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The Invisible Advocate's Handbook: A Plain-Language Guide for Foster and Kinship Caregivers Navigating Special Education
Paperback
Pregnancy & AdoptionSpecial Education
Publisher: Invisible Advocates
Published: Jul 14 2026
Pages: 48
Weight: 0.39
Height: 0.12 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English
You know your child. You belong at the table.
Every child in foster care deserves an adult who can navigate the school system on their behalf. Too often, that adult is handed a stack of paperwork, a room full of professionals, and no explanation at all.
Drawing on doctoral research with ten caregivers of children in the foster system - and more than two decades as a school psychologist in Brooklyn's public schools - Dr. Robert R. Rogers translates hard-won knowledge into plain words for the foster parents, kinship caregivers, and grandparents-turned-parents who do this invisible work every day.
Inside, you'll find:
- The three documents that decide what your child actually gets - the evaluation, the IEP, and the Prior Written Notice most caregivers are never told about
- A step-by-step guide to the IEP meeting: before, during, and after
- Your rights in plain language, including who can legally make education decisions for a child in foster care
- Six copy-and-use letter templates, a meeting checklist, a records tracker, and a plain-English glossary
- An escalation ladder for when the system stops returning your calls
- State-specific appendices for New Jersey and New York families, with timelines and free help lines
- The real voices of ten caregivers - Gloria, Glenda, Harold, and others - who lived every page of it
Whether you're preparing for your first IEP meeting or your fiftieth, this handbook will help you move from feeling invisible to being impossible to ignore.
You are not too much. You are not overreacting. You are the most important person at that table.
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