The Vanderbilt Consortium LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities) Training Program prepares graduate-level health professionals in 15 specialties to assume leadership roles to serve children with neurodevelopmental and related disabilities. As the first half of the 2022-23 academic year comes to an end, trainees are now joining interprofessional group project teams under the supervision of LEND faculty.
This year’s long-term LEND trainee cohort is comprised of 31 trainees across two remote learning sites in Nashville and Johnson City. Among these trainees are graduate students and post-graduate professionals representing Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, East Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College, Tennessee State University, and Belmont University, as well as two family advocates and two self-advocates.
Evon Lee, Ph.D.
“We have a wonderful cohort of LEND long-term trainees this year who are now completing the fall semester. They have been actively engaged in developing interprofessional and leadership skills through their participation in the core curriculum, leadership series, group projects, care navigation practicum, and other disability-related activities,” said Vanderbilt Consortium LEND (VCL) director Evon Batey Lee, Ph.D.
In addition to the core LEND curriculum and regular leadership series, long-term trainees are participating in interprofessional group projects to collaborate with other trainees from various professional backgrounds on topics that relate to providing services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families. These group projects are organized and facilitated by LEND faculty to provide guidance and assistance, if needed, as the trainees work together.
Trainees are asked to choose from six group project options, divided between cross-site interactions and groups meeting exclusively in East or Middle Tennessee. Topics range from trauma-informed care training for college-aged peer mentors serving students with intellectual disabilities; interpersonal assessment of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities; and establishing/maintaining a youth advisory council for a Tennessee Title V program for children with special health care needs (CSHCN), among others.
One cross-site group will be working on a collaborative project with a Tanzanian organization for children and youth with intellectual disabilities. This group will be facilitated by Johnson City VCL program coordinator Julie Sears, Ph.D., and ETSU Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology faculty member Brenda Louw, D. Phil.
Building a Caring Community (BCC) is a Tanzanian organization that provides vocational training, therapy, health care, and education to children and youth with intellectual disabilities. Daniel Scherer-Edmunds, an ETSU Special Education master’s degree graduate and former VCL trainee, currently resides in Moshi, Tanzania, working for BCC as an International Fellow. Scherer-Edmunds will serve as the primary community partner.
The goal of the project is to work collaboratively with an international partner to develop a useful resource that results in a final product such as training materials for staff, community resources, or a toolkit for youth with intellectual disabilities. Trainees will strengthen their abilities to work with community partners, assess cultural differences and respect those differences throughout the project implementation, and learn to work interprofessionally with others to meet the needs of youth with disabilities.
Julie Sears, Ph.D.
“Dr. Louw and I wanted to provide an international experience for our trainees to be able to strengthen their cultural competencies and to provide them with an experience where they could work with community members to fulfill a community need,” said Sears. “Working with a former LEND trainee, who is the international fellow for the BCC, and his coworker has provided the trainees with a unique experience to learn about Tanzania’s disability culture, along with the needs of the organization and community. Through these collaborations, the trainees are in the process of developing a toolkit for local business and community members to provide them with information about basic evidence-based practices on how to support young adults who are transitioning to work in the community.”
Another group project, exclusive to East Tennessee trainees, will develop feeding and nutrition programming for children and youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities. The trainees will be creating a new program to be implemented at Jeremiah School, a Johnson City private school for students ages 8-18 with autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities. This group will be led by VCL Nutrition faculty member Michelle Johnson, Ph.D., M.S., R.D., LDN, and VCL Occupational Therapy faculty member, Christy Isbell, Ph.D., OTR/L.
“Jeremiah School focuses not only on education but also on life skills training of their students,” said Isbell. “Trainees will develop an educational program for students and families with a focus on daily living skills in preparation for transition to adulthood.”
“I am excited for our trainees to get to work with and learn from one another in the spring as they continue to share their professional and personal perspectives with their peers and the LEND faculty,” said VCL director Evon Lee.
For more information on the Vanderbilt Consortium LEND training program, click here.
Pictured top of page: LEND trainees with director Evon Batey Lee, Ph.D. Photo courtesy Vanderbilt Consortium LEND.
