A key feature of the Iowa LEND program is the Parents as Mentors (PAM) experience, which matches each trainee with a family who has a child with special needs. In the PAM program, parents become the teachers and provide insight into family life and perspectives as they spend time with the trainees in their homes and communities.

Message from the Division of Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development:

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Division of MCH Workforce Development is proud to announce an update to the Maternal and Child Health Leadership Competencies! The MCH Leadership Competencies help equip the MCH workforce with the knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, and values to improve the health of MCH populations.

The AIR-P LEND Seminar Series explains the six AIR-P Research Nodes, current gaps in research, and aims to streamline the research to practice pipeline within that node’s research area. This resource will guide LEND programs in incorporating this content into future curricula so that LEND trainees may gain relevant and significant knowledge related to improving the physical health and quality of life for autistic individuals.

LEND-related vocabulary for AAC users

This webinar celebrated the end of the academic year and shared professional development tips with outgoing and continuing trainees in the Emerging Leaders Community, including advice on staying engaged with the AUCD network.

This presentation introduced the LEND Audiology Fellows to the Fostering Joy movement, which aims to promote positive engagement between families and their deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children, and to bolster professionals' ability to emphasize joy in the work that they do with children who are DHH.

When a child who is deaf or hard of hearing also presents as autistic, what can audiologists do to promote appropriate care? 

AUCD, our members, and partners have used the month of April as an opportunity to share information relating to Autism Spectrum (AS). This month has traditionally been framed as Autism Awareness Month. AUCD shifted its language from "Awareness" to "Acceptance" in 2019.

This workshop helped trainees learn how to educate policymakers in DC and at home. It also taught trainees how to connect their experience and expertise to policy.

This presentation will discuss clinical and research approaches for developmentally anchored social skills supports across the lifespan.

This webinar will offer interested potential applicants an opportunity to interact with the AUCD Leadership Academy faculty. The webinar will feature a brief overview of the 2023 Academy curriculum and timeline.

The Prepared4ALL training aims to mobilize disability organizations and their networks to foster connections with emergency and public health professionals to build trust, create sustainable relationships, and get a seat at the emergency planning table. 

The RITA-T is a Level 2 screening test: it is to be administered on young children identified as at risk for ASD or who scored positive on a Level 1 screening test or providers are worried about.

We conduct quarterly solution focused learning (SFL) sessions, which are an application of problem-based learning, with a local family with a child or teen with a disability. Through these class sessions, trainees research most of the content areas required or recommended by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. 

The Utah Regional LEND, or URLEND, covers five states including Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota. The URLEND learning approach includes a year-long series of didactic seminars, a collaborative leadership project assignment, and a broad array of clinical services.

As part of the Collaborative Quality Improvement Planning in LEND and DBP Programs*, project trainees and faculty completed StrengthsFinder as part of a year-long leadership development exercise. Dominant talents were identified, and the potential to develop strengths was discussed individually and as a LEND cohort, working together on varied teams during the year. 

"Words have power. Self-advocates with intellectual disabilities have clearly stated that negative language leads to harmful action, discrimination, abuse, negative stereotypes, disenfranchisement, and violence...words and labels can cause others to think that people with intellectual disabilities are not able to achieve the things that others can achieve."

Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) training programs must include individuals with disabilities as Self-Advocate trainees as a distinct discipline alongside graduate students, family members, and community trainees. Self-Advocates offer an invaluable perspective in the scope of the training: the lived experience of disability.

The LEND Self-Advocacy Discipline Competencies is a product of the LEND Self-Advocacy Discipline Network (LSDN), formerly known as the Purposeful Inclusion of People with Disabilities (PWD) Workgroup. Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) training programs must include individuals with disabilities as Self-Advocate trainees as a distinct discipline alongside graduate students, family members, and community trainees. Self-Advocates offer an invaluable perspective in the scope of the training: the lived experience of disability.

The PacWest LEND Regional Consortium created a series of learning modules on cultural crossroads in disabilities. Each learning module has an accessible PDF, video description, and discussion questions/reflections with facilitator talking points. 

Every Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program is unique and offers different academic, clinical, leadership, and community opportunities. This also includes different approaches to family-professional partnerships and training on family-centered care.  

Join us for an interactive discussion exploring alumni trainee engagement strategies. The panel will feature former trainees currently serving as LEND program faculty/staff.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in autistic people. Autistic people have significantly higher rates of suicidal thoughts, suicidal behaviors, and deaths by suicide than the general public.

In some states and at the federal level, multiple laws offer significant benefits to individuals with autism seeking insurance coverage for evidence-based care.

This workshop will introduce LEND pediatric audiology trainees to the various challenges of effectively serving children with hearing loss (including those with additional disabilities) and their families.

AUCD's Interdisciplinary Technical Assistance Center (ITAC) on Autism and Developmental Disabilities, in partnership with The Center for Leadership in Disability at Georgia State University, is hosting a series of virtual trainings for LEND Programs in October 2021 related to self-advocacy. 

The LEND Family Discipline Network (LFDN), in partnership with the Interdisciplinary Technical Assistance Center on Autism and Developmental Disabilities (ITAC), is sponsoring a four-part webinar series during the month of May. Topics are based on the LFDN's 2019 white paper, "Fabric not Fringe: Weaving Family Involvement throughout Training and Practice for Professionals and Advocates Working with Individuals with Disabilities and Special Health Care Needs."

This activity will facilitate learning about identity politics and DisCrit, which is a dual analysis of race and ability: Dis/ability Critical Race Studies, also known as DisCrit. This analysis will let students explore connections between interdependent constructions of race and dis/ability in education and within society. 

This course is for medical and genetics professionals and students to better understand the outcomes for people with Down syndrome and other genetic conditions impacted by improved access to support and services over the past 50 years. 

AUCD's Diversity & Inclusion Toolkit provides concrete objectives, strategies, and resources to help you realize your diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural and linguistic competence goals. Strategies and resources are aligned with the roles of three specific audiences: federal agencies, national organizations, and university-based centers and programs. Many others may benefit as well.

Although the form asks whether or not the trainee related to the family as a peer, there is actually limited opportunity for that to occur during the course of the busy clinic. This challenge, then, is helping me, as the training coordinator, to think of ways to work with the clinic so that develops. Just having the information from the trainee in this format allows us to continue the conversation about improving family-centered care.

During the first week of the academic year, all trainees complete a self-assessment of their level of competence with the MCHB Interdisciplinary Leadership Core Competencies to evaluate their baseline knowledge.. 

The following group of PPT slides has been collected to serve as a resource for MCHB-funded training programs when training trainees about life course. These slides maybe used in any order to support a better understanding of the life course perspective.

The Social Determinants of Health

The social determinants of health are those factors which are outside of the individual; they are beyond genetic endowment and beyond individual behaviors. They are the context in which individual behaviors arise and in which individual behaviors convey risk. The social determinants of health include individual resources, neighborhood (place-based) or community (group-based) resources, hazards and toxic exposures, and opportunity structures.

The Life Course Model as an Organizational Framework

Life Course (vs. Life Cycle and Life Span) Risk and Protective Factors Pathways and Trajectories Early Programming Cumulative Impact Critical or Sensitive Periods

PKU: A Life Course Development Perspective and Obesity and Child Health

In this assignment, trainees share out loud the assignment they prepared in advance of class (see below). The purpose of the activity is to highlight how the use of discipline-specific jargon and acronyms can interfere with communication on an interdisciplinary team. 

The purpose of the LEND Community Agency Project is for trainees to gain knowledge of programs that serve persons with disabilities and their families and gain experience in interviewing and evaluating services.

UW LEND All Reads Online Book Club for Families as Mentors

We have had a strong Families as Mentors program that consistently reached 25-40% of our trainees. Seeking to impact more trainees, we piloted this on-line book club as a required activity for our 2019-2020 cohort.

The purpose of this document is to outline the training experiences for interdisciplinary trainees at various levels of intensity and specific focus on our goal of increasing the ability of interdisciplinary professionals to rule out and/or diagnose ASD.

The PAYCheck program is an innovative collaboration between LSUHSC-Human Development Center (HDC), Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, Delgado Community College, public school systems, public Charter school associations, and the University Medical Center-New Orleans.

The Wisconsin LEND: Milwaukee Link program is a satellite program of the Madison-based LEND program that is offered at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. As an extension of the Wisconsin LEND program, Milwaukee Link trainees have the opportunity to engage in leadership training focused on enhancing service delivery for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities with ethnic and/or economic diversity. Research experiences are an integral part of a trainee's leadership development.

As part of a medical school course, Foundations of Clinical Medicine 1 at New York Medical College, students attend a half-day activity focused on family and person-centered care. They first receive a didactic session on the topic and then attend small group breakouts each facilitated by a "family team" who share their journey and perspective on family-centered care. 

For future workshops, the planning group will consider having panelists be a part of small group discussions. This would allow trainees to dive deeper into specific topics and increase the likelihood that these discussions will continue beyond the workshop (since everyone will be attending the EHDI Meeting in subsequent days).

The purpose of the activity is to have Trainees familiarize themselves with the navigational challenges of statutorily funded programs and agencies that serve children with special health care needs. 

The modules are designed to build knowledge about the adult phase of the life course continuum of health and health care for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities (ID). 

Over the last 15 years, trainees have participated in all aspects of the clinical research development process for the Facing Your Fears (FYF) treatment protocol. FYF is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-based program aimed toward youth with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders who need assistance managing anxiety symptoms that interfere with daily life. 

While the transition to adulthood is extremely stressful for families of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there are few evidence-based interventions available for families. The Transitioning Together (TT) and Working Together (WT) programs aim to fill that gap and provide families with high-quality interventions that can assist in educating and supporting families throughout this transition.

All trainees in the New Hampshire-Maine LEND program complete a Leadership and Policy Experience during the Spring semester. 

The website ("Families, Disability and Culture: A Guide to Developing Training Curriculum on Families, Disability, and Culture for Trainees and MCH Professionals") is designed to help scale-up family-centered / family-directed practices and cultural competency at the individual and organizational level. 

This activity was designed to teach LEND audiology trainees about policy needs and influences at both the state and national level. Its purpose was to develop an understanding of how policy influences practice in the area of newborn hearing screening and how policies are developed or altered.

This workshop aimed to introduce LEND audiology trainees to the various challenges associated with assessing, monitoring, and effectively serving children with hearing loss and additional disabilities in an interdisciplinary context.

This set of interactive learning activities asks trainees to explore the concept of leadership. They are asked to self-reflect, read literature, engage in conversations with colleagues, watch a short video, and create a visual representation of themselves as leaders.

The Boston LEND Program provides a family mentorship experience to all of our Fellows through a program we call "Linking Hands."  This program helps raise awareness among Fellows about the impact that caring for a child with special health care needs has on families.  

In children with developmental disabilities, especially autism spectrum disorders, a visit to an interdisciplinary clinic for evaluation or treatment can cause anxiety. Two Iowa LEND trainees have developed social narratives for each discipline in our clinic. 

To orient trainees to the world of disabilities and the "alphabet soup" of lingo, trainees are encouraged to visit the AUCD Disability Acronym Dictionary and become familiar with the entries. This page may be useful for trainees to continue referring to throughout the year as they explore new topics, learn about other disciplines, read articles, and write grants.

Using the Life Course Game created by CityMatCH and Contra Costa Health Services is an excellent way to encourage students to think about the impact of health disparities that begin in childhood but last a lifetime. The UNM Pediatric Pulmonary Center Training Faculty asked students to develop game components (biographies, red and green cards) that reflect the unique issues of living in a rural state and at altitude for children with pulmonary conditions. 

This set of interactive learning activities introduces new LEND trainees to the MCHB Leadership Competencies.

In order to work effectively with and on behalf of children and adults with disabilities and family members, leaders must develop skills for (and a commitment to) being attuned to the viewpoint, rights, and perspectives of people with disabilities and their families. This assignment is one of several LEND experiences designed to help trainees accomplish this goal.

Developmental Networks are a framework for career development and mentoring defined and valued by academic business leaders David Thomas, Kathy Kram, Monica Higgins, and others. This Developmental Network Mapping Exercise can be used by faculty and trainees to analyze their current networks' strengths and limitations and promote career development. 

The Tohono O'odham Nation covers 4,454 square miles in Southern Arizona.  It is the second largest reservation in Arizona and the third largest in the United States.  The nation is made up of 11 districts and claims 28,000 tribal members. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and its National Center for Medical Home Implementation (NCMHI) have hosted a free, four-part webinar series on effectively delivering care through the medical home model. 

This workshop provides an overview of public policy and advocacy.  

Most health care, especially pediatrics, is team-based; therefore, teamwork is an essential skill for the trainees to learn. Trainees are expected to work together. There is a didactic education on "crucial conversations" at the beginning of the spring semester. 

In the spring term, trainees attend a weekly two-hour interdisciplinary leadership seminar. The primary focus of this seminar is on the MCH Leadership Competencies of (1) Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, (2) Ethics and Professionalism, (3) Policy & Advocacy, and (4) Working with Communities & Systems.

In May of 2013, a Combating Autism Act Initiative (CAAI) meeting was held in Washington, DC. CAAI attendees representing LEND, DBP, Research, and State grantee programs participated in several small group discussions centered around the meeting themes of quality improvement efforts in our states, programs, and research, improving access, and integrating our efforts. The cases discussed were at the "big picture" public health/policy level.

The focus of the LEND program is to increase the trainees' awareness of Title V activities at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. 

In spring 2012, faculty brainstormed about making our curriculum for first-year fellows more interactive and interdisciplinary. We decided upon using the case-based learning (CBL) approach and structured six cases, each taught over a one-month (4-5 week) time period, with weekly seminars (1-2 hours long), starting in October and ending in May. 

Mentorship has been positively associated with career development and productivity. To meet current challenges, new models of mentorship have transitioned from the reliance on the dyadic (single mentor-mentee pair) and hierarchical (mentor is senior to mentee) framework to Developmental Networks. 

The LEND Program at WIHD has incorporated Life Course Theory / Social Determinants of Health elements into its Family Mentorship home-visiting experience, the Family-focused Disability Organization Interview, and the Family Partnerships Curriculum Module. The goal is to help trainees develop a deeper understanding of the family as the environment in which children grow and develop and to provide trainees an opportunity to listen to and reflect upon what families share about support systems and how cultural and social issues impact the acceptance and inclusion of children with disabilities in family and community life. 

Trainees/Fellows in the UW LEND Program at the University of Washington, Center on Human Development and Disability, participated in a fall workshop on advocacy and policy development.  

One of the most important aspects of life with disabilities is a family's ability to reach out and create a network of support from the resources in the community.  

The Advocacy Organization Interview is useful for trainees to learn more about how family-focused advocacy organizations help families of children, youth, and adults with developmental disabilities and other special health care needs. 

The Colorado LEND Family Discipline program was introduced in 2009 to provide comprehensive training on the most important aspects of the family experience. In the Family Mentoring program, principles of family-centered care and professional recommendations are tested, as trainees and fellows acquire a real-world taste of parenting a child with a disability.

This paper aims to describe strategies for revising LEND curricula to incorporate a stronger focus on life course theory and social determinants of health (LCT/SDOH).

At the 2014 EHDI Annual Meeting (Jacksonville, Fla.), LEND audiology trainees from multiple programs participated in a problem-based workshop that focused on the intersection of Autism Spectrum Disorder and hearing loss.  

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an evidenced-based, family-oriented behavioral therapy for children aged 2-6 years with primary or secondary disruptive behavior problems. In contrast to traditional parent training approaches, caregivers in PCIT interact with their children in one room while the therapist observes from behind a one-way mirror and uses a Bluetooth-type device to coach parents using specific skills with their children.

A one-hour interdisciplinary leadership seminar is held weekly to address specific MCH, special education, leadership, NDD/CSHCN issues, cultural competency, and advocacy. 

The MCH Library houses a collection of historical documents and reports on maternal and child health in the United States and health services for children and families.

A particular focus is programs of the federal government, including activities of the Children's Bureau and Maternal and Child Health (MCH) services under Title V of the Social Security Act.

We have several clinics with model transition clinics and multidisciplinary teams. The cystic fibrosis pediatric and adult clinics meet twice a month for a joint meeting to discuss clients ready to transition to the adult clinic. 

The Pilot AUCD Visiting Scholar Protocol (VSP) is a guide for trainees who may be interested in engaging in a short- or long-term visit to AUCD member centers and programs, University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs) or Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Programs (LENDs) outside of their home center or program.

This assignment is designed to provide trainees with a more in-depth experience in examining the policy process, current issues, and specific pieces of legislation that affect the lives of individuals with developmental and related disabilities.

Rationale for Policy/Advocacy Session: To provide trainees with a more in-depth experience in examining the policy process, current issues, and specific pieces of legislation that affect the lives of individuals with developmental and related disabilities. 

Rationale for Policy/Advocacy Session

To provide trainees with a more in-depth experience in examining the policy process, current issues, and specific pieces of legislation that affect the lives of individuals with developmental and related disabilities. 

This is a 15-week course offered through the Boston LEND program and other area universities. The course focuses on interdisciplinary teamwork within the field of developmental disabilities to assist children and their families. 

The AUCD Trainee Handbook is intended to be used to support AUCD network trainees with a variety of learning goals. This document will provide a consistent approach to accessing information about the network, its history, our federal partners, and the rich resources available to trainees. This handbook is considered a supplement to Trainee Handbooks provided at local programs.

Training Directors are encouraged to:

1. Have trainees read the Trainee Handbook
2. Have trainees complete the accompanying quiz and reflection questions
3. Have trainees discuss the quiz and reflection questions one-on-one with their faculty mentor, training director, or in a large group with faculty and fellow trainees.

Trainees come to Cincinnati LEND with a wide range of policy and advocacy experience, exposure, and interest. The policy and advocacy curriculum is designed to provide all trainees with an understanding of the legislative process and the policy issues impacting people with disabilities, including the training and support to actively educate policymakers. 

The ultimate goal of a medical home is to ensure better care coordination through interdisciplinary team participation. It is essential for LEND trainees to understand the core tenets of medical home and how they can apply it to their respective fields to ensure high-quality work as part of a team.

Familiarity with evaluations carried out by multiple disciplines supports communication between disciplines and interdisciplinary team building. Active observation of experienced clinicians allows beginning professionals to learn strategies for family-centered practice and skilled communication. 

ETLP is designed to help select individuals reach their potential as individual leaders who transform systems of care for people with developmental disabilities. 

Many trainees tend to be focused on clinical aspects when first starting out on their IAP. They don't have the background knowledge and/or exposure to systems-level change. To help broaden trainees' perspective, Mailman Center has hired a public health instructor to show trainees different frameworks and ways to create a systems level change. They have implemented an advocacy module and guide that provides background.

This article describes the landmark contributions made to the field of Maternal and Child Health by Julia Lathrop, Director of the Children's Bureau in 1912. Trainees may be assigned to read this article as they begin to understand the history and legacy of the MCH Bureau as well as the field of MCH.

Many LEND programs include a Family Mentorship component in which trainees are paired with families of children with disabilities or teen self-advocates and join them in everyday activities.  This document describes several versions of the mentorship pairing, requirements of different programs/trainees/families, and things to consider when creating or redesigning a family mentorship component of the LEND experience.

Excerpt:

Family members have varied educational backgrounds and different life experiences. Requirements for LEND trainees vary by program. A common feature of all LENDs however is that the trainees are university students, typically at the graduate or undergraduate level. Some portions of the LEND curriculum are individualized to support the individual differences in trainees. Family members recruited to be LEND trainees may have little or no university experience. How the lack of university experience influences the level of supports needed by different types of family trainees should be explored by each LEND and program adaptations identified to accommodate the specific needs of family trainees. In order to incorporate the richness of these family backgrounds and standardize the learning experiences of LEND trainees across the network, a standard set of competencies and curriculum guidelines has been developed specific to Family as a discipline, to be taught together with those core competencies common to all LEND trainees.

Past research has shown that many medical and dental students do not learn about IDD in school. The WITH Foundation, AUCD, and UC-LEND, led by Dr. Kashia Rosenau, collaborated to learn more about how medical and dental schools are teaching students about intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The study found that most of the schools had self-advocates to help them teach their medical and dental students about caring for patients with IDD. The study also found that medical and dental students want to learn more about caring for their patients with disabilities. Overall, the study highlights the importance of teaching medical and dental students about caring for patients with IDD and including more self-advocates in this training.

The LEND program at the Westchester Institute for Human Development and the University of Cincinnati developed an introductory assignment and session on Life Course Theory and Social Determinants of Health (LCT-SDOH) that is offered via web conference jointly to the trainees in both programs.  A self-learning assignment on LCT-SDOH (basics and discussion board assignment) start things off.  This is followed by an in-class session (see PowerPoint) that includes small group breakout discussions about the impact of social stressors and difficult life circumstances on children and families. 

The LEND program at the Mailman Center for Child Development encourages innovation through individual and group advocacy projects. 

The resources found on this webpage are intended to introduce and reinforce the life course perspective. They have been designed and organized by an interdisciplinary workgroup of leadership training programs. The target audiences for these resources include students, trainees, and faculty of training programs funded through the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB).

AUCD Legislative News, InBrief, is a weekly newsletter highlighting federal legislative activities related to disability issues, including legislation moving through Congress, initiatives in the President's Administration, and policymaking activities in the AUCD network and the disability community.

In addition to providing an overall theoretical and historical background, this book addresses disability across the life course by delineating various age phases from prenatal periods to death. Cross-cutting issues highlighted are family; health; policy, legislation, and service; and self-determination and participation.

Trainees participate in a two-hour Leadership Seminar on Appalachian Culture that is offered once a year as part of a monthly series on various leadership topics.  During the seminar, a film is shown about Appalachia, usually, the one called The Dancing Outlaw, which then generates a rich discussion about Appalachian stereotypes.  Trainees participate in the post-movie discussion.