Central FL Parent Center is a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to parents of children with disabili-ties/special education needs. Central FL Parent Center receives funding from the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs for its AWARE project, a Parent Training Information Center (PTI). Central FL Parent Center is the PTI for northeast and eastern Florida.

The AWARE project (Assisting With Achieving Results in Education) provides one-on-one assistance and support to parents by providing the tools they need to help be active participants/advocates for their child in the educational process. Not only do we provide one-on-one support, we also provide resources and other options to the parents so that they are able to be more knowledgeable about and involved in their child’s educational process. Central FL Parent Center is not an advocate nor are we attorneys, but we offer help to parents to learn to be advocates for their child. Central FL Parent Center offers parents collaborative ways to support the school/district in services for their child and helps parents understand the cooperation with the school/district to ensure their child is receiving services that are appropriate. We also offer to attend IEP/504 meetings with the parents as support. All of the staff at Central FL Parent Center are parents or grandparents of a child with a disability, so we have walked where these parents are currently walking which helps us to better understand the parents and their concerns.