TPSID National Coordinating Center 2015-2020

MA-Institute for Community Inclusion/Boston Children's Hospital, UCEDD/LEND
Program Type	UCEDD	Fiscal Year	2020
Contact	Meg Grigal
Email	[email protected]
Phone	617-287-4300
Project Description
Think College at the Institute for Community Inclusion, UMass Boston, has received a five-year, 10 million dollar cooperative agreement from by the Office of Postsecondary Education to serve as the National Coordinating Center for colleges and universities implementing inclusive higher education programs for students with intellectual disability, including the newly funded model demonstration projects aimed at creating inclusive comprehensive transition and postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities known as Transition Postsecondary Programs for Students with Disabilities (TPSIDs). Think College has served as the NCC since 2010 and has worked with the existing 27 TPSID model demonstration projects being implemented at 52 colleges and universities in 23 states. Building on this experience, this initiative will allow the NCC to continue its work with the 25 newly funded model demonstration projects to: a) Build a valid and reliable knowledge base around effective inclusive higher education components for students with intellectual disability; b) Provide technical assistance and disseminate findings to existing and new programs; and c) Lead and coordinate national activities related to comprehensive transition and postsecondary programs. The NCC will update existing program standards, and evaluate and update the current research and evaluation protocol for TPSID programs and use it to collect, analyze, synthesize and report annual and longitudinal follow-up quantitative and qualitative data on TPSID program components and outcomes. The NCC will also develop recommendations on funding, memoranda of understanding, credentials, and accreditation and share these via its website and all relevant events. As part of its technical assistance and dissemination activities the NCC will create and implement a tiered technical assistance strategy, administer a mentoring program matching current and new TPSID grantees based on areas of expertise. The NCC will increase knowledge across all target audiences about the programmatic components and evidence-based practices needed to develop, implement, and evaluate high quality inclusive higher education, that award meaningful credentials and support access to financial aid for students with ID. Finally, the NCC will enhance the collection and analyses of longitudinal follow up data from TPSIDs model programs and establish accessible communication channels including an updated website, universally accessible topic based portal and associated Affinity groups, web meetings and discussion boards. These activities will ultimately support achievement of the NCCs long term goals of improved outcomes for students with ID in higher education resulting in increased competitive integrated employment, valued community membership, and independent living skills as well as increased systems change resulting in development and expansion of quality inclusive higher education options for students with intellectual disability.