Project Description:
The Inclusion Facilitator Concentration at the University of New Hampshire is part of the Department of Education's Special Education Teacher Education Program. After three years of start-up funding from USDOE, OSEP, UNH assumed funding for the program. A new request for federal funding of the program - with the majority of funds going to support tuition waivers and stipends for students - was submitted in February 2003. Text of the abstract follows.
Data from New Hampshire’s most current CSPD report indicate that there is a need for 43 additional teachers of students with low-incidence developmental disabilities (including mental retardation, autism, deaf-blindness, multiple disabilities, and traumatic brain injury). This proposal requests funds to prepare 21 individuals to become Inclusion Facilitators through the “Inclusion Facilitator Teacher Education Concentrationâ€, who will then be eligible for New Hampshire’s low-incidence special education teacher certification endorsement. These teachers will support students with low-incidence disabilities to: 1) become fully participating members of inclusive general education classrooms, 2) acquire knowledge and skills from the general education curriculum as well as their individualized IEP’s, 3) develop their communication abilities and fulfilling social relationships, 4) and strive towards self-determination. This proposal responds to OSEP’s request for “projects that foster successful coordination between special and regular education professional development programs to meet the needs of children with low-incidence disabilities in inclusive settings.â€
The project will be co-coordinated by the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability/UCEDD and the University’s Department of Education with strong support from New Hampshire’s State Education Agency. From 1998-2001, the University of New Hampshire administered an OSEP Personnel Preparation project that established the Inclusion Facilitator Teacher Preparation Concentration as an advanced certification endorsement recognized by the State of New Hampshire. Of the 22 trainees who enrolled in the Concentration, 18 are now working in the field teaching students with low-incidence disabilities, 1 is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in special education at Syracuse University, 1 is working for Measured Progress (a firm that supports states’ IDEA-required large-scale alternate assessments), and 2 are on maternity leave from teaching.
Innovative coursework for this program includes: Contemporary Issues in Developmental Disabilities; Inclusive Assessment, Curriculum, and Instruction; Seminar in Augmentative Communication; Positive Behavior Supports; Facilitating Social Relationships; Teaching Reading to Students with Disabilities; and Advocacy, Leadership, and Systems Change.
Funds are needed to support student tuition waivers and stipends, and support is needed to provide overall coordination of the Concentration with other graduate and undergraduate programs at the University (such as M.Ed. programs in general and special education, and degree programs such as Psychology, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Occupational Therapy, and Nursing), and with professional development efforts by LEA’s.
This project will actively recruit individuals with disabilities to enroll in the training
program and will hire three individuals with disabilities to co-teach courses in the program.
