Education & Advocacy

Why Your Child or Student’s IEP Might Be Useless

Expert advice for developing effective student support plans

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Effective Student Support Planning

Individual Education Plans are now called Student-Specific Plans in Manitoba. SSPs are written documents developed and implemented by a team, outlining a plan to address the individual learning needs of students.

Building upon my previous article, Manitoba’s SSP Handbook Needs An Upgrade, I want to outline some practical ways that these documents can serve their true purpose:

1. Student Plans should inform school staff about a student’s needs, strengths, accommodations, and the best ways to support them.
2. SSPs should be strengths-based, written in a way that utilizes the student’s strengths to help develop their areas of struggle, and that puts the onus on the school and the adults to provide appropriate supports and accommodations.
3. As students grow, the responsibility should gradually be transferred to the youth, with the help and guidance of caring adults. The skills being developed should be scaffolded, and this process should include instruction on self-advocacy, so that the student is able to advocate for their own…