Webinar: Imagine Different…Imagine Lifesharing for Children with ID/DD and Complex Medical Needs
There are approximately 240 children with medical needs currently living in pediatric care facilities who are missing the vibrancy and joy of family life. For those children who may not be able to return home, their prioritization for discharge provides an exciting challenge to the Lifesharing community: Are you ready to expand your expertise in supporting family life for individuals with disabilities to ensure that children, too, enjoy Everyday Lives? This webinar, presented by Rachel Mann, Esq. and Nancy Rosenau, Ph.D. of the Imagine Different Coalition, unravels much of the mystery surrounding who these children are and what they need. Critical topic areas include:
• Description of children needing LifeSharing (living in or at risk of admission to facilities) and their families
• Recruitment/assessment and preparation of potential Lifesharing families
• Understanding of and coordination with outside resources that support children
• Matching children and recruited Lifesharing families and supporting that relationship
• Facility discharge transition planning
• Safeguards (e.g., monitoring, back-up, access to expertise)
To view this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/5KdrV8wfQMWchUMUo99qHEp3S8dC26FVnbujRIerpOnAiGK5obmziGkoCbladlBi.ryTQUPCbASU0TL9N
Congregate Care in Pennsylvania
Coalition Position on Children with Disabilities Growing Up in Congregate Care Facilities
Child Welfare System
Achieving the Least Restrictive Setting in the Child Welfare System: What Disability Rights Advocates Need to Know (2017)
Both federal child welfare law and disability anti-discrimination statutes require that a child who has been removed from her home be placed in the least restrictive placement that meets her needs, yet children with disabilities continue to be disproportionately placed in congregate care settings. This recorded webinar provides participants with a better understanding of the federal requirements of the “least restrictive most family like setting” in child welfare law as well as practical information about how to make that happen for youth with disabilities in their systems. We provide an overview of alternatives to institutional care, including advocacy strategies for promoting family-based placements.
Children & Youth with Special Health Care Needs Subgroup Report of Recommendations
Convened by OCYF in 2014, the statewide, cross-stakeholder CYSHCN Sub-Group reviewed current federal and Pennsylvania state policy relevant to CYSHCNs in foster care.
Our Workbooks
Imagine Different...achieve different! workbooks (2013)
In 2012, the PEAL Center partnered with Nancy Rosenau, national expert on family-based alternatives to congregate care and Executive Director of Everychild, Inc. Texas to write the three Imagine Different...Achieve Different Workbooks. These were the foundation for the development of the Imagine Different Coalition.
2007 public administrative records review
Review of public records of children with disabilities living in congregate care in PA written by Liz Healey.