After several years of successfully targeting Spanish-speaking parent groups, the Office of Clients’ Rights Advocacy (OCRA) that serves Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB) consumers turned its attention to the Asian-American community, which is unfortunately underrepresented. OCRA set out with an ambitious goal to work with a local parent support group called Friends of Children with Special Needs (FCSN) to do three different trainings within a three-month period. Although the Asian-American community was a new target group for the RCEB OCRA office, the Clients’ Rights Advocate had already established a relationship with FCSN, having done several trainings for the group in the past.

First, OCRA met with the group to give a training on the always-popular topic of special education. They included a discussion of “What is OCRA” and even touched on “Self-Determination.” OCRA brought many handouts in both English and Chinese. It was a potpourri of topics, but the audience was lively and engaged throughout. The next training covered transition services. OCRA saw a mixture of new and familiar faces as he covered what happens when children become young adults. For the final training, OCRA once again covered multiple subjects and this time the topics were the “DD Waiver” and the “Affordable Care Act.” More trainings are sure to come.