With the start of a new school year, there are many times when adopted children may be faced with challenges. These challenges may be everything from dealing with assignments such as creating a family tree, or bringing in a baby picture to class, or science projects that involve assumed biological-relatedness (see here for an example).
For adopted and foster children with IEP’s or learning disabilities, there may be special challenges as well. This blog post will hopefully offer a variety of school-related resources for adoptive and foster parents.
First, the Child Welfare Information Gateway has several resources including articles you can download on topics such as:
- Back to School: A guide to making schools and school assignments more adoption-friendly
- The Great Back to School Kit – 17 simple and effective ways to bring adoption into the classroom from Adoptive Families
- Parenting Your Adopted Teenager
- Resources from Families Adopting Children in Response
- What about educational and school issues? What are IEPs and does my child need one? and School & Adoption: Navigating IEPs, IDEA, and Special Services From North American Council on Adoptable Children
from the National Center for Adoption
There are also several fact sheets from Minnesota Adoption Resource Network including specific grade level information (scroll down to the header of School Issues/Education).