Lunenburg County Public Schools, along with the Virginia Department of Education, supports public awareness and understanding of disabilities in order to promote full participation by students with disabilities in school and community activities. There are many types of disabilities, and helping children understand these disabilities at a young age is the most effective approach.

A great way to help them understand is through reading.

A group of young people with disabilities, alumni of the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities’ Youth Leadership Forum, initiated a resolution that was passed by the 2009 General Assembly designating October as Disability History and Awareness Month (DHAM).

Youth with disabilities, family members, staff members from the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities, and the Virginia Commonwealth University Partnership for People with Disabilities have developed a variety of resources that can be used to promote and highlight DHAM in Virginia during October.

These resources can be found at the following Web sites; www.virginiaselfadvocacy.org (under Disability Awareness) and http://www.imdetermined.org/quick_links/modules. New resources are being developed by youth to promote awareness through youth engagement via the Inclusion Project, samples of activities are attached to this Memorandum.

Parents who suspect that their child has a disability may be interested in Lunenburg County Public Schools’ Child Find Program. Some children and youth are born with or may acquire physical and/or mental conditions which handicap their normal growth and development and adversely affect their educational progress and performance.

Lunenburg County Public Schools maintains and active and continuing child find program designed to identify, locate and evaluate those children residing in Lunenburg County who are birth to age 21, who are in need of special education and related service.

This includes children who:

Are highly mobile, such as migrant and homeless children.

Attended private schools, including children who are home-instructed or home tutored.

Are suspected of being children with disabilities and in need of special education, even though they are advancing grade to grade.

Are under age 18 who are suspected of having a disability who need special education and related services and who are incarcerated in a regional or local jail in the area for 10 or more days.