New Winter/Spring 2025 Registration for Learning Your Way online courses is now open HERE.

Already registered for Learning Your Way? LOG IN HERE on or after February 15, 2025 

New to Learning Your Way? Find out more below and register on or after February 1.

Learning Your Way is Formed Families Forward’s free online learning portal for parents, caregivers, youth and professionals. Participants enroll and can access course on-demand, learning at their own pace. 

As of 2025, Learning Your Way includes six Courses.

Initially offered in 2021, our Special Education 101 course is designed to introduce foster and adoptive parents and kinship caregivers to key phases of the special education cycle. 

• Lesson 1 explains the Referral, Evaluation, and Eligibility process and includes a case study.
• Lesson 2 describes the Individualized Educational Program and provides an activity on writing SMART goals.
• Lesson 3  gives guidance on post-secondary transition and life after high school.
• Lesson 4 offers strategies for monitoring instruction and implementation of the IEP, including specific information about high leverage academic practices that may be used by the schools.

Other courses include Constructive Communication and Collaboration:

• Lesson 1 provides an overview of basic communication skills.
• Lesson 2 looks at the process of collaborative problem solving.
• Lesson 3 examines ways to tell your story and elevate the family voice.

Trauma 101:

• Lesson 1 defines trauma and covers basic concepts relating to trauma.
• Lesson 2 describes trauma’s impact on the brain.
• Lesson 3 gives strategies for boosting resiliency in children and youth.

Dispute Resolution:

• Lesson 1 offers an introduction and informal processes.
• Lesson 2 covers mediation.
• Lesson 3 addresses written State complaints.
• Lesson 4 reviews due process hearings.

Kinship Care:

• Lesson 1 provides an introduction to families led by kinship caregivers (extended family or close family friends).
• Lesson 2 reviews available supports for kinship families.
• Lesson 3 details educational considerations for kinship families raising children and youth with special needs.

Other Health Impairments:

• Lesson 1 provides an overview of the Other Health Impairment category of child and youth eligibility for special education and related services.
• Lesson 2 examines attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a condition.
• Lesson 3 examines fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) and other conditions related to prenatal exposures to alcohol and drugs.
• Lesson 4 focused on Tourette Syndrome.

Positive Parenting

• Lesson 1 addresses behaviors of children and youth that challenge us at home and in other settings.
• Lesson 2 begins to build a tool box of strategies and resources to understand dysregulation and support greater regulation.
• Lesson 3 builds a toolbox of strategies and resources on routines, transitions, and other challenging situations.

Learning Your Way is open for Fall and Spring Sessions. Registration opens 8/1 for Fall session and 2/1 for Spring session.

Register for Spring 2025 HERE.  Course access will be available February 15, and will remain open through June 30.

If you have registered already, LOG IN HERE on or after February 15. 

Downlad Learning Your Way FLYER HERE.