Virginia Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

For my project I created an accessibility guide about assistive technology for people with disabilities in Virginia.

The title of my project is: "Promoting Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health in Virginia". This is important to me because I have worked in Early Childhood and Mental Health for over 20 years. I have seen families and children struggle that desperately need this service. Without this service in place, Virginia and we as service providers are doing an incredible disservice to our families. It seems that children are not recognized as needing mental health assistance until age 5 and even then, it is often targeted at the child instead of with the family and caregivers as a unit. We have to do more to help children and families that are struggling and intervene early. In the field of early childhood education, we often focus a lot of early intervention, but we are not doing all that we can to intervene early. With the critical period for brain development occurring between 0-3 or 0-5 (depending on the research), we are missing a significant window of opportunity to build additional social-emotional skills, linking families to needed resources, and prevention opportunities to reduce trauma and even child abuse and neglect because services like IECMHC are not currently available to families in need.

My name is Rachel Burch, and I am a pediatric physical therapist completing the VCU pediatric residency program. During my experience working in the acute pediatric hospital setting, I witnessed how acute and chronic trauma impacted my patient’s participation in therapy, routine care, and daily activities. I quickly realized that I had limited tools to address the challenging behaviors that are associated with responses to trauma, and discovered other therapists (PTs/OTs/SLPs) had similar feelings. For my project, I developed an in-service training titled “Implementing Trauma Informed Care: How Trauma Informed are you?” I presented to my Early Intervention and Outpatient colleagues, and discussed the principles of Trauma Informed Care, how trauma impacts behavior and development, and tools for therapist to utilize in practice. In addition, I chaired the Training and Education Subcommittee Trauma Informed Leadership Team at VCU Health. We have been developing and promoting Trauma Informed Care educational materials for employees to help improve the delivery of Trauma Informed Care throughout the healthcare organization. The goal of my leadership project is to improve healthcare providers’ knowledge and confidence in implementing Trauma Informed Care to better address trauma within our roles in order to improve patient outcomes and engagement.

I can honestly say picking this project was life-changing. I considered a wide range of topics for my LEND leadership project. It was almost a sexuality centered project, combined with awareness of family abuse as I thought of becoming a peer mentor. On Oct 25, I presented as a panelist on my lived experience to a Disability Studies class. My networking efforts were geared toward establishing myself as a presenter with the JMU sexual disability program and RespectAbility. As of Halloween Day, my life changed forever as I took my vows and became a Christian. The experience caused me to reconsider the project from Sexuality to Presenter.

It’s Time to Talk: A QR Code Handout on Speech and Language Delay at Kenner Army Health Clinic

I completed a handout on speech and language delay for military families at Fort Lee, VA that is accessible by QR Code. The handout aims to inform and facilitate early diagnosis and intervention for speech and language delay that occur among military children. Spanish translations were included for resources and pictures were carefully chosen to represent cultural diversity. Posters with QR Codes were placed in waiting rooms and exam rooms for paperless and touch free access. This project also represents a collaborative effort from Kenner Army Health Clinic and was approved by the chain of command of the Military Treatment Facility at Fort Lee.

For our leadership project, we decided to host an event called 22q at the Zoo on May 21st 2022 at the Metro Richmond Zoo. The event is part of a worldwide awareness day giving patients, families, friends and professionals a chance to socialize, network and raise public awareness of 22q11.2 syndromes. We chose this event because it has been historically planned and hosted by VCU genetic counseling students who are in the LEND program. Last year, we saw first-hand the empowering and educational impact that this day had for everyone involved. It is exciting to be a part of a worldwide event to support families impacted by this genetic condition.

My name is Elizabeth Womack. I am an Occupational Therapist. My project is called Portsmouth Parents and was chosen because of a lack of resources and information available to parents receiving Early Intervention Services in Portsmouth VA. I created a brochure for families in the EI program that highlights therapy, what to expect and provides information about WIC and related services in the Portsmouth area. I noticed that Parents often don't know where to get information, so my hope is that this brochure will be a great starting point for navigating services.

Jordan Fox, Psychology/ Special Education, Transgender Patients with Disabilities: A Workshop for Person-Centered Healthcare, For my leadership project I created an interactive workshop for healthcare professionals, but really anyone whose career can interact with trans people with disabilities, for the purpose of educating professionals better etiquette and awareness about transgender people with disabilities. Although we often frame important work, advocacy, and even change centered around the disabilities community and transgender community, the two are rarely compounded to discuss people who identify as both transgender and disabled. I hope this workshop and its materials will help support LGBTQIA+ populations that have a disability, be supported in both communities and will encourage sexuality and gender identity to be a topic of conversation among healthcare and adjacent professions with their clients/ patients with disabilities.