were most likely to “fall through the
cracks” of the system. I decided then that I would dedicate
my legal career to children’s rights.
When I came back to law school in the fall, I began working
in the Pepperdine Special Education Advocacy Clinic. There
I worked with other students as we provided advocacy services
to parents of special needs children. My first IEP experience
was representing the parents of a third grader with autism.
Through this process, I saw first hand the struggles and difficulties
that families have with the school system. My experiences
working with the OCA, the Advocacy Clinic and A2Z have ignited
a passion for this area of the law. I will receive my J.D.
in May and will be taking the California Bar Exam in July.
I bring my passion and dedication to fighting for the legal
rights of children to my work as an advocate,
and I will bring the same devotion to my legal career.
Mandy Favaloro, J.D. Attorney at Law: While
an undergraduate student at the University of Redlands, I
had the opportunity to be trained as a reading tutor for children
who had fallen behind in school and needed individual attention.
It was an amazing experience teaching a child to read. Although
I enjoyed working with children, I had always known that I
wanted to be a lawyer. After my first year at Pepperdine School
of Law, my favorite professor suggested that I take a course
in Special Education Law and participate in the Special Education
Advocacy Clinic. Over the next year
I had the opportunity to get to become familiar with this
area of the law and meet some amazing families who had children
with disabilities. The following summer I had
the chance to work for A2Z and get to know more families and
represent more children. I was
happy to find an area of the law where I could help children
and use my training in the law to make a difference in someone’s
life. I think this is one of the few areas
of the law where you get hugs from the clients – both
the children and the parents. Working with A2Z over the last
few years first as an advocate and now as an attorney, I have
had the opportunity to expand my knowledge of both the law
and the needs of the children we represent. I
hope to continue to work in this area of the law for a long
time and get to see some of the children I’ve been able
to help grow up and do magnificent things with their lives.
LET
US ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS. Call 888 IDEA-ADA (888-4332-232), or
email us at inquiry@a2zedad.com
for more information.
|
