PIE Update and Invitation to Next Meeting on Tuesday April 10

Greetings from PIE; we hope that you had a great spring break and are looking forward to beautiful spring here in Vancouver!

On Pink Day, we had a small but very pleasant first PIE coffee with parents at Tennyson. 

A reminder that the next PIE meeting will take place on April 10 in the library at 7-9PM. Our principal Doug Roch and vice principal/resource teacher Regina Vosahlo will both attend. We will prepare a structured discussion to facilitate sharing our children’s experiences and needs and start planning the 2018/2019 school-parent team agenda. We are looking for ideas about how to build inclusion and belonging to our school culture.  Please feel free to share any advice that you see may fit, we are making a list of everyone's ideas.

Important news from the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada (CADDAC): There are currently two issues impacting BC ADHD physicians and patients, new prescribing guidelines for stimulant medications and proposed changes to BC Special Education Guidelines. While CADDAC and CADDRA have done advocacy work on both of these issues, it is time for patients and medical professionals to also become involved. For this reason CADDAC has developed two BC advocacy campaigns and material to assist patients in making their voices heard. Please see their website for more information (www.caddac.ca), and read the attached PDF:s.  

Some good news to from the presentation that was organized with Bo Heljskov Elwén in February in Burnaby. Someone from Surrey school district attended and was so inspired by the message about the low arousal approach and how effective it is with students who have autism, ADHD and/or anxiety, that she now will send a number of teachers from Surrey to Calgary for training in the method. The teachers will then educate their colleagues. Would it not be nice with a similar VSB intiative?!

Finally, one of our members has a touching story to share about two brothers with autism who navigate life together, here's the link:

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/06/599738145/you-would-always-have-my-back-brothers-with-autism-navigate-life-together

Warm regards,
Lena Normén-Younger, Sonya Cressman and Jacqueline Crummey