Why Is it PEP?

Why Is it Parents Encouraging Parents?​

Please note: The information below refers to the in-person PEP conferences, not the virtual PEP Academy conferences that are offered periodically online.

• PEP conferences are designed to promote family and school partnerships that are essential in supporting students with disabilities and their families in schools and the community.
• PEP brings together families, professionals, and facilitators--both parent facilitators, who have experience raising children and youth with disabilities, and seasoned professionals, who have spent their careers in special education.
• Decades of research show that the participation of families in their child’s education, through specific coordinating between home and school, results in improved outcomes (Jeynes, 2012).
• Participants during PEP conferences share ideas, discuss concerns, and celebrate successes. They have an opportunity to build relationships with other parents, families, and professionals in their community.
• Parents Encouraging Parents, abbreviated as PEP, is a non-specific disability conference that focuses on commonalities.
• Evaluation data from parents who have attended PEP conferences over 40 plus years expressed their thankfulness because they were encouraged by the information they learned, empowered by the tools and knowledge they had to improve their child's education, and grateful for the relationships built to help them no longer feel alone in their special education journey.

Certificate of Attendance

PEP does not offer CEU (continuing education units); however, upon request, any participant (parent or professional) who attends an in-person PEP conference in its entirety, is eligible to receive one. A certificate of attendance for 15 hours will be emailed to the participant. No partial hours will be given on a certificate.

More Information about PEP