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You are here: Home > Canadian Blind Monitor > Issue #10 (Winter/Spring 2001)
Effective Advocacy On Behalf Of Children In Educational Settings
By: Robert Fenton
Editor's note: The text set out below is a speech given by Mr. Fenton at the On the Way To Success II conference in Edmonton, Alberta on October 21, 2000.
Before beginning my formal remarks, I would like to thank the conference
organizers for inviting me to speak to you today. The topic of advocacy as it
relates to blind, vision-impaired and deaf blind children has not received as
much attention as it should from academics and the service sector charged with
assisting the blind, vision-impaired and deaf blind children. I am pleased that
you have given me the opportunity to present my views to you on the topic of
advocacy so that we may empower the next generation of blind, vision-impaired
and deaf blind children to be successful contributors in Canadian society.
Advocacy means different things to different people. One of the essential
components of the definition of advocacy is the ability to persuade. In many
cases when we are presented with problems, we have to convince a person or group
of people that we are having difficulties in persuading them that our point of
view is the point of view which should be followed in a given situation. The
only weapons we have in this exercise are the written or the spoken word. As a
result, we need to know how to present our views as powerfully and as reasonably
as possible to show the other person or group of people that our views have
merit, that they are well researched and well presented.
The second component of advocacy which is important is the desire to achieve a
specific objective. That objective may be either to maintain the status quo if
the individual is satisfied with the level of service or benefits that they are
receiving or to argue for change in cases where the level of
services, the level of benefits or the quality of services are inadequate.
Before embarking on an effort to persuade, it is important that you understand
the objective that you're trying to achieve. This is important because the
techniques that you may use to persuade people will be different depending on
your objective. If you remember these two key points, namely the need to
persuade and the need to set a concrete objective, you are well on your way to
becoming an effective advocate.
The third point to remember when engaging in advocacy is that when you are
trying to persuade someone to do something to achieve a specific goal, it is
important that the goal that you select be reasonable and achievable. One way to
assess the reasonableness and the achievability of the goal that you select is
to speak to other parents or other individuals with expertise who may have faced
the same issue that you are dealing with now. During these kinds of
consultations, you will be able to find out what techniques they used to try to
solve the problem and whether those techniques were successful or not. If they
were not, you might be able to receive advice on other alternatives which were
not tried during the advocacy efforts of the people you consulted. You may also
choose to consult other kinds of consultants in addition to other parents. You
can also obtain useful information from research papers and other useful
materials which others reviewed when formulating their positions on the same
issue. This kind of material may be important to you in setting the background
and the context for your own presentation to the school staff or other
authorities.
In addition to consulting with other parents and other individuals who have
expertise in dealing with blindness, vision-impairment or deaf blindness, you
should try also to discover if the school board or other agency that you are
dealing with has faced this issue before. If the matters involved are not
confidential and if any documents produced as a result of the resolution of the
matter are part of the public record, you should attempt to obtain those
documents because they also may help you in formulating your position.
From a very early age, we have all been advocates. We all started by advocating
for a need to have food when we emerged from the womb. We developed the
technique of crying to let people know that we were hungry or needed to be
changed. I can tell you that anybody who has listened to a young baby in that
situation will agree that in just about every case, the child gets what he or
she wants. Part of the reason for that is that the baby's message is so simple
and direct.
As we reach our teenage years, our advocacy with our parents often becomes more
confrontational. We learn the ability to argue for such important concessions as
later bed times, the ability to go out on dates with the person of our choice
and not our parents' choice, that it is acceptable to defer doing our homework
until we want to do it, etc. In many of these activities, teenagers do not often
believe that subtlety is an effective form of advocacy. Instead, confrontation
rather than persuasion is often the order of the day.
As we reach adulthood, we again change our advocacy styles and not necessarily
for the better. Some of us become shy and don't want to advocate because we
become nervous about what we're supposed to do. In other cases some of us
present messages that are so complex that our audience doesn't understand them.
In still other cases, some become so confrontational that the audience simply
stops listening. It is these three points that I will now address individually.
The biggest difficulty that most parents face when advocating on behalf of their
children is a lack of confidence and outright shyness. These qualities generally
come through because it is perceived by the parent that they are put in a
position where they can't rock the boat because their child will suffer adverse
consequences if they do. As a result, many parents of blind, vision-impaired and
deaf-blind children either don't advocate on behalf of their children at all, or
if they do, it is done in such a way that the parent is perceived as being weak,
timid and easy to intimidate. This plays right into the hands of the school
administration since there is an inexorable desire in many cases for the school
teachers and administrators to maintain the status quo because of budgetary
considerations, the unwillingness of the teacher or administrator to change
their job duties to accommodate only one student, etc.
The parent's fear that their child may suffer a consequent reduction in service
if the parent advocates too strongly for a particular point of view is a real
and legitimate concern. So how is it that a parent should attempt to persuade a
school administrator or school teacher that their child is not receiving enough
service when there is a real danger that service levels may be cut further if
the parent advocates on behalf of her/his child? How should this be done when
the parent is nervous or shy?
One way to achieve this objective is to make sure that you are very well
prepared for the session so that when you are questioned, you can answer
confidently and forthrightly. For example, if the problem deals with the fact
that your child does not have enough access to braille teaching, try and contact
parents who have children who are receiving braille teaching services from other
school boards and find out what level of service they are receiving. If the
level of service is higher, you can make the argument that your child is
receiving less service than what is provided by other boards within the same
province. Most education acts require the province to deliver services at the
same level and with the same consistency throughout the province. This kind of
argument will be very persuasive to school authorities especially if you can
point out that they are offside the provisions of the Education Act. No school
officials will relish the prospect of having their programs audited by
government and have them found to be wanting.
The second technique that you can use if you feel shy or lack confidence is to
take another person with you. This is often very effective since you and the
other person who is accompanying you can define your roles in advance of the
meeting in question. One of you can play the 'good cop' and the other can play
the 'bad cop.' This is often a very effective strategy when dealing with the
school administrator one on one since generally, educators possess the
personalities of trying to solve problems rather than creating them. With the
'bad cop' present, the 'good cop's' arguments appear to be much more reasonable
and more likely to be accepted by the school administrator. If the person who is
inherently shy plays the 'good cop,' the tendency to say little and to say what
you say as calmly as possible will actually be more effective since you would
only be speaking when necessary and presenting good ideas on each occasion. You
would leave it to the 'bad cop' to bluster, to rampage and to put forward the
very strong positions that are needed to create the impression that you are as
the parent being very reasonable.
Now we turn to the issue of complexity. When some parents advocate on behalf of
their blind, vision-impaired or deaf blind child, they assume that their
audience knows as much about their child's disability as the parent does. In
reality, even though a school teacher may have a vision-impaired child in their
class, that teacher may not necessarily understand the nature of the child's
disability and any limitations that it may impose. So how is it that we should
advocate either for the status quo or for a change in services being provided to
our children when our audience really doesn't understand what we're talking
about? The first thing we should do is try to keep the message as simple as
possible. One way to simplify your message is to try it out on somebody else who
is not familiar with your child's disability and any limitations associated with
it. Once you have prepared your presentation and before you deliver it to the
teacher or other school administrator involved, present it to a friend and get
their feedback. If the friend doesn't understand what you're saying, it's quite
likely that the school teacher won't either.
The second technique to follow is especially useful when you're relying on
research materials and other information. In addition to presenting the complex
research papers that you may be relying on, take the time and summarize the
important points in two or three sentences each. These summaries will often be
more useful than the actual papers themselves especially if the summaries are
written in clear and unambiguous language. You could also use the summaries as
part of your presentation to emphasize the important points that are in the
research papers. But the most important thing is don't fall into the trap of
using the complex language that the academic researchers used. Keep it simple
and straightforward.
The third technique is to give the listener the opportunity to ask you
questions. In this way, you will find out what the individual is actually
concerned about and you'll have the opportunity to address those concerns. If
you don't allow for questions, you won't have the inside track into what
concerns the decision maker might have. When answering the questions, be sure to
keep your language as simple as possible so that the decision maker has
something concrete and understandable to take out of the meeting. Also, be sure
to answer the questions as directly as possible to ensure that the information
provided to the questioner is relevant.
The third issue which I identified earlier in this talk dealt with the tendency
of some parents who have attempted to bulldoze or bully school boards and their
employees in their advocacy efforts on behalf of their children. This kind of
confrontational attitude, when engaged in early on in the advocacy process,
serves no useful purpose. In fact, it may serve to alienate the child's
interests rather than promoting them. It is not necessary to bully someone to
take a strong position in advocacy. Strong positions can be presented
reasonably, fairly and effectively with- out shouting and without showing
disrespect to your opponent. Confrontation should only be used as a last resort
when all other approaches have failed.
The tendency to engage in this type of advocacy approach occurs most often in
emotionally charged situations. Here are some helpful hints to follow when you
are dealing with an emotionally charged situation on behalf of your child. In
these situations, there is a tendency to bully as the level of anger increases.
First, I suggest that when a situation is highly charged, make an extra effort
to think before you speak. When I am faced with this problem in a difficult
negotiation, I usually count to five in my mind before I say anything. This
helps me calm down and allows me to analyze the issue before I speak.
The second piece of advice is make a special effort not to shout. The louder
your opponent talks, the quieter you should speak. This is a very effective
disarming technique which can be used to reduce the level of anxiety. As one of
my colleagues once said, 'it is no fun to try to push against somebody who does
not push back.'
My third suggestion is that if the situation really starts to heat up and there
is real question as to whether or not you have the ability to keep your cool,
ask for a break. This will give you the opportunity to collect yourself.
If you are faced with a particularly difficult sit- uation where you require
advice, you may want to ask to adjourn the meeting compl- etely to obtain
further advice. This may be important when you have an older child who may have
a perspective to share before a solution is arrived at. There is nothing worse
than proceeding in an emotionally charged meeting when you don't have all the
facts at your disposal to deal properly with the situation. Earlier in my
talk, I indicated that before any advocacy is undertaken on behalf of your
child, it is wise to establish a plan so that you have a road map for
determining what you want and how you want to get it. I will now discuss the
idea of planning in greater detail.
When I am advocating on behalf of others, the first thing I do is I try to
determine what it is that the group or person that I'm advocating on behalf of
really wants to achieve. This can be done by discussing the matter with the
affected individuals, obtaining advice from relevant experts, or reading
applicable materials in magazines and other publications. Once I have a road map
as to what the individual or the community wants, I then consider what the best
approach is for getting there.
Let's take an example. This past year, the British Columbia government sought
advice from stakeholders on how to restructure its special education system. The
NFB: AE and other groups were asked for their input into this process. Before
the NFB: AE's position was formulated, I asked everyone who wanted to
participate in the process to identify all of the strengths of the current
system and any concerns they had with the existing system. Once all of these
comments were received, I prepared a draft brief for submission to the
interested members for suggestions and revisions. Subsequent drafts were sent to
stakeholders incorporating the comments that were received. In this way, we
created a submission where consensus about what was being requested was
achieved.
Once you have established the basic position that you want to take, you have to
make some strategic decisions on how to present it. In this area, some of the
same comments that I made above still apply, namely, keeping your message
simple, making sure your plan is well researched, etc. In addition to these
factors, one must avoid the temptation to only support a solution that will
satisfy you 100% of the time. There must be room left for compromise and the bar
for compromise must be set at a level which is acceptable to you. Once that
level is reached, it is always open to you to keep pushing to achieve a better
result. The important thing is that you have to resolve the problem for your
child. It is less important to achieve a resounding victory on every argument
you advance.
When making strategic decisions about how to ask for what you want, it is
important to consider your audience. Make sure that the audience that you are
advocating before has the ability to give you what you want. If it doesn't, you
may need to reframe your request so that either you get before the right
audience or you request something that the current audience can provide. This
kind of difficulty often arises in advocacy in the education system. It is not
uncommon for parents to make requests of a school teacher which would be better
made of a school principal or some higher authority. Let's take for example the
issue of a child participating on a cross country running team at school. In
some school districts, the school districts have taken the position that blind
and vision-impaired children were not permitted to participate on cross country
running teams because of certain provisions in the school district's liability
insurance policies. In some cases, parents decided to take this matter up with
the school teacher rather than taking it up with the appropriate officials
within the school district who were empowered to enter into insurance contracts
with the insurer. The decision to initially approach the school teacher did not
assist the parents in reaching appropriate results since the school teacher had
no power to authorize let alone grant the remedy sought by the parents. This led
to the parents having to become involved in several meetings with other school
board officials before they worked their way up the chain to the person who
actually made the decision. This slowed down the advocacy process and actually,
in one case, totally prevented the child from having the opportunity to run on a
school team for a full academic year.
When you are involved in advocacy on behalf of your child, you should always be
prepared to answer the question which will be asked by school teachers and other
school board staff as follows: 'What do you want me to do about it?' This is a
very disarming question for most people because it requires the advocate to
revert immediately back to their plan and identify in two or three sentences
what it is they actually want. When the advocate is nervous, intimidated or shy,
these emotions sometimes take over preventing the advocate from giving a clear,
concrete and prompt answer. If this happens, take as long as you need to compose
yourself before answering the question.
Another difficulty that often arises is that the parent genuinely does not know
how to resolve the issue in question. This is because either the situation is
new or because the parent is in an isolated area and does not have access to
others who have encountered the same issue in the past. You should not be afraid
of saying you don't know the answer. If you don't know the answer, the best
approach is to use the school board and its resources to help both sides find
the answer to the issue facing your child. For example, if a child needs
additional braille teaching resources, and the school board does not have the
staff to provide them, perhaps both sides could work together to locate a
braille teacher outside of the school board's jurisdiction who would be prepared
to provide the services at the school board's expense. The same applies on
issues like the provision of orientation and mobility and other rehabilitation-
based skills that the student may require to participate effectively within the
school system. In each case, the school board does have access to the relevant
Ministry of Education officials who would be able to provide advice and support
on how to solve the issue faced by the child. Your job as the parent is to show
the school board officials that they should take interest in resolving the
issue.
Too often, parents go into an advocacy situation without knowing all of the
facts. This is a dangerous practice since it often results in the parents being
surprised when they learn about information for the first time during the
meeting. To prevent these kinds of surprises, I suggest that you spend time
speaking to your child before you try and advocate on his/her behalf. Even a
five or six-year-old child may be able to tell you something useful such as: 'I
don't like my teacher because s/he doesn't spend any time helping me.' If you
are armed with that information, you are prepared to respond if the teacher
over-exaggerates about her/his interactions with your child.
You can also obtain additional facts from other alliances that you may have
formed with past teachers, teaching assistants and other officials. If you have
formed such alliances, use them to obtain any information you can about the
issue in dispute and how these individuals may have resolved similar
disagreements in the past for your child. In evaluating your plan, you should
also be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the other side's position. If
you know what the strengths and weaknesses of their position are, it is easier
to modify your own plan to achieve the result that you want. In all forms of
advocacy, whether they be performed in writing or orally, at meetings or before
the courts, the advocate has to be prepared to address and respond to the
positions taken by the other side. The best approach for dealing with the other
side's position is usually to address it head on and find a way to show that the
position that the other side is taking either doesn't apply to your current
situation or if it does, it should not be supported for any number of reasons.
Where possible, distinguish the parts of the other side's position that you
don't like or can't support as being inapplicable to the current problem faced
by your child. If there are parts of the other side's position that you can
support, support them enthusiastically so that you appear to be reasonable.
Finally, there is a tendency among some advocates to give up when they don't
achieve success immediately. In the education system especially, results often
take weeks and even months to achieve. It is not uncommon for a parent to have
to meet with two, three or more school board officials on more than one occasion
to finally resolve the matter. In this kind of situation, it is very important
that you keep pushing to achieve the outcome that you are seeking. You should be
prepared on each occasion to educate the individual's present so that they fully
understand what your child needs and why. While this kind of process is
sometimes emotionally draining and painful, it is very important that the parent
sees it through to the end to ensure that the child receives the services that
he or she is entitled to receive.
It is not uncommon for school boards to use the tactic of attrition to persuade
parents not to pursue a certain matter. The logic behind this strategy is that
the school board has more people, more resources and more time to spend on a
particular issue than does the parent. This strategy involves the school board
using their advantage in resources to overwhelm the parent until the parent
reaches the point that they don't know how to or don't want to proceed. The best
way to avoid attrition as a form of stalling the process is to try to persuade
the school board to work with you in developing a timetable for completing
certain tasks. If possible, this should be reduced to writing and provided to
both parties. If the school board officials decide not to follow the timetable,
you then have something to show to their superiors to demonstrate that it is not
effective for you to be involved in advocacy with their subordinate. Instead,
you would like to work with them to solve the problem.
Another technique I have used in a situation where an advocacy exercise was
turning into a war of attrition was to employ alternative dispute resolution
techniques. This involves having the parent and representatives of the school
board sit down with an independent third party in an attempt to resolve all
outstanding issues. In these cases, it is suggested that each party reduce their
positions to writing and exchange them with both the independent third party and
their opponent. In these circumstances, everybody is able to prepare for the
meeting and the time during the meeting is used most effectively. It is often
important to have an objective third party present because that individual can
cut through some of the bad feelings and other emotions which are often present
when a parent and a school board are involved in a dispute with one another. The
third party can talk objectively to both sides and point out the strengths and
weaknesses in both of their positions. More often than not, if both sides are
well prepared and take the process seriously, the dispute in question can be
resolved.
I have been involved in these kinds of advocacy initiatives both on behalf of
parents of children and as a mediator. In each and every case, I have found that
the alternative dispute resolution process was rewarding and that results were
achieved that were satisfactory to everyone.
In closing, I know that I have presented you with a lot of information. Don't be
overwhelmed by this and feel free to ask as many questions as you like. If I had
to sum up my comments into just a few sentences, I would say this. The best way
to learn to do advocacy is to actually do it. You'll need to get into the
trenches and make the mistakes that you're now afraid of making before you learn
how to become the best advocate you can be. Don't be afraid of making mistakes.
Everyone does. Instead, recognize that when you are advocating, you are doing so
on behalf of your child who is completely dependent on you for their education.
Remember it is their interests that we seek to enhance and protect and for those
reasons we need to be well prepared when we advocate, and we need to keep our
focus on the end result that we wish to achieve.
