All our pre-planning for online communication while away on the Study Tour - setting up Skype and Messenger schedules, this blog, Flickr and such - were brought to nought in San Francisco by one simple event: the failure of the hotel's wireless network for the whole time we were there.
Only now, in Charlotte, can we catch up with San Francisco events. The Study Tour has been an excellent experience; I have learned much already that will inform Paces work with children with cerebral palsy and their families. However, more broadly, I am particularly interested in the successful Californian public policy service model of Regional Centers for all people with disabilities and their families, a model which gives a prominent role to not-for-profits, based on the Lanterman Act introduced as long ago as the 1960s.
However, the Study Tour has also served to confirm that Paces is still a leading edge organisation when it comes to innovation, especially in education/training and that the Paces Campus model of service delivery - a community of interest within a geographic community setting - is unique, and has attracted much favourable comment everywhere I have been.
This blog is not a diary of the Study Tour, but I really must record here the very warm and friendly welcome we received from San Andreas Regional Center and from Parents Helping Parents in Santa Clara - and from all the people we visited with them.