Navigating the IEP Maze: How to Advocate for Your Teen & Overcome School System Barriers
Is your teen struggling in school, but you’re hitting roadblocks trying to get them the support they need? The IEP (Individualized Education Program) process can be overwhelming—especially for minority parents facing additional challenges. In this episode, I sit down with Maria Davis-Pierre, a licensed mental health counselor, autism advocate, and founder of Autism in Black.
Maria shares her personal journey navigating the special education system for her neurodivergent children and exposes the hidden biases that often prevent Black and minority children from getting the right diagnosis and accommodations. She also provides practical strategies for parents to advocate effectively, empower their teens, and navigate the IEP process with confidence.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE
- The biggest mistakes parents make when advocating for their child’s IEP—and how to avoid them
- Why Black and minority children are often mislabeled as behavioral problems instead of receiving proper support
- How to involve your teen in their IEP process and teach them self-advocacy skills
- The hidden biases in school support systems that every parent should know about
5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR PARENTS OF TEENS
- Know Your Rights – Understanding the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) is crucial for effective advocacy.
- Cultural Bias Exists – Many minority children are misdiagnosed or overlooked, making advocacy even more critical.
- Empower Your Teen – Teens who participate in their own IEP process develop stronger self-advocacy skills for the future.
- Leverage Their Strengths – Connecting accommodations to your teen’s interests can make learning more engaging.
- Give Yourself Grace – The IEP process is challenging, but you are your child's best advocate.
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CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Maria Davis-Pierre
- Website: autisminblack.org
- Instagram: @autisminblack
CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST: Dr. Cam Caswell
- Website: AskDrCam.com
- Instagram: @DrCamCaswell
- TikTok: @the.teen.translator
- YouTube: Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam
- Facebook: @DrCamCaswell
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam Podcast is your go-to resource for navigating the challenges of raising teenagers. Hosted by Dr. Cam Caswell, an adolescent psychologist and certified parenting coach, this podcast offers practical parenting strategies, expert advice, and real-world insights to help you build a stronger relationship with your teen and support their emotional growth. Whether you’re struggling with teenage behavior or looking to improve communication, each episode provides actionable tips to make parenting teens easier and more rewarding.
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EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 Navigating the IEP Process: A Personal Journey
02:49 Cultural Responsivity in Autism Support
05:52 Advocacy: The Unique Challenges for Minority Parents
09:04 Understanding the Special Education Process
12:00 Identifying Signs of Learning Difficulties in Teens
14:58 Overcoming Stigma: Supporting Teens with IEPs
17:52 Empowering Teens to Advocate for Themselves
20:54 Leveraging Interests for Learning
23:52 Finding Support and Resources
26:53 The Importance of Grace in Parenting
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Cam (00:00)
As a mom who's been through the school IEP process dozens of times at least, I can tell you it's quite overwhelming. Whether it's figuring out the process, understanding what support is available, or just trying to advocate for your teen or help them advocate for themselves, it's a lot. That's why I'm so excited for today's episode. I'm joined by Maria Davis-Pierre, a licensed mental health counselor, autism advocate, and the founder of Autism in Black. Her work has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, PBS and more. Today she's gonna do, give us the insight we need to navigate IEPs with confidence. Welcome Maria.
Maria Davis-Pierre, LMHC (00:39)
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Dr. Cam (00:42)
Me too. So especially as someone that's been through this process a lot, I know that is so challenging. But let's first start with you. Tell us a little bit about you and how you got into just autism and black, especially.
Maria Davis-Pierre, LMHC (00:57)
Sure. So our story starts with our oldest child, Malia, who is now 12, almost 13, my goodness. And it started when she was about 10 months. I started to see the signs of characteristics of autism in her. And I knew with my experience as a licensed therapist, I was like, we need to get you know, in front of this and my husband who is a internal medicine physician, first he was like, you know, keep that over there with your patients. Don't come over here and diagnose my kid. But we started the process, went to our pediatrician, went to early steps program, which you know, every state has just might not be called early steps. And then eventually went to the pediatric neurologist trying to get this diagnosis for her.
And it ended up with me actually boycotting in the pediatric neurologist office for a week because everybody was agreeing she was autistic, but nobody wanted to give her the official diagnosis because she was young. But we're all agreeing, we know it, we can't get certain services through insurance without this official diagnosis. And now you're saying wait a year and a half when we know she's still gonna be autistic. So boycotted in his office, he gave me the paperwork after a week of seeing him from the he came in to the time he left. And then, you know, started the service process. My colleagues start coming into our house and not understanding cultural responsivity, not understanding that you need to incorporate your client's culture into the work that you do. So it was, they were making it seem like we were resistant when in fact, they just weren't using interventions that were culturally responsive. And in talking to other individuals, we found that this was a norm, that we weren't the only ones experiencing this. So that's how we initially started Autism in Black. And now here we are, many years later with our podcast, our conference, our webinars and trainings. Now I have twins as well. have twins who are also neurodivergent and I got my own diagnosis.
Dr. Cam (02:49)
It's a family affair that you have turned into helping everyone else, which I love so much that you take your own story and your own pain and frustration and you help other people with it. And I know, I mean, I just talked to so many people that are so frustrated, not only with the system, but just as you were saying, the diagnoses and knowing what to do and finding people that they relate to and understand.
I'm curious too, let's just dig in a little bit. Like what do you see as some of the differences that we may not know? Because I know there's a lot of microaggressions, there's a lot of little things that people are just not aware of that people should be aware of.
Maria Davis-Pierre, LMHC (03:52)
One, when it comes to Black children in the school system, we are often not categorized as we should be, and we are deemed then a behavioral problem. So we are not even getting to the point to where we can get IUPs and 504s because it's not being seen as this child has a disability. It's more this child has behavior problems, they're bad, they're a bad seed type of thing biases that get in the way of thinking that black people can have disabilities, know, these children have disabilities that need supports in the school system. So that's one of the major factors as we see is that getting to the point to where we have the, can get the supports is a struggle.
Dr. Cam (04:46)
Yeah, I think this is such a big thing and I see this across many different cultures, right, where we just, we look at the behavior and we're very quick to make an assumption that there's something behavioral really destructive about them and not that there's a learning need, right, or not that there's neurodivergence and the system's not working for them. I mean, again, I've been through this with my daughter too and it's hard as a parent because you're like, is this just behavior that I should be dealing with or is this something different that they need support that they need? So when you're in that line, even as a parent, you're going, I'm not sure either. How do you know or how do you move forward with just that uncertainty?
Maria Davis-Pierre, LMHC (05:16)
One, we have to advocate differently than the typical parent who isn't a minority, have to advocate completely different. That means we have to go above and beyond. Like me sitting in that office for a week, you know, to get the paperwork, you know, us constantly staying on the schools, making sure that, you're going through this process, reading the actual paperwork and looking for any of those kind of adjectives that descr
