Parent Mentor of Ohio Council Meeting Minutes
September 30, 2014
10:00 am to Noon
Council members Reviewed Minutes from April – A motion was made By Nancy Holt to accept the minutes, Cathy Stanton was the second.
Council Representatives in attendance: Jacqueline Howley Chair Person, Nancy Holt co- chair, Elaine Hamilton recorder, Cathy Stanton, Jane Seaton, Carolynn Head, Karen Smith, Tammy Hanger, Nancy Banks, Laurie Betscher, Sally Stigall, Addy Fletcher, Sandie Cooper, Stacey Hartwig, Mark Lynskey, Lisa Lutz, Ann Blair.
Reports:
· Update from ODE, Mark Lynskey: CCIP Process should much easier for district reps. The new process allows ODE to work closer with the grant recipients. PM projects scope of work must be consistent with what ODE requires. Some projects had their grant applications returned, this is most likely just a matter of making sure that the scope of work is aligned with what ODE requires. We have 2 new grants, Mt Healthy decline the PM Grant this year, so Brookeville Local Schools and SE local schools in Clark County will have the new Grants ; Nancy Holt has been reassigned to SE local schools. Sandy Kauffman and Crissy Cline will present on dispute resolution at the Fall conference. The state operating standards are finalized and up on the website. Whose IDEA is being revised and is almost finished. The Office for Exceptional Children was awarded a new grant called Making Ohio AWARE.
The grant is a 4 year 4.9 million dollar grant. The focus of the grant is to raise awareness of the mental health needs among school aged youth. The grant will be piloted in Wood County, Warren County, and Cuyahoga County.
· Update from OCECD, Carolynn Head and Jane Seaton,
Lee Ann is resting at home, please contact Carolynn or Jane if you need anything. Lee Ann will be at the conference. Carolynn reminded everyone to take time to take care of yourself, we have multiple PM’s who are out due to illness and also an auto accident. PDP’s are due on October 1st.
Carolynn’s fax number is 614- 473-9821. Looking at PDP goals, if you choose to read a book, review a video or do a webinar please be mindful of how you plan on showing evidence of what you did. Carolynn suggests that you keep a log of the dates and times that you read the book and so on.
Jane and Carolynn are cross checking list of PM’s that have turned in PDP’s.
If you need to change any of your goals just send Carolynn the signed cover sheet and goal sheet and why you are making the change.
Core hours are the hours at the Fall and Spring conferences. None of the breakouts at the conference can be used for supplemental hours. Partnering for Progress registration is open. Make sure that you are registered for the Fall conference. Some of the highlights of the Fall conference are: Breakout session on Emotional Disturbance, Shawn Henry- IEP from the parents perspective, Bonnie Nelson will talk about TBI, Gary Tonks will talk about Waivers and Medicaid, Molly Fender will talk about 3rd grade reading guarantee, There will be resource tables with information on training from OCECD. Carolynn has developed a new meeting minute template to be used for all meeting minutes. We have lots of new PM’s, Jane is working on an updated county by county referral list. New PM’s include: Vicky Coleman, Sandy Hallett, Dawn Hamilton, Eileen Hawkins, Carol Meyer, Rebecca Robinette, Julia Timberlake, Anthony Russo, Brad Pritts, Jeff Bedard.
Regional Reports:
· Central: Met for the first regional meeting of the year on September 18th, training was provided by Disability Rights Ohio. Disability Rights Ohio provides legal advocacy and rights protection to a wide range of people with disabilities. This includes assisting individuals with problems such as abuse, neglect, discrimination, access to assistive technology, special education, housing, employment, community integration, voting and rights protection issues with the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Get well wishes to Lee Ann Derugen and Dee Marks, condolences to Sam McMillan, on the loss of her brother.
-Welcome to our new PM Brad Pritts OSD, introductions from COPM’s
-The PM Above and Beyond the Call of Duty Award will be presented to Sam McMillan at our next regional meeting in November.
-Marilyn Van Gilder, - Marketing PM Projects without breaking confidentiality, looking for input from everyone.
-Next meeting November 13th, 2014 at the Worthington Education Center
- Nancy Banks PM from Licking County shared a brochure that outlined upcoming trainings in her area.
· East Central
First regional meeting is on Friday October 10th, we will be planning our trainings and events at that time.Laryssa Beatty took a job with OCECD which leaves an opening for a PM council rep, which will be discussed at the regional meeting.
Mid-East: 1 regional meeting on Sept. 10, 2014 at the SST8 in Cuyahoga Falls. It was a morning training on transition planning and the IEP. Since this wasn’t a meeting where we could have a roundtable discussion about what our districts were up to, we asked that any questions for council be emailed to Sandie Cooper or Cathy Rundo.
The questions that I asked council on behalf of the Mideast region are as follows:
1)In regards to the PM Guidelines, on page 2, should it also include “attend ETR’s and other meetings at parent’s or school’s request” (this would go along with attends IEP meetings).
2)Is it written in the Guidelines that PM’s step out during mediation and/or due process?
3)Can SST reps attend PM regional meetings?
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· North: Central: North Central region held one meeting on Sept. 12th here at Mid-Ohio ESC. We had Marcie Beers from OCECD come and talk about Preschool and her role and what she'd like from us. Also the resources she has.Support committee - We met Sept. 11th and talked about what to do for the "team building" time at the Fall Conf. We knew our time was being cut so we decided to bring in a speaker suggested by Anne Harmody. Andrea Burland is the speaker and she will be taking about "mindfulness" using interaction and humor.
· Northeast: First regional meeting will be on October 9th, the meeting will be held at the Autism Center, regional meetings will be planned for the year. We are planning to do a social media training for students and parents. We also did a ADHD training. Sib shops will be coming soon.
· Northwest: We had our firstmeetingon 8/26. Next one is scheduled for 10/7 (we had it yesterday) and the scheduled speaker is Cathy Ruiz. She will be presenting on Summary of Performance and Transition.
· Southeast: We had our regional meeting on Sept. 18 & had a training on "First Aid for Aggressive Behaviors" by Pam Thornburg.
We were all in attendance. We had a guest, Sara Fouch who is a psych. intern.
We welcomed new Parent Mentor for Athens ESC, Becky
Robinette who replaced Katie Spreacker. Her email is: . She doesn't have a phone number yet.
We were reminded that our PDP's were due Oct. 1
We discussed the online Parent Mentor grant application & several of us had them returned one or more times. We commented that it would have been nice to have had some or better guidelines for filling them out.
Our next meeting will be at the end of the day on Oct. 21 at the Parent Mentor Fall Conference.
· Southwest
We met on September 25 th, State updates from SST. Jodi and Pat gave a presentation on PARCC. We welcomed our new PM Jeff Bedard. We ask that everyone help support the new PM . The next meeting will be on November 13th.
Committee Reports:
· Archives— No one present to report
· Mentor Support—All set for the conference, we will have Ann Berlin speak about taking care of yourself first. CCPI will be discussed at the conference.
· PR— No one present to report
· Skills and Knowledge— Worked very hard on the conference, we hope that everyone enjoys the conference.
Spring Conference is On April 15th Dr. Bruce Perry will speak about Neurological issues and Behavior.
Current/Old Business
· Fall Conference 2014.
New Business
· Update of Guidelines: Council will discuss at our next meeting
· Remind Regions about how meeting minutes will be completed and turned in
· Process for parents who want to use an OCECD Advocate where they may have been working with the PM. Parent Mentors of Ohio Council : Obtain a form from OCECD
· Question #1: On page 3 of the PM Guidelines #9 should we remove IEP??? Should it just say attend meetings at the parent or district request?
· Answer: We will discuss changes in the guidelines at our next council meeting.
· Question# 2: Should PM step out during a mediation hearing or due process hearing?
· Answer: PM must make it clear to the parent that he/she is only able to act as a resource, PM must remain neutral. The DR can determine if they will allow the PM to be present at a mediation hearing or a due process hearing
If the parent is looking for more support they can request an Advocate from OCECD.
Meeting Dates for 2014-15
September 30, 2014 meeting in Columbus
January 20, 2015 conference call
May 5, 2015 conference call