The Effects of Parent Training and Information Centers on Parent Empowerment
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Michael Morris
Project Type
EdD Colloquium - ONU
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Discovery
Presentation Type
Presentation
Abstract
Parents of children who receive special education services from the public school are considered equal partners in their child’s education along with school professionals on the Individual Education Program team. Each state has a Parent Training and Information Center (PTIC) that seeks to empower parents to fulfill their right as an equal partner. This current study compared the advocacy, knowledge, competence, self-efficacy, and empowerment of two groups of parents of children with disabilities who received special education services in Tennessee. The experimental group of parents (n=36) had attended a workshop provided by a PTIC and the control group (n=21) had not attended a workshop. Participants received an email from PTIC with a link to the survey or received a hard copy of the survey at a workshop. The survey included demographic information, Likert-scale questions, and open-ended questions about their experiences and suggestions for how school professionals and parents can increase the effectiveness of the Individual Education Program process from the Family Empowerment Scale (Koren, DeChillo, & Friesen, 1992) and the Fish survey (2008). Quantitative results from the likert-scale questions about parent advocacy (p=.847), knowledge (p=.117), competence (p=.669), self-efficacy (p=.992), and empowerment (p=.459) were not statistically significant. Parent responses to the open-ended questions aligned with a current literature review and emphasized the importance of educating themselves about the special education process, being an involved and equal partner on the Individual Education Program team, and communicating regularly with school professionals.
Cohort XX
Permission Type
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
The Effects of Parent Training and Information Centers on Parent Empowerment
Wisner Auditorium
Parents of children who receive special education services from the public school are considered equal partners in their child’s education along with school professionals on the Individual Education Program team. Each state has a Parent Training and Information Center (PTIC) that seeks to empower parents to fulfill their right as an equal partner. This current study compared the advocacy, knowledge, competence, self-efficacy, and empowerment of two groups of parents of children with disabilities who received special education services in Tennessee. The experimental group of parents (n=36) had attended a workshop provided by a PTIC and the control group (n=21) had not attended a workshop. Participants received an email from PTIC with a link to the survey or received a hard copy of the survey at a workshop. The survey included demographic information, Likert-scale questions, and open-ended questions about their experiences and suggestions for how school professionals and parents can increase the effectiveness of the Individual Education Program process from the Family Empowerment Scale (Koren, DeChillo, & Friesen, 1992) and the Fish survey (2008). Quantitative results from the likert-scale questions about parent advocacy (p=.847), knowledge (p=.117), competence (p=.669), self-efficacy (p=.992), and empowerment (p=.459) were not statistically significant. Parent responses to the open-ended questions aligned with a current literature review and emphasized the importance of educating themselves about the special education process, being an involved and equal partner on the Individual Education Program team, and communicating regularly with school professionals.
Cohort XX