Handouts below description
Person-Centered Planning often sounds daunting or confusing to families who have young children with disabilities and/or additional support needs. However, it is vitally important to understand how today's actions and decisions can impact our current plans and the future lives of our children and families.
This session discusses the unique challenges and obstacles facing families who have young children and want to know how to successfully move toward identified goals and visions. How can families successfully overcome the multitude and diversity of challenges and obstacles they face on an everyday basis? How can we clarify the problems facing us and create strategies necessary to help us continue toward a future vision that seems to continually be impacted by naysayers, and make us feel like we're on a battlefield? This session helps families who have young children with disabilities and/or additional support needs to clarify the person-centered planning and post-planning processes to achieve a life of self-determination, inclusion, and community living.
Kathy Brill is mom to three daughters, the youngest, age 32, using numerous personal and technology supports throughout her life to achieve full community inclusion. She now lives in her own home, has a job she loves, and is a full part of her community. The process of working toward living independently started from the moment her daughter was born. Kathy and her family are firm believers in the need to think about the future when kids are young, and then envision, plan for, and problem-solve for those real and potential barriers before they occur.
Kathy was a co-founder and first director for Parent to Parent USA, and also the first director for Parent to Parent of Pennsylvania. She recently launched Brill Consulting LLC, with the mission to strengthen and support the goals of full inclusion, community living, and self-determination in early childhood, school, and adulthood.
Kathy currently serves on the National Advisory Board on Improving Health Care Services for Seniors and People with Disabilities (NAB) and as Board President to MCIE (Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education). Prior board memberships include Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, PA TASH, and National Coalition on Self-Determination. She also chaired PA's State Interagency Coordinating Council for Early Intervention, served on the Planning and Advisory Council for PA's Department of Public Welfare, and held additional disability and healthcare related positions, including special education teacher, adjunct professor, and consultant. Kathy received the National Council on Disability 2006 Leadership Award in appreciation of outstanding contributions to the improvement of disability policy in the US. Ms. Brill holds a master's degree in education, and a master's degree in political management, with a concentration in grassroots advocacy.