What We Do
Programs & Services
Every program is free. Each one is built to help individuals with disabilities and their families understand their rights, build advocacy skills, and express themselves through the arts.
Our Flagship Initiative
Southern Illinois Pathways
Southern Illinois Pathways is a project of SIP Arts Foundation.
Our family navigation, advocacy education, and disability support initiative serving families and self-advocates across the Metro East and Southern Illinois. Pathways brings workshops, resource navigation, and arts-based engagement together to help families build knowledge, confidence, and voice.
Explore Southern Illinois Pathways →
Parent & Guardian Workshops
The foundation of our work: helping parents and guardians navigate special education and disability law. We partner with Equip for Equality, Family Matters Parent Training & Information Center, and other trusted organizations to bring families current, up-to-date information they can act on.
See upcoming sessions →
Pathways Advocacy Binder Workshops
Our four-part Saturday series where every family and self-advocate builds a personalized advocacy binder they keep and use for years. Sessions cover understanding disabilities and eligibility, rights under IDEA, navigating the IEP process, and accessing services beyond school.
See the series →
Self-Advocacy
Helping youth and young adults find their voice, lead, and speak up, through Pathways Club, self-advocacy meetings, and youth civic engagement. Self-advocates tell their own stories and drive their own journeys, led by self-advocates themselves.
Led by Self-Advocates
Our Approach
Educate. Empower. Advocate.
Educate
Knowledge they can use
Plain-language sessions on disability rights, IEP navigation, IDEA law, services, waivers, and transition planning. No jargon, no rushing, just the clear information families need to move forward.
Empower
Tools, confidence, voice
Every workshop pairs learning with creative response, through writing, recorded testimony, drawing, painting, or media art. Participants walk away with agency and expression, not just information.
Advocate
Voice in the world
Lived experience becomes community education. Personal story becomes public voice. Families become confident, capable advocates for themselves and others.