1. Today’s Families and Their Partnerships with Professionals Chapter 4

2. Definition of Family What is your definition of a family? How does your definition include or exclude certain groups of people? How will your family change in the next 5 years? In the next 10 years?

3. Demographics 35% of students with disabilities come from families with annual income less than 25,000 20% of students without disabilities come from families with annual income less than 25,000 22% youth with disabilities come from families where head of household has less than a high school education vs. 13% youth without disabilities

4. Individual Characteristics Youth with Disabilities Youth without Disabilities No biological parent present 193 Biological father present 43 Biological mother present 3521 Both biological parents present 4273 Single-parent household 3626 Average number of children in household 32

5. Domains of Family Life Emotional well-being Parenting Family interaction Physical/material well-being Disability-related support

6. Emotional well-being Feelings or affective considerations within the family Friends of others who provide support The support families need to relieve stress Time to pursue own interests Outside help available to care for special needs

7. Parenting Activities that adult family members do to help children grow and develop Know how to help their child learn to be independent Know how to help their child with schoolwork and activities Know how to teach their child to get along with others Know how to have time to take care of the individual needs of every child

8. Family Interaction Relationship among family members Enjoy spending time together Talk openly with each other Solve problems together Show they love and care for each other

9. Physical/Material well-being Resources available to the family to meets its members’ needs Transportation Take care of expenses Feel safe at home, work, school, and in the neighborhood Medical and dental care

10. Children of Poverty IQ scores are 5-13 points lower Children develop vocabulary later 11% dropout rate (5 times higher than families in the top 20% of income distribution)

11. Disability-related support Support from family members and others to benefit the person with a disability Achieve goals at school or work Make progress at home Make friends Have a good relationship between the family and service providers

12. Survey results (500 parents) 45% parents believe special education program is failing in preparing for life after high school 35% special ed. program is failing as a reliable source of information about disabilities 35% frustrated in seeking special ed. services 33% believe current school is doing a fair or poor job in giving their child what they need

13. Partnership Principles Communication Professional competence Respect Commitment Equality Advocacy Trust