Pursuing work in the community during a global pandemic most certainly can pose unique challenges; however, this did not stop trainees in Cincinnati, Ohio from promoting positive change in their local homeless community. Trainees Sue Ram (occupational therapy), Emily Witt (social work), Julius Freeman (psychology), and Nora Lascell (speech-language pathology) are a part of the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) training program in collaboration with Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) and the University of Cincinnati Center for Excellence (UCEDD).

April is widely recognized as Autism Acceptance Month. AUCD, our members, and partners have used this as an opportunity to share information relating to Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

AUCD is excited to announce that recruitment is now open for the 2021 AUCD Emerging Leaders Map! This year's theme is "Promoting Health Equity: Identifying Access Barriers and Protecting Rights to Services for People with Disabilities."

Striving to train the next generation of child and maternal healthcare leaders is more than a slogan for Va-LEND (Virginia Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities). It is an ideal, which includes innovative ways to make training more effective. One such example is the collaboration between another LEND program.

Emily Costello, a UCEDD Trainee from the Munroe-Meyer Institute in Omaha, NE outlines elements of best practice for care coordination, based on a review of recent literature, and compares national standards to that of Nebraska.

Emily Costello, a UCEDD Trainee from the Munroe-Meyer Institute in Omaha, NE outlines elements of best practice for care coordination, based on a review of recent literature, and compares national standards to that of Nebraska.

Alice Kraiza (MN LEND Fellow, 2017-18) is a project coordinator for the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut, Inc., where she is helping bring evidence-based children's mental health treatments to schools to improve the quality of care for students who are recovering from trauma

AUCD has made available 25 scholarships of up to $225 each to support LEND audiology trainees in attending the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Virtual Conference on March 2-5, 2021. All current LEND audiology trainees, including those in their externship year, are eligible to apply. However, priority will be given to trainees from programs that do not currently receive supplemental funding and trainees that have not attended the EHDI Conference in previous years. Application deadline: February 22, 2021.

As a newcomer to America, I always wondered how America could have homeless people? I imagined America as a heaven on earth, where everyone is well off and poverty is seen only in museums. Unfortunately, what I learned, and saw was beyond my expectation and left a scar in my heart. When I first moved to the state of Maine, my eyes caught a white woman who was, and still is, homeless. Throughout each season I encountered this woman pushing her belongings in a buggy. During the winter, I helped her to pull the buggy until I reached my destination, always wondering and asking myself many questions. How could this happen in America?

The Alaska LEND Without Walls is a program that has embraced video teleconferencing as a method to reach faculty and fellows across the geographically vast state. During the current pandemic, the Alaska LEND program utilized a virtual environment for all activities. As part of the annual fall semester "face to face" seminar, interdisciplinary faculty and fellows participate in a mock developmental assessment.