Families and Advocates Partnership for Education (FAPE)

Abstract

The Families and Advocates Partnership for Education Project (FAPE) was one of four partnership projects formed through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1997. These partnership projects were begun in October of 1998 and were given funding for a 5-year period that ended in September 2003. In 2004, core FAPE projects were consolidated into the Unified IDEA Partnership, that continues to provide resources to students, parents, educators, and policymakers nationwide. The goal of establishing the four partnership projects was to improve the educational outcomes of students with disabilities by forming a nexus of community advocates, service providers, policy makers, and administrators who could more effectively implement IDEA’s provisions. The goal of FAPE was to ensure that families and advocates understood and implemented IDEA provisions at both local and state levels. Conceived as a grass-roots project and comprising a substantial number of partners, FAPE was able to establish and maintain a strong national presence among families and advocates of students with disabilities. To achieve a national presence, FAPE obtained the help of three different types of project partners: core partners, community partners, and extended partners. Core partners (e.g., Center for Law and Education, Family Voices) pledged to be involved in intensive efforts to execute the goals of FAPE. Community partners (e.g., National Down Syndrome Society, Epilepsy Foundation) made contributions mostly through their dissemination of information that was generated by the project. Extended partners such as the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities distributed information that pertained to IDEA and how FAPE improved the lives of their constituents. FAPE reported having distributed items such as fact sheets and research briefs to over nine million people during the life of the project. FAPE also provided individual assistance to families, professionals, and community advocates, reportedly helping link over 70,000 individuals with information and resources germane to the well-being of students with