About the Videos

With funding from the Spencer Foundation, Dr. Rossetti (Boston University) and Dr. Burke (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) conducted civic engagement trainings with parents of individuals with disabilities and transition-aged youth with disabilities in ten sites across the U.S. Specifically, in collaboration with Parent Training and Information Centers, civic engagement trainings were conducted in: Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington D.C. At the end of the civic engagement training, parents completed short (3-minutes) videotaped testimonials. The testimonials share their concerns and suggestions for changes in the federal special education law: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

We traveled to each of the ten sites to videotape the testimonials of parents of children with disabilities. All parents participated in a six-hour training about civic engagement in special education legislation. At the end of the training, participants learned how to speak to legislators using the “hook, line, and sinker” approach (Walsh & Kuriansky, 2009). We provided sample statements for speaking to legislators. With each sample statement, the participants identified:

1. the hook (i.e., introduction of the person providing the statement)

2. line (i.e., presentation of a problem)

3. sinker (i.e., suggestion for how to resolve the problem)

Then, the participants were given a worksheet to write their testimonies. The worksheet was primarily blank except for the following headings: hook, line, and sinker. Participants individually wrote their own testimonies. On indicating they were done writing, we videotaped their testimonies. All testimonies are less than 3 minutes long.

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