Well, regardless of program crapola, there are "Child Advocates" who are educated about various "special needs" that may affect a kid's ability to learn in an ordinary public school classroom and mean the kid needs testing and/or an IEP to actually get the "free, appropriate public education" federal legislation mandates.
These "Child Advocates" are hired by a parent to do things like accompanying them to the IEP meetings with the public school employees to help ensure that the kid's IEP actually meets his/her learning needs.
You can get an IEP for everything from dyslexia, to Tourettes, to ADHD, to Down's Syndrome. It just means that for whatever reasons, a one-size-fits-all education won't meet your needs.
Sometimes school employees are really bad at listening and think they understand a particular disability when they flat out don't. Sometimes, they view providing needed accomodations, as mandated by federal law, as privileges instead of rights. Sometimes to get them to follow the law, even in very basic common-sense accomodations to a kid's major disability, takes taking them to court in a due process hearing.
A "Child Advocate" in that context is not an attorney, but can certainly help the parent dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" to get the kid's needs met---or, worst case, to document the attempts to get the kid's needs met prior to suing the school.
I suppose in the program context "Child Advocate" may be another term that has a different meaning in the whole "program speak" world. Kinda like "Escort Service" means something *completely* different when you're not talking about the troubled family industry. :smile: :smile: :smile:
And damn, I *wish* I'd had a correct diagnosis and an IEP when *I* was going to school. It would have saved me no end of trouble to have gotten the needed accomodation of being excused from all or part of homework on my "bad" days rather than having my grades disproportionately docked for disorganization and time management problems caused *directly* by my disability.
Timoclea
