Target Audience: General Education Teachers working with students with IEP’s, Co-Teachers, Interventionist, Instructional Coaches, Resource Teachers

Research tells us that peer supports and peer networks can help foster relationships by bringing students together. Peer Support and Peer Network programs involve identifying and equipping a group of peers and a student with significant disabilities to provide ongoing support to each other in or outside of the classroom. All students benefit from these two strategies. Some benefits students with disabilities gain include becoming more efficient communicators, increase participation and academic engagement in the classroom and students’ self-confidence and self-determination are increased by the support they receive from their peers. For typical peers, academics are also enhanced, with research showing that students who were just getting by or even struggling in a class raised their grades by over a full letter grade in classes where they were involved in peer support arrangements.

During this training, school teams (special education teachers, general education teachers, SLP, etc) will learn the steps to developing peer support arrangements and peer networks and spend time developing plans to begin implementing these strategies at the start of the 2023-24 school year.

erica.price@ckec.org