Surviving the Pandemic: Empowering Immigrant Families to Advocate and Support Their Children/Youth With Disabilities at Home

The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to make a last-minute decision to change the modality of student learning from in-person to distance learning. Although this sudden change had created difficulties for students and their families, it had been even more challenging for students with disabilities and their families, especially those who were culturally and linguistically diverse. While schools were overwhelmed with distributing materials and digital tools to students who were in need and implementing distance learning, less attention was placed on families’ readiness to support their children’s learning at home. The purpose of this chapter is to share the positive impact a family support group had on the partnership between Chinese immigrant families of children with disabilities and schools. The participants encountered many challenges during the pandemic, including fiscal and racism issues and difficulties supporting children’s distance learning. The family support group was not only able to provide a platform for the families to connect, support each other, and seek resources but also offer them opportunities to learn the skills they needed to support their children’s distance learning and collaborate with schools to ensure that their children with disabilities received the needed services. Recommendations for practice and future research on how schools can further enhance their partnerships with families and community are discussed.