Former Stewart County Parent Mentor Mary Gibbs exemplified the Parent Mentor Partnership’s mission of building effective family, school, and community partnerships that lead to greater achievement for students with disabilities when she went the extra mile to assist a student in planning his future.  Ms. Gibbs was working with the Vocational Rehabilitation Services counselor to support one of her students who wanted to attend the Roosevelt Warms Springs Institute for Rehabilitation.  The student was required to tour the facility and participate in an interview session before acceptance. The parents of this student were unable to take the student to Warm Springs because they didn’t have transportation.

Although Ms. Gibbs was unavailable on the date of the visit, she did not give up. She approached the Stewart County High School Principal Mr. John Hamilton and explained the difficulty she and the counselor were having in getting transportation for this student.  After checking his schedule, the principal volunteered to take this young man to Warm Springs for the tour, and he was willing to sit in on the interview process. If Mr. Hamilton had not taken an interest in this student and taken him to the Warms Springs Institute for Rehabilitation for the tour and interview, this young man might not have been accepted into the program.  As a result, he would not have been able to obtain the vocational training that he needed and his employment opportunities would have been limited.

Mary Gibbs, like many other parent mentors, understands the importance of families, educators and community partners working together to support students in planning for their future.  Arranging transportation for this important meeting is just one of example of how parent mentors work to build communication and communication between home, school, and the community to support students with disabilities in achieving their desired post-school goals.