The Munroe-Meyer Institute will continue to provide intensive, interdisciplinary leadership training and faculty development through the LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities) Program, which has been renewed for five years through 2021.
The grant, awarded by the Maternal Child and Health Bureau of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, totaled more than $3.5 million for the five-year project. MMI has been awarded the competitive grant since 1995.
About LEND
There are 49 LEND programs across the country in a network funded through the Autism Care Act. MMI networks with other LEND programs to enhance the programs’ national impact. The Midwest LEND Regional Group includes South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa, and the LEND program meets regularly, holding joint training initiatives and sharing strengths or promising trainings.
MMI uses the funds to provide interdisciplinary training opportunities for students, primarily graduate students, who show leadership potential.
“The goals are to prepare promising clinicians and other health care professionals in the maternal and child health field for leadership roles when they enter the workforce and, ultimately, to improve the lives of children with disabilities and their families,” said Cynthia Ellis, M.D., director of the LEND program.
As an interdisciplinary center with 17 different disciplines, all focused on developmental disabilities, MMI is uniquely positioned to serve the goals of the LEND grant, Dr. Ellis said. LEND trainees have included grad students and postdocs in a number of disability-related disciplines, as well as family members, pre-med and health administration students, and even law students interested in disability law.
The program also provides practicing professionals a training track for becoming a board-certified behavior analyst and addressing the shortage of BCBAs in the state.
“We provide the supervision and support the tuition for practicing professionals in the field who have the necessary prerequisites to become a BCBA,” Dr. Ellis said. “We’ve also been partnering with the Nebraska Department of Education’s ASD Network to develop a Train the Trainer model, where BCBAs trained in our program supervise the training of other BCBAs in their network. We support the tuition for new BCBA trainees and the ASD Network provides the supervision, thus sharing the overall costs.”
It took Dr. Ellis and her team close to a year to put the successful grant application together, in part because the LEND program is always looking for new initiatives to accomplish its goals. This year, the program will team with UNMC’s Interdisciplinary Academy of Educators for faculty development and eillpartner in the community on a number of projects, including an enhanced cultural diversity component.
“The goal is help LEND and MMI to network in the community, to recruit diverse faculty, to recruit diverse students,” Dr. Ellis said.