As we celebrated 40 years of service at INCLUDEnyc, we turned to our roots in providing love, equity, and access to our families, professionals, and young people with disabilities. Jean Mizutani, Senior Education Specialist, and INCLUDEnyc’s longest-serving staff member came to the organization as a parent. Over the years, she has observed how the organization’s history parallelled and pivoted alongside legislation, advocacy, and technology to support people with disabilities. Jean shares her journey along with INCLUDEnyc’s milestones.
Jean’s Story: In Her Own Words
“The first time I called Resources for Children with Special Needs (RCSN), I was looking for help for my six-year-old whom I suspected of having a disability. It was 1995, so looking for help meant talking to teachers, social workers, doctors, and parents.
Among the many numbers I called, Helene Craner, a founder at RCSN (which later became INCLUDEnyc), called me back! Our conversations gave me the ability to identify my goals, and the understanding of which steps to take next. The special education process can be a long one, but knowing I had a place to call gave me confidence.
I made my way through the world of special education and eventually found a good program for my daughter. I was delighted to share the good news with Helene on our final check-up call. To my surprise, she said that I would make a good advocate and offered me a volunteer position with training!
I wasn’t looking for work, but I did have time as my daughter was doing well. Like any parent of a child with a disability who has struggled through the system and come out on the other side, I was motivated to help others.
In 1998, I was warmly welcomed into RCSN. Karen Schlesinger and Helene Craner, founding co-directors, with Miguel Salazar, Roberto Romero, Nina Lublin, and Gary Shulman, were happy to train a newcomer. I felt like the luckiest person in the world to be able to provide support to families like mine.”
A Brief History of INCLUDEnyc
In 1975, the landmark Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), or Public Law 94-142 was passed. That benchmark launched the need for information and advocacy for special education from the guaranteed right to education, to evaluation, special education process, and parents’ rights.
In 1981, three determined mothers, Tondra Lynford, Helene Craner, and Karen Schlessinger launched a tiny organization around a kitchen table in Brooklyn. They had already unraveled the complexities of the new Act for their children and wanted to support other families. With a paper Rolodex and the goal to establish a central source of information on special education, they built a sustainable organization for future generations of youth with disabilities and incorporated it as a nonprofit under the name Resources for Children with Special Needs (RCSN) in 1983.
The founders provided one-on-one assistance for families and the professionals that served them. That first year, the organization served 129 people, a number that continued to grow to over 16,000 people served in 2023. “Our founders knew exactly what parents and professionals needed to support young people with disabilities,” Jean said. “Helene, Karen, and Tondra were trailblazers. They arrived at just the right time.”
At a time when the Internet didn’t exist, word of mouth led families to RCSN. The founders used their single computer to develop a comprehensive resource database with the support of Hunter College’s Department of Computer Science.
From day one, RCSN provided a Help Line, which is still the gateway to our services. Parent workshops were held in every borough. In 1985, RCSN hosted its first Special Camp Fair with opportunities for young people with disabilities. That event would evolve into the INCLUDEnyc Fair, the organization’s cornerstone event.
“Following changes in special education policy on local and national levels, RCSN remained ahead of the curve and assessed what our community would ultimately need,” Jean said.
In 1990, amendments to the Education of Handicapped Children Act of 1975 were passed, and the law’s title was changed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
That year, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was also signed into law, prohibiting the discrimination of people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications, and access to state and local government programs and services which included public schools. RCSN’s mission strengthened in the wake of this milestone for disability rights.
Jean personally noticed the benefits of the new law. “Every student was now entitled to an environment that was free, public, and appropriate to their needs,” Jean said. “If that didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have prevailed in my daughter’s case. After our first win, I was reassured that the system worked–and it could help other families too.”
In 1992, RCSN was designated as a Parent Training and Information Center (PTIC) by the U.S. Department of Education. “That milestone is significant because it allowed us to build capacity as a parent and resource center,” Jean recalled.
Jean had also been noticing a shift in how information could be delivered to families. RCSN turned to new technology in 2005 to enhance access to its resources by building an online database of the resource guide, which was published on the intranets of all three New York City public libraries and the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).
Student dynamics were also changing. Jean noted, “As expectations for young people with disabilities grew, we realized that as students moved into their late teens, they needed to be central participants in their education and future planning.”
Information about college access was sparse in 2013, and RCSN created an annual event, College is Possible. The events were held on CUNY campuses and represented a turning point. For the first time, families and their young people participated together in planning a post-secondary future.
The Project Possibility (PP) program began in 2014 to help young adults with disabilities advocate for themselves and reach their personal, educational, and career goals.
“We realized that to have better outcomes, young people with disabilities needed to be part of the conversation from an early age, and we recognized that the name RCSN would no longer tell our story,” Jean said.
In response to the changing times, Resources for Children with Special Needs set out to find a new name and rebranded as INCLUDEnyc in 2015 with the tagline, “Love, equity, and access for young people with disabilities, under the leadership of our second Executive Director, Rachel Howard. “Since then, many organizations have implemented inclusion and equity practices, but we may have been the first to focus on youth with disabilities,” Jean said.
Technology continued to grow at lightning speed, and in 2018 INCLUDEnyc developed a podcast, “Disability INC.,” to offer its community experiences outside the regular workshops. INCLUDEnyc also produced a live-streamed series with influencers in the disability community.
In 2017, INCLUDEnyc became a federally-funded Community Parent Resource Center (CPRC) for northern Manhattan and the South Bronx, serving Spanish-speaking communities, and launched its Spanish website. This year also marked INCLUDEnyc’s inaugural Outdoors for Autism, a sensory-friendly summer day in the park.
In 2019, INCLUDEnyc was selected by the New York State Education Department as the comprehensive Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Center for all five boroughs of New York City to improve outcomes for students with disabilities.
By 2020, the staff at INCLUDEnyc had grown. “Many have asked how we managed to pivot so seamlessly at the pandemic’s onset. The secret was we already had the technology in place,” Jean explained. “Our early experiences with remote presentations provided the building blocks that became crucial just a few years later. The innovative spirit that had served the organization so well over the years continued under the leadership of Barbara Glassman, INCLUDEnyc’s Executive Director at that time.”
INCLUDEnyc immediately produced a series of livestreams specifically related to COVID-19, such as Encouraging Young Children to Wear Masks, Understanding Remote Evaluations, and Participating in Remote IEP meetings, while continuing its regular programs and services. Jean also emphasizes an important lesson INCLUDEnyc learned from the pandemic: In-person activities are important, but remote access improves accessibility. “INCLUDEnyc is a godsend for New York City families to have access to information that is independent of a huge, unwieldy school system,” Jean said. “INCLUDEnyc continues to play a role that no city-run organization can.”
With over two decades of service, Jean remains dedicated to INCLUDEnyc’s powerful mission. “I have watched INCLUDEnyc grow and mature, with a combination of held breath, pride, and amusement that is familiar to any parent,” Jean chuckled. “There have been enormous changes and significant growth, yet we maintain the heart of a Parent Center at our core, and return to it time and time again.”
Jean’s dedication to providing support and knowledge of the special education process carries on. “Today, help continues to be available under the name INCLUDEnyc – from a person with lived experience loving and caring about someone with a disability, be it a child, sibling, parent, or spouse. I thank and salute INCLUDEnyc’s supporters, staff, leaders, and board for their amazing contributions.”
As INCLUDEnyc heads into the next 40 years of innovation and services for young people with disabilities under the leadership of Executive Director Cheryelle Cruickshank, Jean continues to contribute her knowledge of the special education process.
She’s quick to note the success her daughter has achieved through the support of INCLUDEnyc over the years. “I can’t end without sharing that my daughter is now an independent, self-supporting adult,” Jean said. “In a moment of insight at age 12, she said that if it wasn’t for her disability, I wouldn’t have been able to help all those other children. And that may very well be the secret sauce that, for 40 years, INCLUDEnyc keeps bringing to the table.”