Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities (MD UCEDD) Develops Curriculum for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities in the Emergency Department: Strategies for Successful Care
March 30, 2010
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The Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities at the Kennedy Krieger Institute received a National Community Benefit Grant from Kaiser Permanente to develop a training curriculum for emergency department (ED) staff on how to work with patients with intellectual disabilities. The project evolved across several phases: creation of an expert workgroup to develop relevant topic areas, surveying parents and professionals via Internet listservs to solicit input on both successful and negative encounters in the (ED), soliciting state-of-the-art information from experts in pediatric psychology, and synthesis of all of the above material into a written training manual with corresponding slides for presentations. The Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities (MCDD) at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore currently sponsors the presentation of this training curriculum to hospitals and medical facilities across the state Maryland. The full three-hour training has been presented in two hospitals, one in northern MD and one on the Eastern Shore. Some attendees of these sessions requested individualized trainings for their agencies; consequently, a one-hour training on communication and interaction with patients with developmental disabilities was developed and presented at the annual MD Emergency Nurses Association Conference and the Children's National Medical Center.
In addition, the one-hour training will be presented on April 28, 2010 at the Disability and Clinical Ethics Conference in Baltimore, which is co-sponsored by the MCDD and Maryland Health Care Ethics Committee Network The training curriculum was authored by Theodosia Paclawskyj, Ph.D., BCBA with contributions from Keith Slifer, Ph,D., Adrianna Amari, Ph.D., and Melissa Beck, Ph.D. For more information about the training curriculum for emergency department staff, please contact the MCDD at (443) 923-9555.
About the Center:
The Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities is one of a national network of University Centers for Excellence (UCEDD) federally funded by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities. They are committed to helping people with developmental disabilities maximize their potential and enjoy success in community life.
