Identify an issue in your community and/or one that is important to you.

Share how you believe youth can become involved to advocate for this concern.

How would you identify the youth to promote awareness? Would you target a particular neighborhood?  School?  Recreation Center?

Describe your role as a Youth Development Professional and how you would help organize these youth to take the lead on this issue and advocate for meaningful change.

Respond to at least one of your classmates.

Student’s post that needs a response:

An issue in this community I have been faced with for the past three years, from day 1 of us living here, has been lack of true understanding for kids with disabilities as well as schools not being able to educate all yet wont admit it. Everywhere people are trying to promote being kind and different, yet people don’t practice what they preach, the issue is everywhere even social media. I have seen people in local FB groups being down right mean and judgmental to locals asking questions yet their fb cover photos will say soething about always be kind, or “dare to be different”. There is so much of people saying to be way yet doing things opposite even my 9 year old has questioned why someone will be telling others to be nice when they are mean, I told him once because a lot of people want others to see them and know them a certain way, but peoples true colors do show, some sooner than others. One big issue here is bullying. I loved the video where she said ” Zero tolerance does not work”, I was starting to think it was just me that didnt understand it. Both of my boys have been physically and mentally abused by students and staff for the two years they have been in a St.  Pete public school, I now feel the moto should be ” Bullying? Dont worry we have the excuse”. Honestly right up until we had this issue I didnt understand bullying issues, I thought with kids so young there is no way other kids can be mean enough to truly be bullying, I was very wrong. I have had to go as far as calling police, which they got child protective services involved, and child protective services went in that school several times. The principle I caught following and stalking us for days after, then he got very mean and aggressive saying he doesnt appreciate them coming in and asking so many questions I could have warned him, he is not the victim and I did not allow him to become one. I told him I had tried calling him the second my oldest came home saying he saw an adult bite his brother and throw him on the ground and drag him and my son had a lot of marks, bruising and blood. My son is 8, my son has a cyst on his brain, too much force to his brain, too hard a fall he will die, he also has autism and can not talk, sadly they know he cant tell me. When I called the school I briefly said i needed to speak with someone asap about staff physically harming my son, i was put on hold for roughly 3 minutes than was told “sorry noone has time to deal with that right now, id suggest comig in tomorrow and someone should be able to squeeze you in”. I called the police,everyone involved decided the situation was not right, never should have happened and no excuse for it, so the staff that was involved was told she can no longer be near my son, she still works there, she works with younger children with autism and downs syndrome now. I keep being told my kids are too soft, I keep being told kids around here have to grow up faster than kids from Maine, I keep being told my kids need to learn to ignore things, all I want to be told is yes this is a problem, yes we need help finding a solution, like maybe send someone to the homes of kids who are being mean, by no means do I think its always the parents fault, sometimes parents need help but we are judged so fast by people who read a book and think they know our kids better sometimes asking for help is scary, we will be blamed, they may take our kids. We need less judgement, more open minds, think outside the box(book), offer help to parents struggling .Not all of us can do afterschool programs, may be money, transportation, time and so on, but we still need help. Id love to see this area become more autism friendly. I had person from child protective services tell me if my name ever crossed her desk again she would remove my children. She has no clue what I go through, yet she went to school so she thinks she does. Each time they have had to be involved has never been a reflection of my parenting, so her comment was unecessary. When I did have someone show up almost a year later thankfully it was not her, it was a guy, he has a teenager with autism, he never threatened me, he complimented me. He said he has one child with autism and it is and always has been him and his wife raising him, he said he doesnt even know what he would do if they got a divorce, he said neither of them could do it alone, he made it very clear that three kids with autism, one parent and no body at all helping is something very few could understand and that nobody should ever threaten to take them. 

once we were at the bus stop, people were getting irritated at the time it was taking, so they started beeping and yelling, my son got a sensory overload and fell to the ground. I had a female roll her window down and start yelling to “tell that boy to get off the ground, you need to whoop him”, they had a big bee sticker on their car that said “Bee Kind”, thought that was interesting. Another time we were walking my son had a meltdown was trying to get away, he likes the blue pipes placed around town, i think it is for the city water, he knew there was one in front of burger king, he wanted to run to touch it but we were behind burger king, so a lady driving by starts yelling “stop being mean and get that boy a cheeseburger”, my son hates cheeseburger, my son doesnt even like burger king, had nothing to do with what she was yelling about, yet her yelling caused issues for two of the kids making our walk a lot harder than it needed to be. People are quick to think they can do better or know more. My daughter is autistic and a bad heart and gets hot easily which makes her heart race too much making her act really hyper because its a feeling she dont know what to do, a lady at wawa for months 5 days a week  always very rude about my daughter not wearing shoes and about how she was acting, most people look at her and can tell something is different, but this lady kept saying “oh  let me take her for a week she wont be acting like that”. One day I was like why do you think she wouldnt? Are you going to beat the autism out of her? you have powers to heal her heart or make her not over heat? oh yea, you cant and wont do any of that so maybe instead of judge ask questions.