April 12, 2024 • 15 mins
Join Specially-Designed Education Services as we get to know as we get to know Catherine Whitcher, founder of Master IEP Coach® Mentorship.
Check out BOTH
Check out BOTH
- Specially-Designed Education Services and the Functional Academics Program at www.sdesworks.com
- Master IEP Coach® at: https://www.masteriepcoach.com/.
Growing up alongside a sibling with Down syndrome, Catherine Whitcher discovered early on the impact that specialized education can have. Now, as a seasoned and dynamic consultant working with special education parents, teachers, administrators and therapists, she joins our podcast to share her transformative journey and the heartening strides she's made in the world of special education. Her personal narrative not only touches on the challenges and victories she's encountered but also shines a light on her groundbreaking work in revolutionizing the Individualized Education Program (IEP) to better serve families and educators.
In a conversation that is as enlightening as it is moving, Catherine unveils the intricacies of her Master IEP Coach program. Her innovative approach to collaboration and problem-solving within IEP meetings has established a new standard of support for those navigating the special education landscape. By equipping participants with essential tools and fostering a collaborative spirit, Catherine's mentorship program is creating ripples of positive change, ensuring that every child is poised for success in education and beyond. Join us to hear her remarkable story and the ways she's making a difference in the lives of countless individuals through dedication and expertise.
In a conversation that is as enlightening as it is moving, Catherine unveils the intricacies of her Master IEP Coach program. Her innovative approach to collaboration and problem-solving within IEP meetings has established a new standard of support for those navigating the special education landscape. By equipping participants with essential tools and fostering a collaborative spirit, Catherine's mentorship program is creating ripples of positive change, ensuring that every child is poised for success in education and beyond. Join us to hear her remarkable story and the ways she's making a difference in the lives of countless individuals through dedication and expertise.
Barbara Beck is the host of the FAST 15 Podcast. She is a highly dedicated Disability Advocate and Special Education Consultant specializing in IEP Transition Services. Barbara has an extensive background as a special education teacher spanning nearly 30 years. She has dedicated her career to empowering transition-age youth and fostering positive post-school outcomes.
Barbara's expertise lies in providing comprehensive support and guidance to students with disabilities, ensuring their successful transition from school to adult life. She possesses a deep understanding of secondary services and possesses the skills to develop tailored strategies that maximize individual potential.
For more information and resources on special education school-to-adulthood transition planning and independent living, visit www.mykeyplans.com. Join us on social media for updates, behind-the-scenes content, and discussions about special education, inclusion, and disability advocacy. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and use #IEPLaunchpadPodcast to join the conversation. Thank you for tuning in to the IEP Launchpad Podcast! 🎧🎙️#IDD #teaching #specialed #specialneeds #InclusionMatters #DisabilityAdvocacy #EmpowerVoices #edtech, #education #edtech, #teachers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Today, on the Fast 15 , we're welcoming Catherine
Witcher.
For over 20 years, catherinehas been sitting at IEP tables
helping parents, teachers andteams create IEPs that work.
Inspired by her brother withDown syndrome, she became a
special education teacher.
With a master's degree and fiveteaching certificates, she was
(00:23):
determined to change the specialeducation community from the
inside of her classroom.
After just a few years ofteaching, catherine was in high
demand for special educationconsulting and speaking.
She left the classroom anddedicated herself to changing
special education by helpinghundreds of families every year.
When districts experienced hercollaborative, common sense
(00:47):
approach to solving even thetoughest problems, they soon
started hiring Catherine to helptheir special education teams
from the inside.
As an international speaker andfounder of online training
programs, the Master IEP Coach,mentorship and Network,
catherine serves thousands ofparents and teams from around
(01:07):
the world.
She's determined to change thespecial education experience for
everyone who sits at the IEPtable.
She's always ready to jump intoall the hot topics, sticky
conversations and share thesolutions that are needed for
all children to be prepared forfurther education, employment
and independent living.
(01:28):
Join me in welcoming Catherineto the Fast 15.
Good morning, catherine, andhey, I'm just so excited to
spend some time with you andwelcome to the Fast 15.
We wanted just a chance to getto know more about you today and
it's just it's a privilege tohave you and find out about your
(01:49):
story, about your journey kindof the early days.
What's your career kind of beenlike and how has your journey
led you to what you're doing nowwith the Master IEP Coach.
We want our listeners to findout all about that, the whole
journey.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
We want our listeners to find out all about that, the
whole journey, yeah.
So I'm so excited to share andto hopefully really show what is
possible for other families andteachers who are out in our
special education community.
You know, in the trenches everyday.
So my first introduction to thedisability community was
through my brother.
So my brother is in his late40s.
(02:25):
He has Down syndrome.
When you do all the math wewill get into a history lesson
in math here about specialeducation.
But he is the first generationof fully educated adults with
disabilities.
So the law was enacted in 1975.
My brother was born in 1977,which means that I watched my
mom navigate the system as thefirst fully educated, from
(02:48):
beginning till you knowgraduation, which was really
interesting as a sibling.
And we had a very I'm going tocall it kind of a traditional
household.
It was me and my brother, itwas my mom and my dad and my dad
, you know, went to work toevery, every day and he was the
breadwinner in the family, youknow, in charge of us kids,
right To take care of it, justto do all of the things.
And she definitely was mybrother's advocate and she was
(03:12):
his voice and she did a lot ofthe negotiating and as a sibling
, I was very nosy right, so I'mlistening to everything and my
thought was why can't theteachers just teach my brother?
Now, for all my teachers whoare listening, I was like 10
when I remember thinking that.
So, like, don't come at me, allright, I was 10, right.
I was like I don't get it.
Like why can't they just dothis?
(03:33):
Why does my mom have tonegotiate for a new school and
negotiate for a differentclassroom and negotiate for all
of these?
Can't she please just cookdinner and us not talk about
IEPs?
Like why does she have to pickme up late from school because
she's too busy on the phone withthe special ed director?
That was real life.
So I decided to become aspecial education teacher
because you know I'll just solveall the problems of special
(03:53):
education from the inside of myclassroom.
That didn't quite work out OnceI got into the system and I was
like, oh okay, this is astruggle Like.
This is not just all the piecesof being a teacher, but there's
a lot of red tape.
And having that experience andwatching my mom go through it
from the family side and meexperiencing it as a sibling,
and my very first IEP meeting Iever attended, I was probably
(04:15):
about 18 years old.
My brother was 16.
We were talking abouttransition planning.
I'll give you guys a littlequick snippet of what happened
at that meeting.
The school said basically theysaid to my mom what's going to
happen when you die?
And I was like what?
Like what is happening at thisIEP meeting?
We're talking about mom dying,great.
(04:36):
And so I was like so my mom goes, he's just going to live with
his sister.
And I was like we're puttingthat in the paperwork, what does
that mean?
But here's the thing as theolder sister at Tavon Light that
I had, of course that's what Iassumed growing up I just knew
that's not an issue.
That was not the issue.
The issue was why are we havingthis conversation here?
(04:57):
And then the team said that maynot be feasible.
She may not want him to livewith her.
What other plans do you have?
And my mom was like hold up,stop right there, let's move
back to the things that we needto talk about school.
We don't need to have a futureplanning session here at the IEP
(05:17):
team.
That was my first IEP mid-end.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Very intrusive.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty rough.
So I become a teacher.
I see all this red tape behindthe scenes.
I know the struggles thatfamilies are going through and I
actually walked into myclassroom.
This is back when they used tolike print IEPs like.
You got a stack of IEPs.
Yeah, I'm old, oh well howabout the triplicate forms?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Were your handwriting .
I have experience withtriplicate forms.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I do.
I do Okay, so little white outof trying to print out from
things on there, type them outon there.
Oh, it was a lot.
I walked in and I have thisstack of IEPs and basically an
empty classroom and it's goodluck.
And I'm like what do you what?
What?
Now here I am, 25 years later.
I realized that was the normand still is the norm.
That wasn't something thatanybody told me was going to
(06:06):
happen, but it was happeningeverywhere.
So as I tried to go through thisIEP paperwork and figure out
what am I supposed to do as thisnew teacher, I remembered how
my mom negotiated things whenshe was upset and it was not
nice and I did not want to be onthat side of having the parents
call me and be really upsetthat the teacher couldn't do
(06:27):
what needs to get done.
So I was proactive, which ispretty gutsy.
I got my first teaching degreewhen I was 20.
So I look at, okay, I have a20-year-old daughter now, like I
couldn't imagine I was 20, soI'm just calling up the parents
and I'm like, hey, like I'm thenew teacher and I'm looking
through your child's IEP and Ilove everything that's in here
and I would love to know what'syour priority?
And they were like floored what, like, what do you mean?
(06:51):
Are you kidding?
Yeah, I was like here's what Isee and what's going on at your
house and what are prioritiesand what.
And I went through this wholekind of national interview with
them and when they saw that Iwas thinking to design their
child's day not just around theschool's priorities but their
priorities as a parent, I hadtheir trust.
Now, yes, everything was notsmooth, like that is not the end
(07:15):
of the story.
I was still going through a tonof red tape on the back end.
So what I found is I wasteaching by day and coaching
parents at night.
This is what you need to askfor.
This is how you need to do itcollaboratively.
This is how you do it withoutthrowing a teacher under the bus
.
And when I started teaching thatto parents, the parents told
other parents, who then toldother parents, and I ended up
(07:37):
with this big, long list offamilies that I ended up helping
and eventually I left theclassroom and I started doing
that full time as helpingparents navigate the system and
the one last kind of piece ofkind of the transition, of how I
ended up where I'm at now, ofwhat's going on, is, as I was
then helping parents and I wassitting side by side with them
or coaching them through whatthey needed to do.
(07:59):
Districts saw what I was doingand they said we've never seen
this before.
Can you come train our teachersto build IEPs like you're
building IEPs?
And that blew my mind, becauseI was sure that I was going to
have to choose.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Hey listeners, we're going to take a quick break from
our intriguing and compellingstory after just a quick word
from our sponsor, sdes.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Functional Academics by SDES's collaborative work
with educators and families,just like you, provides an
in-depth understanding of yourneeds in the community we serve.
You've asked, we listen, it'scoming.
Stay tuned with more to come atSDESworkscom.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Do I work for the schools or do I work for the
parent?
And I have the opportunity tobe an independent practitioner
helping parents through theprocess.
And then schools brought me into do training and consulting.
That to me was just magic.
That to me.
I was like this is it, this iswhere it is.
(09:04):
So that's how I ended up withour current training programs
through Master IP Coach, whichare the only training programs
where every program is built forparents, teachers, admins and
therapists to learn and worktogether.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Right, and if you're listening and you want more
information about the Master IEPCoach, catherine, where do they
go?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Masteriepcoachcom and you can go get some free
resources and you'll see otherprograms and trainings and
mentorships and all differentways that you and I can connect.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Right, and what year was that?
When you, when you actuallystarted into it?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah.
So I will tell you it wasprobably.
I started coaching parentswhile I was still in the
classroom.
That was in the late 90s.
I only was in the classroom fora few years, which is why I'm
not your person to teach how torun a classroom.
I'm not that guru of how to runthis perfect classroom.
I got obsessed with buildingIEPs that made sense for the
(10:01):
real world, for all people thatwere involved in the IEP process
, so I've been doing this for 25years.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Massridebee Coach, I think, was established around
2017, but that's just when weput a name on it right and um,
I'm curious about if you've hadthat that long of a period of
time just kind of working withfamilies and reach is growing.
Um, is there one particulargiving away any names or or real
(10:31):
personal information I'mcurious about?
Hasn't that you walked throughthrough from elementary all the
way through to addition?
Has there been a a story likethat?
I have, it's one of myfavorites.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And funny is that the mom still comes on my Facebook
page and is still hi, ourJaverin, she was with us forever
.
So what happened she called meup around second grade is when
she decided she really neededsome help for her son, who is
diagnosed with autism, and a lotof other things too, Just a lot
of things going on with thischild, and another layer to that
(11:05):
is that he had a genius IQ.
So it was definitely asituation where everybody's like
what do we do?
We're having some of those I'mgoing to call them kind of
traditional struggles that wekind of think of when I have
things like anxiety, ADHD,autism, OCD.
You know, we can kind ofpicture some things as just with
(11:25):
our experience.
And then we layered on thischild had a genius IQ and so
there was a lot of moving partsin there.
So I stayed with them all theway through high school
graduation.
Mom kept me in the loop throughcollege and him navigating the
disability office at college andit was really exciting I would
(11:46):
say probably the most excitingpiece of being able to work with
this family, because it wasn'talways about working through
them, through conflict.
It was about really findingopportunities and this hope and
possibilities and opportunities.
It's not that there wasconflict every year, it was okay
.
It's that time again.
Here's where we're at.
Let's work together and havethis brainstorm, think tank what
(12:10):
is possible.
And then, yes, sometimes therewere definitely crisis
situations happening, but myfavorite with him is in high
school we were able to help himlearn how to self-advocate for
himself inside of the IEPmeeting, and that was huge.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
To have the whole team, and especially the parents
, saying what is wanted andneeded for you know, from their
perspective, that's just anincredible shift when we're able
to get the student's voice atthe table to be the loudest
voice at the table, right.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
He had trouble expressing himself verbally and
he would be very loud, butalways in a negative way.
Ok, always in a negative way.
We actually figured out the wayfor him to self-advocate as I
was coaching him through thisone situation.
We're having a lot ofdifficulties, a lot of explosive
behaviors happening, like tothe point where the school
wanted to call the police.
The school wanted to really takesome extreme measures because
(13:05):
it was an extreme situation, andI finally gave him a piece of
paper and a pen and I said canyou draw for me the classroom
and what you need me to put inthe classroom and where do you
need to sit to make thisclassroom work for you?
And he drew out everything indetail to make this classroom
work for you.
And he drew out everything indetail and we realized that him
being able to have another wayto communicate, even though he
(13:28):
was capable of the verbalcommunication and he was getting
loud and he was the loudest atthe table, it wasn't until we
could get him to draw it andactually that was the loudest
and I try to explain that toparents a lot of times even for
themselves.
You can actually have sometimesthe biggest impact without being
(13:49):
the loudest person, when youknow exactly what you're looking
for.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That is so powerful.
I love how you just said that.
That's wonderful.
Well, I have to get moreinformation all about the
specifics, about the Master IEPCoach, your team, how you
actually go through the processof working with people, just so
that, if they're interested inlearning more and being a part
(14:14):
of what you're doing, we wantthem to be able to, you know,
get a real idea of the process,the tools.
This has to be two episodes.
We're going to come to the endof this episode, but we've got
to have our listeners listeninto part two of our time with
you.
Catherine Wicher, thank you somuch for being on this episode
(14:34):
and we'll catch you in the nextone.
Thank you for having me.
A heartfelt thank you to ourgenerous sponsors, specially
Designed Education Services,publishers of the Functional
Academics Program.
Please take a moment to learnmore about the only true,
comprehensive functionalacademics program that enables
students with moderate to severedisabilities to improve their
(14:58):
ability to live independentlyand show meaningful growth, both
academically and personally,while creating accountability
with data-driven, evidence-basedresults.
Visit SDESWorkscom to learnmore.
Today, on the Fast 15 , we're welcoming Catherine
Witcher.
For over 20 years, catherinehas been sitting at IEP tables
helping parents, teachers andteams create IEPs that work.
Inspired by her brother withDown syndrome, she became a
special education teacher.
With a master's degree and fiveteaching certificates, she was
(00:23):
determined to change the specialeducation community from the
inside of her classroom.
After just a few years ofteaching, catherine was in high
demand for special educationconsulting and speaking.
She left the classroom anddedicated herself to changing
special education by helpinghundreds of families every year.
When districts experienced hercollaborative, common sense
(00:47):
approach to solving even thetoughest problems, they soon
started hiring Catherine to helptheir special education teams
from the inside.
As an international speaker andfounder of online training
programs, the Master IEP Coach,mentorship and Network,
catherine serves thousands ofparents and teams from around
(01:07):
the world.
She's determined to change thespecial education experience for
everyone who sits at the IEPtable.
She's always ready to jump intoall the hot topics, sticky
conversations and share thesolutions that are needed for
all children to be prepared forfurther education, employment
and independent living.
(01:28):
Join me in welcoming Catherineto the Fast 15.
Good morning, catherine, andhey, I'm just so excited to
spend some time with you andwelcome to the Fast 15.
We wanted just a chance to getto know more about you today and
it's just it's a privilege tohave you and find out about your
(01:49):
story, about your journey kindof the early days.
What's your career kind of beenlike and how has your journey
led you to what you're doing nowwith the Master IEP Coach.
We want our listeners to findout all about that, the whole
journey.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
We want our listeners to find out all about that, the
whole journey, yeah.
So I'm so excited to share andto hopefully really show what is
possible for other families andteachers who are out in our
special education community.
You know, in the trenches everyday.
So my first introduction to thedisability community was
through my brother.
So my brother is in his late40s.
(02:25):
He has Down syndrome.
When you do all the math wewill get into a history lesson
in math here about specialeducation.
But he is the first generationof fully educated adults with
disabilities.
So the law was enacted in 1975.
My brother was born in 1977,which means that I watched my
mom navigate the system as thefirst fully educated, from
(02:48):
beginning till you knowgraduation, which was really
interesting as a sibling.
And we had a very I'm going tocall it kind of a traditional
household.
It was me and my brother, itwas my mom and my dad and my dad
, you know, went to work toevery, every day and he was the
breadwinner in the family, youknow, in charge of us kids,
right To take care of it, justto do all of the things.
And she definitely was mybrother's advocate and she was
(03:12):
his voice and she did a lot ofthe negotiating and as a sibling
, I was very nosy right, so I'mlistening to everything and my
thought was why can't theteachers just teach my brother?
Now, for all my teachers whoare listening, I was like 10
when I remember thinking that.
So, like, don't come at me, allright, I was 10, right.
I was like I don't get it.
Like why can't they just dothis?
(03:33):
Why does my mom have tonegotiate for a new school and
negotiate for a differentclassroom and negotiate for all
of these?
Can't she please just cookdinner and us not talk about
IEPs?
Like why does she have to pickme up late from school because
she's too busy on the phone withthe special ed director?
That was real life.
So I decided to become aspecial education teacher
because you know I'll just solveall the problems of special
(03:53):
education from the inside of myclassroom.
That didn't quite work out OnceI got into the system and I was
like, oh okay, this is astruggle Like.
This is not just all the piecesof being a teacher, but there's
a lot of red tape.
And having that experience andwatching my mom go through it
from the family side and meexperiencing it as a sibling,
and my very first IEP meeting Iever attended, I was probably
(04:15):
about 18 years old.
My brother was 16.
We were talking abouttransition planning.
I'll give you guys a littlequick snippet of what happened
at that meeting.
The school said basically theysaid to my mom what's going to
happen when you die?
And I was like what?
Like what is happening at thisIEP meeting?
We're talking about mom dying,great.
(04:36):
And so I was like so my mom goes, he's just going to live with
his sister.
And I was like we're puttingthat in the paperwork, what does
that mean?
But here's the thing as theolder sister at Tavon Light that
I had, of course that's what Iassumed growing up I just knew
that's not an issue.
That was not the issue.
The issue was why are we havingthis conversation here?
(04:57):
And then the team said that maynot be feasible.
She may not want him to livewith her.
What other plans do you have?
And my mom was like hold up,stop right there, let's move
back to the things that we needto talk about school.
We don't need to have a futureplanning session here at the IEP
(05:17):
team.
That was my first IEP mid-end.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Very intrusive.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty rough.
So I become a teacher.
I see all this red tape behindthe scenes.
I know the struggles thatfamilies are going through and I
actually walked into myclassroom.
This is back when they used tolike print IEPs like.
You got a stack of IEPs.
Yeah, I'm old, oh well howabout the triplicate forms?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Were your handwriting .
I have experience withtriplicate forms.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I do.
I do Okay, so little white outof trying to print out from
things on there, type them outon there.
Oh, it was a lot.
I walked in and I have thisstack of IEPs and basically an
empty classroom and it's goodluck.
And I'm like what do you what?
What?
Now here I am, 25 years later.
I realized that was the normand still is the norm.
That wasn't something thatanybody told me was going to
(06:06):
happen, but it was happeningeverywhere.
So as I tried to go through thisIEP paperwork and figure out
what am I supposed to do as thisnew teacher, I remembered how
my mom negotiated things whenshe was upset and it was not
nice and I did not want to be onthat side of having the parents
call me and be really upsetthat the teacher couldn't do
(06:27):
what needs to get done.
So I was proactive, which ispretty gutsy.
I got my first teaching degreewhen I was 20.
So I look at, okay, I have a20-year-old daughter now, like I
couldn't imagine I was 20, soI'm just calling up the parents
and I'm like, hey, like I'm thenew teacher and I'm looking
through your child's IEP and Ilove everything that's in here
and I would love to know what'syour priority?
And they were like floored what, like, what do you mean?
(06:51):
Are you kidding?
Yeah, I was like here's what Isee and what's going on at your
house and what are prioritiesand what.
And I went through this wholekind of national interview with
them and when they saw that Iwas thinking to design their
child's day not just around theschool's priorities but their
priorities as a parent, I hadtheir trust.
Now, yes, everything was notsmooth, like that is not the end
(07:15):
of the story.
I was still going through a tonof red tape on the back end.
So what I found is I wasteaching by day and coaching
parents at night.
This is what you need to askfor.
This is how you need to do itcollaboratively.
This is how you do it withoutthrowing a teacher under the bus
.
And when I started teaching thatto parents, the parents told
other parents, who then toldother parents, and I ended up
(07:37):
with this big, long list offamilies that I ended up helping
and eventually I left theclassroom and I started doing
that full time as helpingparents navigate the system and
the one last kind of piece ofkind of the transition, of how I
ended up where I'm at now, ofwhat's going on, is, as I was
then helping parents and I wassitting side by side with them
or coaching them through whatthey needed to do.
(07:59):
Districts saw what I was doingand they said we've never seen
this before.
Can you come train our teachersto build IEPs like you're
building IEPs?
And that blew my mind, becauseI was sure that I was going to
have to choose.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Hey listeners, we're going to take a quick break from
our intriguing and compellingstory after just a quick word
from our sponsor, sdes.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Functional Academics by SDES's collaborative work
with educators and families,just like you, provides an
in-depth understanding of yourneeds in the community we serve.
You've asked, we listen, it'scoming.
Stay tuned with more to come atSDESworkscom.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Do I work for the schools or do I work for the
parent?
And I have the opportunity tobe an independent practitioner
helping parents through theprocess.
And then schools brought me into do training and consulting.
That to me was just magic.
That to me.
I was like this is it, this iswhere it is.
(09:04):
So that's how I ended up withour current training programs
through Master IP Coach, whichare the only training programs
where every program is built forparents, teachers, admins and
therapists to learn and worktogether.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Right, and if you're listening and you want more
information about the Master IEPCoach, catherine, where do they
go?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Masteriepcoachcom and you can go get some free
resources and you'll see otherprograms and trainings and
mentorships and all differentways that you and I can connect.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Right, and what year was that?
When you, when you actuallystarted into it?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah.
So I will tell you it wasprobably.
I started coaching parentswhile I was still in the
classroom.
That was in the late 90s.
I only was in the classroom fora few years, which is why I'm
not your person to teach how torun a classroom.
I'm not that guru of how to runthis perfect classroom.
I got obsessed with buildingIEPs that made sense for the
(10:01):
real world, for all people thatwere involved in the IEP process
, so I've been doing this for 25years.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Massridebee Coach, I think, was established around
2017, but that's just when weput a name on it right and um,
I'm curious about if you've hadthat that long of a period of
time just kind of working withfamilies and reach is growing.
Um, is there one particulargiving away any names or or real
(10:31):
personal information I'mcurious about?
Hasn't that you walked throughthrough from elementary all the
way through to addition?
Has there been a a story likethat?
I have, it's one of myfavorites.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And funny is that the mom still comes on my Facebook
page and is still hi, ourJaverin, she was with us forever
.
So what happened she called meup around second grade is when
she decided she really neededsome help for her son, who is
diagnosed with autism, and a lotof other things too, Just a lot
of things going on with thischild, and another layer to that
(11:05):
is that he had a genius IQ.
So it was definitely asituation where everybody's like
what do we do?
We're having some of those I'mgoing to call them kind of
traditional struggles that wekind of think of when I have
things like anxiety, ADHD,autism, OCD.
You know, we can kind ofpicture some things as just with
(11:25):
our experience.
And then we layered on thischild had a genius IQ and so
there was a lot of moving partsin there.
So I stayed with them all theway through high school
graduation.
Mom kept me in the loop throughcollege and him navigating the
disability office at college andit was really exciting I would
(11:46):
say probably the most excitingpiece of being able to work with
this family, because it wasn'talways about working through
them, through conflict.
It was about really findingopportunities and this hope and
possibilities and opportunities.
It's not that there wasconflict every year, it was okay
.
It's that time again.
Here's where we're at.
Let's work together and havethis brainstorm, think tank what
(12:10):
is possible.
And then, yes, sometimes therewere definitely crisis
situations happening, but myfavorite with him is in high
school we were able to help himlearn how to self-advocate for
himself inside of the IEPmeeting, and that was huge.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
To have the whole team, and especially the parents
, saying what is wanted andneeded for you know, from their
perspective, that's just anincredible shift when we're able
to get the student's voice atthe table to be the loudest
voice at the table, right.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
He had trouble expressing himself verbally and
he would be very loud, butalways in a negative way.
Ok, always in a negative way.
We actually figured out the wayfor him to self-advocate as I
was coaching him through thisone situation.
We're having a lot ofdifficulties, a lot of explosive
behaviors happening, like tothe point where the school
wanted to call the police.
The school wanted to really takesome extreme measures because
(13:05):
it was an extreme situation, andI finally gave him a piece of
paper and a pen and I said canyou draw for me the classroom
and what you need me to put inthe classroom and where do you
need to sit to make thisclassroom work for you?
And he drew out everything indetail to make this classroom
work for you.
And he drew out everything indetail and we realized that him
being able to have another wayto communicate, even though he
(13:28):
was capable of the verbalcommunication and he was getting
loud and he was the loudest atthe table, it wasn't until we
could get him to draw it andactually that was the loudest
and I try to explain that toparents a lot of times even for
themselves.
You can actually have sometimesthe biggest impact without being
(13:49):
the loudest person, when youknow exactly what you're looking
for.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That is so powerful.
I love how you just said that.
That's wonderful.
Well, I have to get moreinformation all about the
specifics, about the Master IEPCoach, your team, how you
actually go through the processof working with people, just so
that, if they're interested inlearning more and being a part
(14:14):
of what you're doing, we wantthem to be able to, you know,
get a real idea of the process,the tools.
This has to be two episodes.
We're going to come to the endof this episode, but we've got
to have our listeners listeninto part two of our time with
you.
Catherine Wicher, thank you somuch for being on this episode
(14:34):
and we'll catch you in the nextone.
Thank you for having me.
A heartfelt thank you to ourgenerous sponsors, specially
Designed Education Services,publishers of the Functional
Academics Program.
Please take a moment to learnmore about the only true,
comprehensive functionalacademics program that enables
students with moderate to severedisabilities to improve their
(14:58):
ability to live independentlyand show meaningful growth, both
academically and personally,while creating accountability
with data-driven, evidence-basedresults.
Visit SDESWorkscom to learnmore.
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