AFRICAN CARIBBEAN AMERICAN PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES, INC.

They are students with labels like "truant" and "behaviorally disordered."  Their parents are told they have serious learning disabilities. 

Schools sometimes suspend or expel them rather than evaluate and intervene.  Too often, these students enter the juvenile justice system, and those who return to school then repeat the pattern.  Their parents - uninformed about the system - don't know the services available to them.

And according to data from the Connecticut State Department of Education, "they" are four times more likely to be African-American students than white.

It's a destructive cycle.  But it's one that the African Caribbean American Parents of Children with Disabilities, Inc. (AFCAMP) believes can be broken through a project  supported by a one-year (April 2008-March 2009) $30,000 grant from the Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health).  AFCAMP's project involves:

• Annually training 75-150 Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury parents and community members on families' and children's rights to services in education, child welfare, mental health and juvenile justice
• Empowering 30 families and community members to serve as advocates for children and for changes in education, welfare, behavior health and juvenile justice

"This project promises to improve children's mental health service delivery in Connecticut and reduce racial and ethnic disparity for minority children and families receiving mental health, juvenile justice, child welfare and educational services," says Merva Jackson, AFCAMP executive director.  "It also will increase the cultural competence of these services and the workforce involved."  The tools?

• Increased awareness and knowledge of families and communities about their children's needs and available services
• Increased parent and community participation and advocacy in changing the system

"The disruptive types of behavior seen in youth with disabilities are often misinterpreted by schools and the juvenile justice system as delinquency," she notes.  "This failure to consider the relationship of the behavior to an individual's disability may be overlooked as a behavioral problem, when it really is a direct consequence of the child's disability."

To accomplish its goal, Hartford-based AFCAMP is recruiting families and community stakeholders in New Haven and Hartford through:

• Parent-teacher organizations
• Community collaboratives
• Churches
• Clubs and organizations
• Grass-roots community efforts

For Jackson and AFCAMP, "The ultimate goal is to empower parents, families and community members to become their children's best advocates."