Pegasus Legal Services for Children

Strengthening children's legal rights by supporting children.

http://pegasuslaw.org/

Overview

In 1993 New Mexico still had two institutions that housed persons with developmental disabilities. Through the New Mexico Protection and Advocacy System Ms. Ford worked to ensure that individuals moving from institutions to homes had the services they needed. Community supports for individuals whose disabilities included challenging behaviors were often lacking. During the last two years of her project Ms. Ford wanted to address this problem at the front end and focused on advocating for children with challenging behaviors working to ensure that they had the support they needed to stay in the school setting. The project relied on individual representation to positively impact the lives of individuals with disabilities as well as building community support for policy changes that would maximize services available for persons with disabilities especially students with challenging behaviors.