For obvious reasons, I follow a lot of education, disability and special ed related stuff on social media.

This one post still has me thinking about it, and I saw it like 2 weeks ago. I'm not personally criticizing anyone--we're all entitled to our opinions. And, our world view is our world view, based on what we've experienced.

But clearly my advocacy journey has been quite different than hers.

I offer advocate training. On Thursdays during the school year, we Zoom at 2:00. Sometimes I bring in an attorney or expert to do some training. Other times it's just chatting--bouncing ideas around, troubleshooting issues and problems we're having with clients.

I had no idea when I started this--but I've been told dozens of times it's the best part of the training and why a lot of advocates sign up. Most of us work from home, alone, and it is a lonely job at times. I *think* I'm the advocate in the group who has the most years of experience, but I'm not positive. But even doing this for 15 years, I still have questions and ideas I need to hash out with colleagues. That's right--I said colleagues.

These advocates are all over the country--CT, CO, CA, FL, MI, DE, MD and many other states. I still consider these people my "colleagues."

So anyway--back to that social media post. It was advertising a free PDF or webinar or something....to help advocates "discover who their competitors are." Something like that. The vibe was advocates competing with other advocates, for clients.

There are something like 8 million kids with IEPs in this country. The largest caseload I've ever had at once was 18 kids. And by caseload--I mean their current situation was active with emails, evals, meetings and stuff. Not just on the back burner waiting for another meeting. Very active situations--and honestly--18 kids almost broke me. When you have 18 families and 18 schools to communicate with, 18 IEPs to do a record review and research options.... honestly, sometimes I'm surprised that I'm still an advocate after that time period.

18 kids is 0.000225% of 8 million. And it was more than I could handle.

There are enough kids to go around--there is enough need to go around, that we don't need to be thinking of each other as competitors. Any mental energy I'm using to think about how I can "beat" you in the business world, or compete against you....is mental energy I'm not using on your child's situation.

There’s more than enough work to go around, and collaboration helps us all serve families better. Wasting energy on comparison or imaginary turf wars takes away from what really matters: empowering parents and improving outcomes for kids.

I don’t compete against other advocates, and I don’t compete against schools either. Competition in advocacy is a failed strategy. That mindset might serve attorneys in due process hearings, but it has no place in everyday advocacy. The need is massive, and there are more families than there are trained advocates to help them. (which is why I started my training program in the first place)

Wasting time viewing each other, or schools, as the enemy only drains energy from the real mission: supporting families, building/repairing relationships, and getting better outcomes for students. Collaboration, not competition, is how we make lasting change. When advocates support one another, everyone wins—especially the students we’re all here for.

Rest, but don't quit.

Lisa

PS: I will have a lot more info on the training coming in August. If you read yesterday's email, you read that I am updating all my products--and the training is included. Info coming soon.

*Please note: the posts here that are in the "Sunday Night Emails" category are just that--previous emails sent out on a Sunday night. The dates/times/content may not match up with present day events because it was sent out a while ago.