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Building Capacity to Better Serve Students with Emotional Disturbances: A Collaborative Approach

Improving the Preparation of Personnel to Serve Children with High-Incidence Disabilities (CFDA 84.325H): Abstract

Public schools face a mounting challenge in addressing the behavioral, social, and academic needs of students with emotional disturbances (ED), particularly given the serious shortage of qualified teachers in the public school system to serve students with ED. While the behavioral and social deficits of these youngsters have been well-documented over the past 25 years, relatively little attention has been devoted to academic issues for students with ED (Lane & Wehby, 2002; Wehby, Lane, & Falk, 2003) - until recently. In addition, not only have teachers of students with ED lacked a comprehensive training program to meet all the needs of students with ED, they have also lacked training in positive behavior support efforts at the systems level. With the reauthorization of IDEA in 1997, positive behavior support (PBS) has become a required support that schools must address (Gresham et al., 1998; Walker & Severson, 2002). Further, many school districts are just beginning to implement PBS programs with limited knowledge about how to effectively and efficiently design, implement, and evaluate them.

The master's program Building Capacity to Better Serve Students with Emotional Disturbances: A Collaborative Approach is designed to accomplish three goals: (a) to address the shortage of teachers prepared to work with students with ED, (b) to prepare teachers to address the academic, social, and behavioral needs of students with ED, and (c) to prepare teachers to work collaboratively with general education teachers and PBS team members to identify and meet the needs of students with ED and those at-risk for ED within the context of the positive behavior support model. Further, Project Building Capacity will contribute to the expansion and dissemination of knowledge and expertise in the areas of (a) academic development for children with ED and (b) positive behavior support for all students, including those at-risk for ED. These goals will be accomplished by combining the unique strengths of Vanderbilt University and Williamson County Schools (WCS).

In response to the shortage of trained personnel to work with this population, this application requests permission for financial support to train a total of 24 masters students (19 full-time, 5 part-time) during a 4 year period. This master's program, Project Building Capacity, consists of course work tied to actual application in inclusive public school classrooms, intensive summer workshops in academic interventions, and participation in a year-long positive behavior support planning process.

For information about the application process, please contact Jennifer Hinton. For information about the content of Project Building Capacity, please contact Kathleen Lane, Ph.D.