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$1M in Federal Funding to Support Doctoral Students in Special Ed
In partnership with a consortium that includes six other universities across the nation, the Neag School’s special education doctoral program and Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) will once again be part of a federal grant designated to support a total of nearly 30 future scholars in the field of special education.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), the National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention 2 (NCLII-2) Training Grant will provide the Neag School with $1 million to fund three doctoral students in special education for four years each. With the nation’s shortage of qualified scholars specializing in special education, NCLII’s mission is to prepare leaders in this area to become experts in research on intensive intervention for students with disabilities who have persistent and severe academic and behavioral difficulties. Consortium partner institutions include Vanderbilt University, Michigan State University, University of Georgia, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Minnesota, and University of Texas at Austin.
“I knew this grant was special, but I really had no idea the access that I would have to leaders in the field of special education and the opportunities I would have to collaborate with NCLII faculty and students.”
— Kaitlin Leonard,
Fully funded Ph.D. candidate, Special Education
“This is an amazing opportunity for our students to work with great faculty here and at our partner universities,” says Devin Kearns, associate professor in the special education program at the Neag School who serves on NCLII’s curriculum design committee. “The NCLII program — now in its fourth year — has a track record of producing great scholars who do cutting-edge research and are excellent teachers.”
Funding recipients will take part in an online core curriculum focused on intensive intervention and will also share on NCLII’s dedicated project website content intended to advance research on, and implementation of, intensive intervention. In addition to four years of financial support, each Ph.D. candidate will have numerous opportunities to carry out research across the consortium’s partner institutions; interact with leading special education experts at each institution; as well as intern with national centers supported by OSEP.
In 2015, Kaitlin Leonard joined the special education doctoral program at the Neag School with four years of Ph.D. studies covered, thanks to the NCLII’s initial grant. Now in the dissertation phase of the program, Leonard has had the opportunity to take part in evaluating interventions, creating course materials, writing manuscripts, traveling to national conferences, and serving as a research assistant.
“I knew this grant was special, but I really had no idea the access that I would have to leaders in the field of special education and the opportunities I would have to collaborate with NCLII faculty and students,” says Leonard. “It has also impacted my future moving forward. NCLII funding has supported costs for my dissertation, and I have had the fortune of working with special education faculty such as Chris Doabler from UT Austin and Kristen McMaster from University of Minnesota, whose expertise along with Neag faculty — namely Mike Coyne, Brandi Simonsen, Devin Kearns, and Sarah Woulfin — has been invaluable.”
Learn more about the special education doctoral program’s various scholarship opportunities at s.uconn.edu/spedphd. Register now for a free upcoming information webinar about the special education doctoral program — including numerous opportunities for scholarship and fellowship support — to be held on Nov. 8, 2019. Applications to the Ph.D. program in special education are due Dec. 1.
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Educating Educators to Help Children With High-Intensity Special Needs
Editor’s Note: This piece originally was published on UConn Today.
Infants and young children who have high-intensity learning needs like autism or intellectual disabilities do not always learn in the same ways as children without such challenges. Specialized curricular programs designed for children with high-intensity needs help them reach developmental, behavioral, and functional outcomes, reach their maximum potential, and work independently later in life.
Director of the UConn A.J. Pappanikou Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service (UConn UCEDD), Mary Beth Bruder has received a $6.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop a doctoral leadership program to train 28 future faculty. These trainees will then design and teach courses and programs of study designed to prepare teachers, social workers, and therapists to provide specialized interventions to infants and young children with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.
Bruder’s project will train a group of doctoral students across nine universities for future careers as researchers in this specialty area of early intervention, early childhood special education, and related services such as occupational therapy, social work or speech, language and pathology. After meeting the doctoral program requirements, the students will obtain their degrees through the program and discipline in which they are enrolled. In addition to UConn, the universities participating in the consortia include: The Universities of Cincinnati, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Illinois, North Carolina, Washington, and Vanderbilt University.
In addition to their formal program of study at their respective institutions, the students will have the opportunity to engage in advanced research and education specific to early childhood intervention for infants and young children with significant intellectual and developmental disabilities. The doctoral students will also participate in various leadership activities to help them acquire competencies they will need as faculty. These include designing courses and teaching assignments, participating in the design and evaluation of policy and legislation, and implementing research studies. Both faculty and students will collaborate and work across all the consortia universities to form a network of experts who can be resources to other faculty, doctoral students, early childhood interventionists and families of infants and young children with high-intensity learning needs.
“The focus on early childhood in our country today provides a wonderful opportunity to create a workforce for future generations of infants and young children who have disabilities, so they may reach their optimum potential through inclusive preschool, school and post school learning opportunities. The UConn UCEDD is privileged to help make this happen.”
— Professor Mary Beth Bruder
The consortia will also create a website to distribute and share curricular materials, tools, and resources to help the doctoral students in this program, and other doctoral students and faculty in higher education programs across the country.
“The focus on early childhood in our country today provides a wonderful opportunity to create a workforce for future generations of infants and young children who have disabilities, so they may reach their optimum potential through inclusive preschool, school and post school learning opportunities. The UConn UCEDD is privileged to help make this happen,” says Bruder.
To expand the impact of the consortia, it will partner with other Office of Special Education programs such as the Early Childhood Personnel Center, which is also directed by Bruder. This center oversees a $10-million project that helps states expand and improve the early childhood intervention workforce. Other partners include the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and Division for Early Childhood, Council for Exceptional Children.
“We are committed to training the next generation of special education researchers and university faculty, and participating in these two national leadership consortia will allow us to recruit and support the very best doctoral scholars in the nation to come and study at the UConn Neag School of Education,” says Michael Coyne, professor of educational psychology and a co-investigator on the project. In addition to Coyne, other investigators at UConn include Bernard Grela at from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Cristina Wilson at from the School of Social Work.
Bruder earned her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in developmental disabilities in early childhood. Since 1976, Bruder has been involved in early childhood intervention research, and the design, provision and evaluation of early childhood intervention services across the country. At present, Bruder directs numerous federally funded pre-service, in-service, demonstration, and research projects. She is a professor of Public Health Science and Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and is the editor of the journal Infants and Young Children.
This project is award H325H190004.
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CSCH Co-Hosts Second Symposium on Trauma-Informed School Mental Health
Approximately 70 school, behavioral health, community, and research leaders from across the state gathered at the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019, to discuss school and community responses to childhood trauma and how to align work around trauma-informed schools in Connecticut.
The event, “Symposium on Trauma–Informed School Mental Health 2.0,” was the result of collaboration between the University of Connecticut Collaboratory on School and Child Health, the Ana Grace Project, Capitol Region Education Council, the Child Health Development Institute, Clifford Beers Clinic, the state Department of Children and Families, the state Department of Education, and the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education. The symposium’s main goal was to continue conversations about broadening and aligning work around trauma-informed schools in Connecticut, moving forward the work of the Connecticut Trauma-Informed School Mental Health Task Force, a group that was formed after the original symposium in May 2017.
“In Connecticut, we have a lot to be proud of. But there is still a lot of work to do. We can’t rest on our laurels. When we talk about trauma–informed care, let’s make sure we’re talking about all kids.”
— Michael Williams, DCF Deputy Commissioner
Opening remarks were provided by Nelba Marquez-Greene of the Ana Grace Project, who charged participants with the question: “Who will you give a voice to, and how will you do this with integrity?” Jeana Bracey from the Child Health and Development Institute and Tim Marshall of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, members of the Task Force steering committee, then hosted a kick-off discussion and DCF Deputy Commissioner Michael Williams offered comments to encourage forward movement. “In Connecticut, we have a lot to be proud of,” he began. “But there is still a lot of work to do. We can’t rest on our laurels. When we talk about trauma–informed care, let’s make sure we’re talking about all kids.”
Attendees broke into facilitated discussion groups to focus on prevention through screening/early identification; enhancing services to meet intensive needs; aligning policies and practices to facilitate sustainability; and building collaborations across public-private partnerships. Group facilitators were charged with establishing questions to discuss challenges, opportunities, and actions relevant to the topic area. John Frassinelli, Bureau Chief of the Health, Nutrition, & Family Services Bureau at the Connecticut State Department of Education, shared that sustainability requires thinking about strategies rather than programs, and that school leaders must ask “what is the problem that this is trying to solve?” when considering something new.
The groups later reconvened to summarize the big ideas. Participants put forward ideas such as embracing focus on core values (e.g. healthy relationships) over specific programs, the creation of a road map and state consensus on mental health screening in schools, a state-level shift on how to define child success that is consistent across districts, the importance of supporting social-emotional needs of staff, and the importance of engaging families and the community in addressing childhood trauma.
Jeana Bracey, Associate Vice President for School and Community Initiatives at the Child Health and Development Institute, and Sandra Chafouleas, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Neag School and Co-Director of the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health, are co-chairs of the Connecticut Trauma-Informed School Mental Health Task Force. They reflected on the energy of participants from across sectors who were excited to come together to tackle issues around supporting schools in sustained implementation of trauma-informed policies and practices that meet diverse needs. “The first symposium in 2017 focused on increasing awareness of childhood trauma and started to talk about how to address it as a state,” said Bracey, “Last time, we focused on talking about it, on thinking about it. This time we are focused on getting it done.” Chafouleas echoed the energy around action, noting participant “commitment to whole child well-being and agreement around healthy relationships are a critical foundation.”
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