Wednesday December 16, 2020 National Center on Deaf Blindness IEP Development 3:00 PM 4:30 PM EST CART provided by A La CARTe Connection, LLC. CART Disclaimer: This rough edit transcript, which may contain missing, misspelled or paraphrased words, is only provided for your immediate review and is not certified as verbatim and is not to be cited in any way. [Captioner standing by] >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: We've got about three more minutes. We'll wait until the top of the hour and then we'll get started, so we'll just wait a little bit longer. >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: All right, it looks like we're at the top of the hour. This is Haylee Marcotte with the National Center on Deaf Blindness. I want to begin by welcoming everyone to today's session. I'm going to quickly run through some important housekeeping and technology items. This session will include participation through a poll and through responses in the chat pod. We encourage everyone to participate. This webinar has two separate presenters who will each provide a question and answer session at the end of their presentations. So while they're presenting, if you have any questions, please put them in the chat pod and then they can answer them at the end. This webinar will be recorded and archived. The recording, along with all other materials, will be posted soon on the NCDB website. Okay, I'm going to start the recording and hand this over to NCDB's Co Director Linda McDowell, who will introduce today's presenters. [This meeting is being recorded] >> LINDA McDOWELL: Thank you, thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm very pleased you have been able to join in on this session, in spite of the distractions of increased COVID cases, stricter shutdowns again, the election messiness, and you probably are also faced with the distractions of holiday preparation, but I certainly hope holiday preparation is a welcome distraction and is bringing you joy. Again, thanks for attending this Deaf Blind Summit 2020 Session, even with all the distractions. As part of this year's Deaf Blind Summit Session Series, which began in July and continues through January, NCDB planned six webinars on instructional strategies and resources of interest to families and educators of children and youth who are deaf blind and State DeafBlind Project personnel. In the chat, I am putting a link to the location on our website where you will find all 15 Deaf Blind Summit 2020 Sessions listed. Let me see if I can also give you a second link, which is the location on our website where you can find the six strategy sessions, their descriptions, and their resources. The resources for each of the instructional strategy sessions that we've held so far are included there. What you see is session recording, PowerPoint, fact sheet. And the fact sheets have key points and resource links that the presenters introduced during their sessions. Today's fact sheet is on the website already, I believe, and the session recording and PowerPoint will be added within a day or so. Just to review really quickly, in July we were pleased to have Susan Weigert and Tracy Evans bring us strategies and materials on establishing routines at home, particularly applicable to deaf blind children and youth who are emerging communicators. While the majority of our children and youth served by State DeafBlind Projects are emerging communicators, there is a growing number of who are proficient communicators, so in December we were pleased to have Deanna Peterson and Nancy O'Donnell bring us resources for bringing the needs for deaf blind students who are proficient communicators. For the two November sessions, our session was accessing the general curriculum and those materials were brought to us by the TIES Center, TIES, and some of the staff there, that are also part of another center on educational outcomes. And you can see the descriptions and materials from those three sessions on accessing General Ed curriculum on our website using the links that are there in the chat. But our topic today, the sixth of these strategy sessions, is on IEP development and the presentation is going to include common challenges that parents of children who are deaf blind face in working with IEP Teams, strategies that the families and other IEP Team Members can utilize in IEP meetings to build the family partnership, family/professional partnership, and strategies for managing conflicts as it arises. We have two presenters, as Haylee said, with us today that I want to introduce with you. Dr. Lane McKittrick and Dr. Medically Reese. After you spend time with them, you're going to want to keep them on your resource contact list, I can promise you that. Our first presenter, Lane McKittrick, is a Special Education researcher and deaf blind advocate. She's the Founder of Lane of Inquiry, deaf blind education and research and family support. Lane received her Ph.D. in Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado where she is an adjunct Instructor in Special Education. She is teaching courses related to IEPs and collaboration. She is also the Chair of the Usher Syndrome coalition and the founder of Hear, See, and Hope Foundation. Lean is the mother of four children, including two who are blind due to Usher Syndrome. Our second presenter will be Melanie Reese and she joined CADRE, The Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution, as Director in 2017. This was after having served as the Dispute Resolution Coordinator for the Idaho Department of Education, Special Education Department, where she collaborated often with the Idaho Parent Center. Melanie is a Professor Emeritus from Boise State University and she has authored two college textbooks in conflict and mediation. Her past work includes serving on the Executive Board of the Idaho Mediation Association. She served also as a College Ombudsman. Melanie regularly provides training in conflict management, special resolution dispute, and organizational communication. She and her husband have two adult children, who she warns me she will brag about without much provocation. And now on to our topic presentation by Lane and Melanie. And, Lane, I know you're up first. >> DR. LANYA McKITTRICK: Thank you, Linda. Thank you to NCDB for having me be here today. I'm truly honored to be here. While I'm getting my PowerPoint set up, I wanted to do a quick poll to see who is in the room today, and my PowerPoint will be up in just a moment. >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: For the poll, we are asking, who are you? The options are: Family member, educational team member, State DeafBlind Project, or other. And if you are other, please go ahead and put it in the chat pod for us. >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close the poll now so we can look at the results. >> DR. LANYA McKITTRICK: Great. It looks like we have a mix of family members, educational team members, State DeafBlind Project and other. I see a couple of our own IEP Team Members on the call. Thanks for being here today. Like Linda said, I wanted to just give a little bit of background. Linda talked a little bit about who I am, but I wanted to just give you a little bit more context before I jump in. Like Linda said, first and foremost, I am a mom to four boys, two who are deaf blind due to Usher Syndrome. Connor, my oldest, is now 21, he is a senior at RIT over in New York. Dalton is 12 and he's a 7th grader in a mainstream setting here at a charter school in Washington State. The picture above here is of my older son Connor teaching my younger son Dalton how to use the white cane. My career was previously not in Special Education. I know Linda mentioned I received my Ph.D. in Special Education, but that was not how I started. But because of my experiences as a parent, I went back to school and got doctorate to learn how to specifically focus on issues related to families with children who are deaf blind. I did that because I wanted to help my family and other families as well. It was challenging to figure out how to advocate for my child's need and in talking to other families, I realized I wasn't alone. Other parents and families were having similar challenges and using similar advocacy as I was. The benefits of IEP collaboration and student involvement in the IEP. I teach an Undergraduate course called IEP is a collaborative process. Much of what I am going to speak about today comes from my views as a parent and what I currently teach on my courses in IEP development, how to ensure that the IEP is a collaborative process. So feel free, I'm just going to be touching the surface of all of these issues, but if you have any questions about any of these, please put them in the chat pod, I'll try to get to them at the end. And if not, I'm happy to get back to you at a later date. First I wanted to start with some context about the Special Education System and the parent experience was it. This is probably not a surprise to anyone, but IEP meetings can be stressful, especially during times of transition. I'm going to talk a little bit more about transitions and what that means for children who are deaf blind in a little bit, but I'm talking about not just post secondary transitions, but other transitions as well. The Special Education System is overwhelming and can be really confusing for families. Parents may feel like there's a power imbalance. And conflict can occur if families feel like their voices are not heard within the IEP Team. Now I'm going to speak a little bit about deaf blind specific parent experiences. First and foremost, this is coming from my research on my dissertation where I was looking at what challenges do families experience when working with the IEP Team. The first is a lack of professional knowledge of the team on deaf blindness. What happens is that parents end up taking on perhaps a role of Case Manager on the IEP Team, they may be sharing knowledge about deaf blindness, what they are learning from other families, from the Internet, from their doctors, everything that they might know and learn about deaf blindness. There's a lack of knowledge about Interveners and how they might be able to be used to support students' academic needs. And there's a need to bring in support of others who understand deaf blindness, specifically DeafBlind Projects. Professionals often misunderstood individual student needs, not only deaf blindness, but what are the unique needs of each individual student? All of this leads to parents needing to push for services because potentially there's a lack of understanding from other team members on what the needs are because deaf blindness, as we all know, is a very specific needs. It's not just vision and it's not just hearing, but it's that combination of the two, the dual sensory loss. And then families talk a lot about the desire for appropriate goals. We'll talk about the IEP in a little bit, about the need for SMART Goals, but here what parents have been telling me is, you know, oftentimes the goals are not appropriate. They are either not enough future focused, so we're not often looking, unless we are doing transition to post second, often we are not looking at, what are the families' expectations and what are their hopes for the future of that particular child? There's also a lack of understanding of communication abilities, often under estimating what the communication abilities are of a particular student. I have a quote here from one of the parents I spoke with. Your child does not have the communication skills necessary to do what other kids are doing. I often here from families that, gosh, I know my kid has more ability than what people are seeing because I see it at home. Also, I hear a lot of comments like, Honors classes are not appropriate for children like yours. And, again, it just comes back to the misunderstanding about deaf blindness and what that means and the need to individualize. It also is professionals not valuing communication mode. What are the family's preference? Are they using ASL? Tactile Sign Language? Oral communication? And not understanding and valuing that communication mode. Students unable to communicate their needs directly, that comes into what I was just speaking about under estimating a student's communication ability, but also the importance of teaching students how to be self advocates and self determination skills. Often we all have large teams of service providers, making the need for collaboration and working together even more important. Oftentimes we feel like there's a lack of access to other families. We are often the only deaf blind family in a school or district and it's hard to connect with others. There's emotional impacts, not just for the parents, but the entire family. And then I was speaking about transitions. So here I'm talking about both post secondary, but also that start of the school year, new teachers coming in to the mix needing to really make sure they are up to speed on, what is deaf blindness? What are the individualized needs of a particular student? Also I hear a lot from families about, even when one of the service providers, a nurse, a para is sick and someone needs to come in, it's all of these transitions. It can be a day to day transition, but each other and all of these have impacts on a student's education. So one of the other things I have been doing this year, I didn't mention it earlier, is that I work for a research center whose primarily being working on COVID specific research this year, overall, but specific to Special Education. So I'm going to touch the surface here, but if anyone has any follow up questions related to COVID response and implications for our students, please feel free to shoot them in the pod. So relationships and team collaboration are more important than ever before because this is so complex, this is an uncertain time, we haven't been here before, so we're needing to put in more accommodations, we're needing to problem solve in new ways that we have not in the past. So that takes extreme collaboration and those really strong relationships. As we know, our students need have unique needs. A one size fits all approach won't work, it never has worked. What that means is it requires good communication, problem solving, and really trying to work with a team to come up with an individualized approach because everyone is going through this in a different way. For some students, in person support is necessary, but it's unevenly distributed across the country as far as if that's possible or not. Even so, if that is possible, it looks very different depending on where you are at, what school or district you are at. Students, a lot of students have not been able to receive all of the services and supports they need. For instance, cane instruction has been very challenging to be able to do, so finding other ways to be able to use that time and make sure that we're working on things that the students need. I know this has been a big one for my son Dalton, and I hear this all the time from families, finding ways to mitigate Zoom fatigue. And that really is requiring adding more accommodations to the IEP and, again, problem solving and trying to figure out different solutions. Things like allowing to have cameras off, frequent breaks, alternative ways to show engagement, providing students with recordings and transcripts of the classes. Accessibility also is a big issue right now, being able to access captioning, have the FM system set up properly, making sure that the virtual interpreter is in place. There's document cameras to be thinking about. Lighting where of the student is attending remote learning. Adjusting computer settings for font sizes. There's so much to think about, so that also takes collaborative relationships in order to do that. Seeking out additional related services like teacher of the deaf or TVI services in order to support those additional needs because of COVID. This is something that's been really helpful for our son is those additional teacher check ins to make sure that the students know what they need to be doing and checking for understanding. I tell parents all the time that sometimes students don't know what they don't know because they don't see or hear everything and so just those individual check ins make a huge difference. Self advocacy and self determination, like I mentioned earlier, are more important than ever. So this seems to be a really good time to be focusing on some of those things that are part of the expanded core curriculum, like self determination. Because we are not able to work on maybe cane skills and these other things, maybe this is a good time to be focusing on some of those other Expanded Core Curriculum. And then, certainly, this is not specific to our students who are deaf blind or Special Education, but just the social/emotional impacts of all of our kids right now and how do we make adjustments to the IEP in order to try to compensate as much as we possibly can for those? So I just wanted to do a quick reminder just because this is an IEP development presentation of the different components of the IEP. This is probably something you all are aware of, but I just want to do a quick overview. The first is just evaluations and that's something just because of COVID that has become a big issue. A lot of times it's very difficult to do evaluations in many places and it's hard to do that virtually. Evaluations, overall, are a pretty stressful time for families so it takes a lot of good communication, it takes that collaboration and making sure that everyone knows what the expectations are. Once the evaluation is done and a student qualifies for an IEP, these are the different components I have listed on the screen that are part of an IEP. First off, the team will look at, where is the student now presently? What are the present levels of performance? We're looking at not just what are the challenges, but starting off with the strengths. What is the student good at? And starting there. Then from there we're talking about placement. How often and how much time is the student going to be spending in a Special Education setting or how much time are they going to be spending with their General Education peers? What services and supports do they need? Accommodations and modifications? Is there Assistive Technology that's needed? And are there transition issues if a student is 14 or 16 depending on what state their in. Transportation and testing issues. And lastly, SMART Goals. I was talking about goals and the need for really making sure those goals are something that is really appropriate and relevant to a specific student, but we need that make sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relatable, and time bound. So this slide here, this visual, is from my dissertation, which is called Strategies that Mothers of Children who are Deaf Blind Employ to Foster Collaboration with IEP Teams. I first set out to learn about strategies that parents were using in order to advocate for their children's needs. What I found is that past experiences, the box on the left, those working with current and past IEP Teams, and then their experience and also their experience with deaf blindness, either the experience they gathered on their own, but also the experience of the team members. That coupled with their knowledge and the fact that they value the relationship and the collaboration, that leads to them to develop advocacy strategies in order to get their child's needs met. And I'm going to go into each one of these three boxes in a minute. So first off, parents past experiences matter. So what knowledge of deaf blindness and needs do the parents have? How are they sharing that knowledge with the team? And what other knowledge do the team members also have about deaf blindness and the individual child's needs? Like we talked about earlier, the student might be the only child in a school or district who is deaf blind, so there might be feelings of isolation, there might not be the child may not have ever met anyone else who is deaf blind like them. Families may not have ever met anyone else that's another family member of a child who is deaf blind or another individual who is deaf blind. Familiarity with IDEA and parent rights, that piece of paper that we all get in IEP meetings, it's really overwhelming and it's not in parent friendly language, so oftentimes it forces parents to seek out other information about their parent rights under an IEP and become familiar with IDEA. And how have past IEP meetings gone? Have there been compliance issues? Have parents gone into a meeting and come out and thought, wow, this is a really great IEP meeting, but yet leave that meeting and there's no implementation of what was discussed? Things like that. And then, also, sometimes there's been past conflicts in past years or maybe there's conflict right now and all of that is going to impact how a parent comes into an IEP meeting and advocates for their needs. So talking about partnership and that collaboration, I've talked a lot about it during this presentation, but collaboration benefits both families and professionals. We are all here for the same reason, we want to make sure the student is successful. There are benefits to having this partnership and this collaboration between families and professionals and it leads to student outcomes. Collaborations with parents, but also between professionals. I hear a lot that they are working toward a goal, but because of the time constraints, the professionals are not necessarily working together to collaborate to think about how they may be able to build off what the other person is working on. And this can really lead to a better student experience. And, also, collaboration can reduce or prevent conflict. In my course that I teach, I teach a lot about these seven principles of effective partnership that are up on the screen. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but I wanted to give some examples of what I mean by these. These seven principles came out of a research study by Blue Banning and her colleagues in 2014. It was based on several focus groups of families of various geographic and socioeconomic levels. The first is communication. So what I tell people is that it's just really important to start the school year, to understand what the family's preferences are with communication. Some want to get texts. Some want phone calls. Some prefer in person. Some want a lot of information. Some want very little. And what type of information are families looking for? I have a quote here that's from my dissertations from families I spoke with that I think speaks to it. We have on going communications, we do not leave it just up to those meetings. We think that's been a huge part of our relationship building process with all of the team, is that we don't wait. Many families talk to me about the fact they are meeting several times per year. They are always problem solving and working together and that communication is at the core of all that. The next one, professional competence is for professionals to seek out professional development, recognizing that you may not know all the answers, and that's okay, but seeking out evidence based practices whenever possible. The next one is commitment. Again, maybe not knowing all the answers, but committed to finding that out and committing to really trying to do what's best for that particular student. Advocacy, I have a quote here, even the small things, like someone picking up the phone after seeing something and saying, I want to get this right. Just something so small, that small, little thing that a professional can say can make a big difference for family. The next one is equality and just making sure that everybody feels like an equal member of the IEP Team. And there's so many things you can do, sitting on the same side of the table as them, asking them where they want to hold the meeting, asking their opinion and telling them that you respect their opinion, inviting them as part of the problem solving process, all of these things lead to equality in IEP meetings. The next one is respect. Respecting, for instance, what parents are doing at home, what they are seeing at home. Earlier I talked about the fact that sometimes what we see at home is very different than what you all in the classroom are seeing and so I have a quote here, personally, I get ruffled feathers when any educator thinks they know better and wishes to disregard anything the parent has to say. Mutual respect needs to be shown. So it's the family respecting the professional and also the other way. And respecting we may see different things at different times and respecting those. And the last one encapsulates the whole thing, it brings us altogether, trust, I think, is the foundation of all of this. You can see, if you have breakdowns in the first six categories how all of those things can really impact trust. So what can we do build trust? We can be reliable. Make sure we use good judgment. Make sure that we're treating everything with confidentiality. Make sure to get to know the families so you can understand the cultural and other family values. And make sure to talk to the family right away or anyone else on the IEP Team if you notice a problem. You actively listen to families. Asked for their feedback. See what their concerns are. And promote shared decision making, both with the families and everybody on the IEP Team making sure everyone feels like they have a voice. So many things influence partnership, it's the past and current relationships. Perhaps things didn't go well in the past and that's impacted trust and friendship. A believe that the child's needs are being met. I know if I see my child coming home from school and they are happy and they understand what they need to do and I feel like they are telling me they are getting the services and supports they need, that goes a long way. The professionals genuinely care, you may not know all the answers, but you care and you want to do everything possible to figure out the answers. And, again, all of the seven principles of partnership that I was just speaking about. So all of these things, those past experiences that families have, their knowledge and their desire to want to have a collaborative environment leads families to develop advocacy strategies in these ways. So this, also, is part of my dissertation and I identified there were three types of advocacy that families had. The first is advocacy through knowledge. I already talked about this a lot, but it's gaining and sharing that knowledge. Connecting and networking with other families, going on Facebook into those family groups, asking individuals who are deaf blind about what helps them, reaching out to DeafBlind Projects and finding out more, reaching out to your doctors, so gaining all this information and sharing that information back and forth between IEP Team Members. The next one is advocacy through student involvement and this is a big focus of mine. I, over the years, sometimes it's hard to advocate for your kids' needs and I found involving my child has really helped. And I hear this is a lot. So finding ways to build those self advocacy and self determination skills, making sure that students are at the IEP Team, make sure if something is not going well that they feel comfortable to advocate for their needs. You know, telling their teachers and communicating that. The next thing is advocacy through action. So on this slide are some direct strategies. I'm going to talk about some indirect strategies on the next slide. First off, the direct strategies are things like pre planning. Putting together I know I'm not alone, I have so much information about my kids, their needs. Sometimes we all joke we have a big, huge truck full of documentation that we need to go into IEP Team meetings. But it's pre planning, making sure you have everything ready you might need in the meetings. Also meeting management. Making sure there's an agenda in place. Making sure you know what the expectations of that meeting are. Making sure and reaching out to every team member ahead of time to find out, just make sure, is there anything else we need to, like, talk about, just to make sure there's no surprises. Participating parents are also participating in goal setting and I talked a lot about the need for SMART Goals and making sure the goals are realistic, not only realistic, but there is a follow through and the team is working on these goals. Ensuring the student's needs are met. We all know things can be very different from one week to another even and making sure that we're noticing when things change so that we can get the needs met on an on going basis. And that may take having multiple meetings, having a lot of communication. And then, also, putting families also do conflict prevention strategies, such as knowing when the right time is to bring, for instance, a facilitator for an IEP or something like that. The indirect strategies I'm talking about are the leadership skills I heard from families. So going it really matters how you go into the team. And so, do you go into that team with a team mindset? Are you being firm, but yet have a positive approach? And being consensus. Making sure everybody remains flexible and creative. Sometimes it's really hard to, like, understand what's going on and just, there's no there's only good solutions, so let's throw everything on the table. Thinking ahead, not only with what's happening this year, but also, what are the hopes for our child next year? Five years from now? And in the future. And, again, making sure that everyone remains with a problem solving mentality. So what can parents do? Make sure to keep the focus on your child. So there's things that we do, and I talk to families about. Things like "All About Me." Putting something together for teams when we start the school year. This is something that now I involve my son Dalton in. He does this himself. We put it together. He has a PowerPoint about Usher Syndrome, about deaf blindness, and what this means. Providing in service trainings for teachers. That could include the student, the family, and perhaps the Related Service Providers to explain, not only the vision loss, the hearing loss, but deaf blindness. And making sure we are always focused on student's self advocacy and making sure we are involving the student along the way. Understanding, again, that we know what we see at home might be different than what's happening at school and make sure that you are communicating that. Being honest about your feelings and concerns. I like to tell families to not keep anything inside because we see what's happening and we are the experts on our child. If something is eating at you, bring it up and communicate with the team. Foster collaboration. Thank the team, be supportive, help with problem solving. There's little things that you can do to keep that collaborative environment going. Share knowledge with the team. Again, share knowledge about deaf blindness, what you are seeing at home. Help about meeting management. Check in ahead of time. Make sure there's an agenda. If you prefer to have an IEP in advance so that you are not seeing it the first time in a meeting, ask for that. And just to make sure there's no surprises. Bring support to the meetings, family, your child, of course, I've called in the DeafBlind Project in our state several times and also potentially bringing in outside organizations or maybe an advocate. How about professionals? What can they do? First off, build relationships with students and their families. Honesty, accountability, and trust. Mutual respect. Keep the good communication going. And acknowledge there's an agreement to work together in the best interest of that child. We are all there for the same reason. And with this, make sure you are not judgmental and you remain flexible. Find ways to involve the student. Make sure the student understands how they can be a self advocate in the classroom, how they can speak up and be involved in the IEP. And acknowledge the strengths of all those involved, not just the family, but the practitioners as well. Balance the time spent listening and sharing, ensuring the family voice is heard. Be credible. I hear a lot about that follow through and I talked about that earlier, but make sure what you put in place in the IEP, that you follow through. And if you say you're going to do something, to try to follow through on that. And if you can't, if something comes up, just make sure to communicate about it. Avoid jargon. There's so much jargon in Special Education, so use words that everyone can understand. Make sure you're sensitive to all aspects of diversity. Again, big one, make sure there's no surprises. I don't like walking into IEP meetings with surprises. I don't know any parent that does. Check in with families before the meeting just to see, what's on your mind? What have you been seeing? Anything you would like to talk about and put on the agenda? And collaborate often with other team members. Many of the service providers are itinerant, they are not in the school for much time and they may not see other team members, so doing the very best you can to build in that time to collaborate. Ten steps to IEP success. Pre planning. Making sure there's an agenda. Agreeing on meeting norms. Focus not only on the areas of need, but really starting with strengths. What are the outcomes of the meeting? Ensuring a supportive environment. Making sure you are making the family feel like they are supported. Sitting on the same side of the table, things like that. Use the parking lot if something comes up, if you don't have time for it today, use that. Allowing time for questions. And then creating an action plan for follow through. Over the long haul, keep revisiting that relationship. Keep it student centered. Have a problem solving mentality and remain flexible. Jointly consider new strategies, activities, routine. Just keep trying if things change. Keep working on that. Revise goals and outcomes as a team. If you notice a goal is not appropriate, revise it so it is appropriate. Step up to assist when others could use help. And connect regularly. I think once a year is probably not enough for really any of our kids. Be aware of resources available in the community. And then involve your State DeafBlind Project. This is my last slide. I also did a study on conflict of families of children who are deaf blind. This is much of what I already talked about. But the main four sources of conflicts we heard from families was the team’s lack of knowledge on deaf blindness. Not understanding the unique needs. Lack of follow through from the IEP. And poor communication. There are things we heard families do. They first network with other families when they are feeling like there's a source of conflict. They go and seek out self education on deaf blindness and IEP law. The parents take on the role of Case Managers. And they do prep, they do everything they can to be prepared for the IEP meetings. That's the end of my presentation. I'm going to see if there are any questions in the chat pod. We have about five minutes before I hand it over to Melanie. We just had our son's meeting last week and we stressed a lot about communication with parents. Which didn't hear from our VI teacher until two weeks ago. He needed a large keyboard and didn't get it until I mentioned it. Yeah. I think there are a lot of challenges right now with us all being remote and with COVID, so it just takes a lot more advocacy from us parents in order to get those things. Can you explain what you mean by bringing in a facilitator? I'm sure Melanie will probably mention it. But it's an outsider from the IEP Team in order to keep everybody focused on common goals. So this is something that is more common in certain states than others, but it's a strategy, if we aren't getting anywhere, if we are ending IEP meetings and we're not agreeing on goals, placement, things like that, you can bring in an outside facilitator to help move that conversation along, make sure we put things in the parking lot if they are off topic and we can't get to those today, and making sure everybody around the table has a chance to talk and discuss what needs to be discussed. Yeah. I think that's it. Does anyone else have any questions that we could if so, you can put it in the chat pod. I, also, am more than willing if you want to shoot me an e mail afterwards and ask me any questions about COVID, any of the research I've done, and I would urge you as well to keep checking my website as well because I'll keep posting my additional research of families. What should you do when the team sets very low goals and the skill gap is exploding? I hear that a lot. That's why the findings of my research study were about making sure you have appropriate goals because a lot of times there's that misunderstanding of deaf blindness and the individual needs. A lot of times IEP Teams are a lot of times families are seeing something at home, you are seeing something is possible, but that's not happening in school, so it goes back to those that communication about, hey, these goals we are putting in place are just too low. And going back to that problem solving. Going back to just sitting down and you might not have an evidence based solution for this, but let's do everything we possibly can to problem solve and make sure that gap does not get bigger and there's no regression. That's something that is a really big problem right now during COVID just because some students are more successful than others in a remote setting. I know my son is actually doing okay in a remote setting, but it took us a long time to get there. We had to tweak our IEP several times to get all of the accommodations for all of that to be possible. For secondary students, how soon should outside agencies be engaged for the transition plan? 9th grade? Sooner? Later? I think we should do that as soon as possible. I know for my son, he was a junior, I looked at his transition plan and it said "To Be Determined Later." So that was obviously too late. We had been working with Vocational Rehabilitation deaf blind folks and working on the transition plan, but it wasn't as cohesive as I would have liked it to have been. I always tell people try to invite those outside agencies that will be involved in future transition plans as soon as you possibly can. I know for states, often that can't happen until 14 or 16, but that's no reason that an IEP Team can't start having those discussions about, what are the goals post secondary? What is this going to look like? What outside agencies should we be talking about talking to? And starting those discussions earlier. Talking to the students about what their desires are so you can make sure the IEP goals that are in place, even middle school and earlier are setting them up for what their transition goals are. So I think I am out of time. I'm going to go ahead and pass this over to Melanie to talk about conflict. >> DR. MELANIE REESE: Hi, everybody. Thanks, Lane. That was a lot of information there, so thank you for sharing all of that. And I think it does dovetail nicely into the information I'm going to be sharing. I'm just going to check in really quick. Is my PowerPoint visible to everybody? >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: Yes. This is Haylee. We can see your PowerPoint. >> DR. MELANIE REESE: Thank you very much, Haylee. Hi, everybody. Okay, so just a quick refresher, I'm Melanie and I'm the Director of CADRE. And if you aren't familiar with CADRE, we have a bevy of resources about conflict resolution and parents' rights and dispute resolution and lots of materials. So I do encourage you to use our website and I'll give you some resources at the end of the presentation to get you started if you aren't familiar with us. But like Lane, I am very honored to be asked to be present to you today and I encourage, if you have questions that we don't get do in this very short presentation, to follow up with me. I'm happy to talk about conflicts, just like my kids, at the slightest provocation because it's one of my favorite things to talk about. With that, I'll go ahead and get started. The quote I have up here is my favorite quote and it really encapsulated what happens when conflict is unmanaged. It's a Swahili proverb. When elephants fight, the grass beneath them dies. As before, I was hoping we could get a little bit of information. If you would, tell me what you think the grass represents? And go ahead and do so in the chat. What is the grass in the IEP Team when conflict occurs? Student. Not literally dies, but certainly their spirit can be trampled. The student's education can be effected. The things you are fighting for, the goals get lost. And I think one thing that Lane really highlighted that I think is important, and it looks like Kim from Montana brought it up, too, the relationship. The relationship and the connection we have with others is harmed when conflict goes unanswered in a productive and professional way. So I wanted to couch this presentation, the idea that when we talk about conflict, we're not necessarily talking about an issue or a particular topic or some kind of, you know, definite want or change that needs to happen, but we're talking about the whole context, the whole environment and it all is affected by the conflict itself. Thank you, Jennifer, the foundation, the equal grade equal ground we all started on. The objectives for today's presentation, and, again, this is the love of my life, you know, besides my family and kids, right? But I really love talking about conflict. I could do so for weeks and weeks at a time, and I have 40 minutes with you. So we're going to give the Readers Digest version of understanding the nature of conflict. I'm going to give you hints on professionals in conflicts resolution, the mediators, think about conflict. It's not a trade secret, it's important for all of us to think about conflict in new ways, so I'm going to address that. And as I mentioned, I'll provide additional resources that CADRE has that you might be interested in. First off, I want folks to realize that conflict happens. If people are passionate about something, like, oh, I don't know, the education of their student, or the progress of their children, things we are passionate about, that if we see there's some kind of difference of opinion or we see someone interfering with our goals, we're going to be escalated, we're going to be concerned. And conflict is a natural result of that. So a first shift, I think, that is very important when we talk about conflict is realize it's normal. It's natural. And it's to be expected. And if we accept that fact, when it happens we can be prepared for it because if we care about something, the more we care about it, the more likelihood when we see something countering. What are the things we are most passionate about? Children in our care, that's a ripe place for conflict to occur. What I would like you to do before we get much further, is think about a conflict you have experienced. It can be in an IEP meeting, it could be with your teenager, a parent, but think of a conflict that you were party to. I don't want you to tell me about the conflict itself, but I want you to write some words about how it felt. What was that experience like? And go ahead and throw that into the chat box if you would. So when you're in that conflict, what did it feel like? What emotions did you have? Ah, it can be overwhelming, yes. It feels like they have already written down my child. They have already determined what's going to happen with your child and made decisions without you. You feel like your background was disrespected. It made you doubtful of yourself. It was highly emotional. You felt defeated, angry, let down. It sounds like some of you have experienced conflict in the past. You felt "on the spot." Oh, that's a great one. You were put on display and you had to defend yourself right then. Excellent. And maybe the other person is not being as invested as you are in the success of your child or student. One of the things I appreciate about this particular presentation and folks, when we did the poll, I'm not just talking to parents, I'm not just talking to educators, I'm not just talking to advocates, we have a mixed group and I think that's so wonderful because I think what is really important about normalizing and identifying conflict is that it's not unique. You know, when we are experiencing it, we have these emotions, it's important to recognize, even as a parent, I have certain frustrations and doubts about myself and concerns, but also other people on the team have similar things happening. They may not feel like they are being respected or heard or have a voice. Or they may feel frustrated. And folks are still providing information on the chat, that you are unsettled, couldn't move on, you get stuck. These are great. It seems to me we all understand the experience of being in conflict and we have some understand being that. What I think is important in being able to normalize, naturalize, and look at conflict as something that is normal and natural, is to see there are different sides to conflict. And there's the Chinese character for conflict, or one of the Chinese characters for conflict, are two different processes two different symbols superimposed. One is the symbol of danger and it's superimposed with opportunity. When I asked you what your experience was with conflict, I got a lot of the dangers. Feelings of being overwhelmed, not being able to move forward, that there's different definitions of progress, you are concerned that something is not going to happen that should happen. But at the same time, there are opportunities. And this is hard to think about when you are in the midst of a conflict and you are feeling those emotions, frustration, anger, resentment, fear that occurs. But there's also opportunities. Now I'm going to ask you to think about, while we know conflict is dangerous, right, there's opportunities that exist in it. What are the opportunities that conflicts provide us? If there's a conflict in an IEP Team meeting, what are the opportunities? What can happen? We're going to play the game, "Guess what Melanie has on the slides." So throw out some ideas. So opportunities of conflict. Better understanding, good. Keep going. Child led IEP goals. Opportunity for participation and hearing more voices. I like this one, leads to new ways of thinking. Creativity. Excellent. Thinking outside the box. You've done a pretty good job of what Melanie had on the slide. Good for you. Personal growth. Yep, I had clarification is an opportunity. You know, I don't know about you, but I've been married over 30 years and I know sometimes that I have to argue with my husband long enough to figure it out what it is we are actually arguing about. You know? That's not uncommon. Sometimes we have to get into the mud a little bit to figure out what it is that is causing us concern. Clarification. Healing. Sometimes conflict can feel like so much pressure, but when we actually get into it, it deflates the balloon or the event so we can start to improve. Bigger understanding. Movement toward goals we can get to together. Creativity, got that one. Problem solving. Growth, which was mentioned. And improving the relationship. That said, and as you mentioned, emotions are present and dealing with emotions can be really, really hard. When we're feeling I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm in the middle of a conflict, I forget to be, oh, I don't know, civil. I have a notion to win something. I'm afraid that if I don't get it out, I'll lose it. Or sometimes I'll shut down. I'll wait and see what happens and just sit there and be frustrated. High emotions increase when an outcome holds critical importance to us. Like I said before, what is more important to us than our kids? The kids we're educating, the kids that are in our charge, or the kids that are part of us, part of our life every moment of every single day. So when conflict escalates, resolution becomes difficult. Obviously, we've experienced. What happens when conflict escalates and isn't managed at a reasonable level, our tactics go from light to heavy. Where we may at first present, oh, here's a possible option. And if I'm not feeling heard and understand, I then start to demand that you listen to me. That's when tactics go from light to heavy. We have a tendency when conflict escalates to expand the topic. I may be concerned right now about transportation, but since I'm not feeling heard and understood about that particular issue, I'm also going to bring in, you know, what about this IEP goal or what about, you know, seating in the classroom or, you know, reading programs. I expand the issue the more I feel I'm not heard and understood. When conflict escalates, positions become polarized. We start to see the other as the other. We're good, they're bad, we're right, they're wrong. We'll talk about positions more in a minute. And our motivations change. If conflict isn't resolved, we have a tendency to go from, I want my child to do well, to, I want to win this particular argument, to, I'm going to teach that parent or that educator or that person a lesson so this doesn't happen to other people. The longer conflict goes on, the more entrenched we become and we move from a motivation of collaboration to wanting to show the "other" the error of their ways. So, again, there's so much to talk about in terms of conflict management and ways in which to engage, I can't go through all of it. I'm going to provide two really key points that as a conflict professional have really helped me help others through conflict. And the first is separating the person from the problem. And the second is identifying interests. And, again, there's so much more in this, but these are two really important tools in the toolbox that when you are experiencing conflict that can help a situation move forward. So first off, when we're in conflict with somebody else, we have a tendency to look at the other person as being opposite of us, right? You have Person A on the one side of the table, the blue box on this slide represents a table. So you have Person A on one side of the table, Person B on the other side of the table, and when we are in conflict with somebody, it's natural for us to see the other person as the problem. Person A sees Person B as a problem. Everything would be so much better if Person B would just change the way in which they think. And Person B is sitting there on the other side of the table looking at Person A going, yeah, well, everything would be so much better if you would just change the way you think or if you would just be reasonable. And we have a tendency, instead of focusing on issues, we have a tendency to focus on the person. The person is being unreasonable. The person isn't thinking. The person is being closed off. The person is at odds with us. When people disagree, they often see the other person as the problem. The key for someone like me who does mediation or is a facilitator or even in my own conflicts, which is harder to do, mind you, is to remove the problem from the other person and figuratively put the problem on the other side of the table where we're looking at an issue and Person A and Person B are together looking at the problem. So the goal is to put the problem on the other side of the table and work together to resolve it. So instead of Person A seeing Person B as the problem, Person A and Person B together are looking at the problem to be resolved. That's hard because we, for most of us I think in this group, come from a very Americanized view of conflict resolution and it is positional, where we have a tendency to, if we're going to go buy a car, for example, have very clear guidelines of what we will and will not do. I will not spend more than this amount of money. I will not accept less than this for my trade in. We have very clear, you know, boundaries of what we're going to accept and we go in seeing the other person as a competitor. This approach, this separating the person from the problem is to remove the competition and see it as a collaboration instead. So the problem is, how do we get a car for me that works and is in my budget and still allow you, person who is selling me the car, to meet your needs of maintaining a business and paying commissions or whatever is going on. So if we can look at the problem on the other side of the table and work together, that's a big step that mediators use, facilitators use, and effective Conflict Managers use to try to resolve conflicts together. A key to doing this is separating positions from interests. And I do want to warn you, this is not an easy thing I'm going to be sharing with you and if this is the first time you are hearing about this concept, it takes a lot of practice. But thinking about how we talk about what we want versus what we need is really key to being able to put the problem on the other side of the table. So this iceberg picture I have here shows the water level and it shows the iceberg that is visible from atop the water. You are on a ship, you are coming along, and you see the iceberg dead ahead, we know there are things visible above the surface. But below the surface, there's so much more going on. The iceberg is bigger. It is denser. It is deeper. It is massive. And this is much how conflict operates. So positions, if you will, are the tip of the iceberg. They are the demands that we make. They are the expectations that we have. They are the solutions that we see. So those are positions. Again, I'm raised American. And my computer is doing something. As being part of the system, we are trained to go in with our positions well outlined. I'm not going to pay more than this, I'm not going to accept more than this. I expect we will use this reading program. We go in with a position first. And that's normal. A good conflict negotiator understands there's so much more below the surface and that would be the interests. And the interests in conflicts are the needs that people have. The beliefs they hold. The values they have. The fears that they experience. And relying upon, you know, years of professionals and I don't have exact numbers, but I'm kind of pulling these out from experience, but about 40%, again, just pulling that kind of out of the air, just from experience, of when you enter into a conflict, about 20% of what's going on is the position and most of what needs to be addressed are below the surface and not easily accessible and that's the interests. We're going to go a little bit further into what this looks like and how to unpack those interests so we can be good Conflict Managers. So recognize that the positions exist, but they are just hints to us there is more there. Again, positions are the solutions people offer. I expect this to happen. I want a raise. You should provide door to door busing, right? This is what must happen. The positions are solutions offered. You can recognize positions by the language. “You should,” “we must,” those are positions. And those are important for us to recognize, but know that's when real problem solving occurs. The real problem solving occurs and the creativeness and the gift of conflict occurs at the interests level. They are the why. You can recognize them by the language. I need, I value, I fear, I hope. In order for us to move toward more collaborative problem solving, collaborative conflict, we need to get as much interest based as possible. It's not just parental interest, it's not just educator interest, it's not just institutional interest, it's all of the interests, including IDEA regulation interests. There are a lot of interests at play which makes IEP meetings and Special Education, you know, from a conflict management perspective, gloriously complex, but complex nonetheless, and hard. I believe we can get there. This next slide gives us some ideas of how we can go under positions to try to identify particular issues. For example, this is a picture of a dog digging. I got this from a friend, I don't know if it's her dog or just an Internet picture, but sometimes you have to dig and dig to find something of interest. There are questions you can either of yourself or as you try to encourage the other to share more information to identify interests. When somebody presents a position, what need are they attempting to satisfy? If a district says we want to use this particular reading program or this computer program or, you know, or a parent says, I want a one on one aide, what is the need behind that position? What is motivating them? If we can turn the conversation from the position of, I demand this, to, well, what will that do for you? Explain a little bit more some of the reasons behind or what you think that will accomplish, those kinds of questions will help us be more creative in our problem solving. Think about when you are in a conflict, what is the person emphasizing that will be heard and understood? Here is a big hint and this comes from being a mediator, if I hear something more than once from somebody, that means to me that I need to validate it. Validating is not the same thing as agreeing with. But if I hear, yes, but blah, blah, blah, and two minutes later I hear blah, blah, blah, and I hear it again. Okay, we need to stop and make sure that is validated. Tell me about blah, blah, blah, so I understand why that is important to you. Explain it to me. Here is a big hint for you, as Conflict Managers, you can't be in a hurry. In order to really resolve conflicts well, it does require us to take the time to dig. Another example of going under position to find interest is the question, what do I think the person is afraid will happen if their demand isn't filled? If we use a one on one aide or I don't get a one on one aide for my child, what am I afraid is going to happen? Am I afraid they are going to bolt? Am I afraid they are going to fall behind their peers? What is the fear that exists? And these questions, I can tell you as somebody who likes to get involved in other people's conflicts, these are really solid questions for moving the focus to the other side of the table. The problem to be solved rather than the other person. So back to getting some feedback from you. So we're going to try to identify some interests here. We are going to use an example of a dad and a son who have a conflict. And dad has a position. The position is, we have a curfew, it's 10:00, and I have an expectation, oh, son of mine of 17 years, that you will be home by 10:00 PM, that's the expectation we have, that's the rule of the house. My question to you, please respond in the chat, what do you think possible interests of dad's are based on this particular position that's stated? I want my kid to be safe. Good, Helen. Family time. It's important for us to share, right? Okay. What other interests? It's a school night. I can't have you out on a school night, right? Control. If I let you go away with this [laughter] or maybe I have other children and I can't have you being out late when I have other kids that will be coming up behind that see this. Compliance is important. We all have a car that we are sharing. You guys are getting this. It's not rocket science, it's just hard to implement when you're in the middle of conflict, I know. So, again, good job guessing what Melanie has on the slide. So safety. I'm worried about my son making bad choices. I want to be seen as a responsible parent. I want boundaries to be established and maintained. I don't want my son to turn out like his older brother. Maybe that was just my family growing up. I don't know. Just kidding! Let's look at it from the son's perspective. The son has a position. This particular event, not all the time, I don't want to change the rules for all the time, but this particular evening, let's say it's a Friday so there's not school the next day, I want to be home by 2:00 AM. And, obviously, we have, you know, dad being unreasonable, therefore, everything would be so much better if dad would just change. Person A versus Person B, you know, the other person is the problem. What are some possible interests of the son? Go ahead and toss it out in the chat, what are some possible interests? It's a school event. It will be chaperoned. You don't trust me. Those who have been parents of teenagers have heard that before. Or those of us that were teenagers have heard that. Peer pressure. Independence. My friends are going and participating in this. Why can't you be reasonable? I value my time with my friends. You have done a good job at guessing what's on my slide here. Having fun. Not being controlled. I'm 17 years old, I'm old enough to be making these decisions. You only live once. [Laughter] Freedom and independence is a positive interest of the son. Peer approval. Good job. Social interaction. Time away from home. Maybe I'm sick of you because we've been in quarantine since March and I need to be with other people for just a moment. Maybe that's just my life. Maybe there's a concert and it doesn't end until late and it's just unreasonable to think we're going to be able to drive to the concert and be back before 2:00. Or how can we get to some kind of resolution here? The goal of a mediator, facilitator, or someone who wants to move conflict to a more productive place, is to find where interests may intersect. The son doesn't want to be unsafe, right? The parent wants the child to be safe. You know, fostering independence may be a goal of the parent as well as the son. Not wanting to seem harsh, but at the same time maintain boundaries. What we're trying to do is put the problem on the other side of the table and how can we meet these interests that may be actually be competing? How can we work on problem solving them together? It may be there is a concert and it doesn't get over until midnight and but as a parent, I'm really worried about my son's safety. How can I stretch the curfew and still feel that things will be safe? I could possibly, you know, make sure they have a cell phone or ask who is going to be chaperoning. Maybe I can drive and pick up. There are ways in which we might be able to meet the needs of safety, social interaction, need to have boundaries compared with control that we can find some kind of solution. You can have a phone call check in. Good. So let's take this into the Special Education realm for a moment. So let's say the position is whether or not to have a one on one aide for a student. What are some possible interests behind this? And it can come from, you know, either side of the aisle. Yes, your student needs to have a one on one aide. Or, no, I don't think a one on one aide would be appropriate for my child or for the student. What are some possible interests that you can identify for a one on one aide? Go ahead and throw it in the chat. Behavior monitoring, good. Instructional support. As an Intervener. Support for communication, behavior, goals. Providing individual attention and supervision. Excellent. Concerned about the student not giving the attention needed. Being lost in a classroom. Access to the Gen Ed curriculum. Conduit between educators and students. From a district perspective, it may be that a one on one aide is seen as a high level oh, I lost the word it's very confining to have a one on one aide, so when the goal is to have the least restrictive environment, in order to have a least restrictive environment, maybe a one on one aide is counterproductive to that. I'm losing my ear piece, so hold on just a second. I need to quit moving when I talk. So good job. Interests, safety, social growth, academic success, physical assistance, individual attention. You see how if we focus instead of on the solution, the one on one aide, but instead focus on, how can we maintain my child's safety when he has a tendency to bolt? Or how can we ensure that there's progress in the curriculum? You know, what are other ways we can resolve this? One on one aide is one option, however, there may be other options which are less restrictive. That's a way in which we can move toward focusing on the creative problem solving. This slide is a good summary, I think, of some key ways in which we can find interests. These are questions that you can ask when you are in the middle of a conflict, whether it is with your teenager or whether it is with your IEP Team, that you can ask about getting to interests. Here are some questions: How has this affected you? How has the current situation impacted you? Or, what do you think will happen if we do this? What do you think the outcome will be? Can you explain to me a little bit so that I understand where you are coming from how this is important to you? Or how this solves the issue that you brought up? Or what's blocking you or what's driving you? What do you need to move forward? These are good in your hip pocket questions to have to be able to redirect a conversation to focus on interests. There's many, many more. Great books out there. If you are looking for more information on this, I can certainly direct you to resources if this is something you are interested in learning more about. So when we start looking at focusing on the problem together, the interests themselves, being able to identify those interests, they become a joint concern. So how can we meet safety and independence as we move forward? That's called a joint concern. How do we meet this and that and have it satisfy both of what we need? If there's a secret to mediation, it's being able to frame these kinds of questions. As a facilitator, when I would facilitate IEP meetings, if I could get folks to start thinking about and focusing on the interests, we would really have some creative and wonderful conversations. Another little hint, try this, change the word in your own language from "but" to "and." We don't want to do, but this, but instead have it be "this" and "that." How can we meet this need and that need? Really, a lot of effective conflict management is about framing the conversation. Engage people to think a little broader than what their individualized experience is showing them. So this is the summary part. If you need resources, CADRE is here to help you. We have conversation. We have a bevy. Our website is www.cadreworks.org. And you can see here we have information for districts, about dispute resolution, about facilitation. We have a link here at the top, a link for families. If you click on the "For Families" it will show information. We have webinars. We have documentation. We have resources, materials. And we also have much of it in Spanish and many other languages as well. The For Families page, for example, if you click on the website the "For Families" link here right, the For Families page will open up, a bunch of information, we have where to find resources within your state. Some of our high value resources, like our steps to success guide, how to talk to your school, how to choose an advocate. We have some lessons on how to learn conflict resolution. If you are interested in learning more about interests and positions and better communication, this Working Together Series is a self directed course that is good for educators and parents and everyone who wants to learn how to work together for better IEP. If you are interested in dispute resolution parent resolutions, we have guides here. For folks for birth to three year olds, we have resources on that as well. Lots and lots of parent resources available. If you are having trouble navigating our website, give me a ring, I'm happy to go through our resources and help you find what you need. The tale of two conversations is something we just recently updated. Very popular. But it shows two different ways to approach a conflict and it's between a parent and a Special Education Teacher. And one way they get entrenched in conflict and the other they use strategies to improve their relationship. And this has been a very popular, helpful training tool. It's very short, about, you know, 15 minutes total for both videos. We have online learning training. We have webinars. I'm not going to read you all of this because you can certainly look through it, but know if you need information related to conflict resolution, dispute resolution, we probably have something for you. So with that, I'll leave you with the save the date. We have hopefully an in person conference coming up in Denver, assuming everybody gets vaccinated or we have a pandemic that's no longer part of our reality. If not, we'll have to move it to virtual, but we will have a resolution conflict symposium. With that, I'm going to close. I wanted to make sure I give Haylee enough time to share the evaluation. Before I do that, are there any other pressing questions? One or two that I can answer for you? In my five seconds. Yeah, probably not. Don't hesitate to contact us. CADRE loves to talk and feel free to get a hold of us. Thank you, and safe and happy holidays to everybody. >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: Thank you, Melanie. Oh, go ahead, Linda. >> LINDA McDOWELL: Haylee, I'm just excited in thanking Melanie and Lane. >> HAYLEE MARCOTTE: Thank you to both of our presenters. I have posted the evaluation survey link in the chat pod. I want to thank everybody for participating today. If we have no other questions or anything else, I will close the meeting. Thank you all so much. Have a great day! [Webinar concluded] CART Disclaimer: This rough edit transcript, which may contain missing, misspelled or paraphrased words, is only provided for your immediate review and is not certified as verbatim and is not to be cited in any way.