LEND Family Mentorship Models
Thursday, August 25, 2022
Every Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program is unique and offers different academic, clinical, leadership, and community opportunities. This also includes different approaches to family-professional partnerships and training on family-centered care. Family mentorship of future providers, where families share their lived experience with trainees from professional disciplines, is one approach that several LEND programs across the network have implemented. While not required, many find that family mentorship of professional trainees is an excellent model to promote effective, caring family-professional collaboration and has long-term benefits for the workforce serving individuals with developmental disabilities and autism. A mentor provides guidance to help grow knowledge and experiences to help the mentee grow into the best version of themselves; in LEND, that mentor is a leader in the disability community who has lived experience.
This training strategy gives trainees a look into a “day in the life” of families that cannot be taught in classrooms or found in books. Family mentorship also benefits families themselves. Families learn to mentor, which increases their self-esteem and helps them realize that their lives and stories matter; this may lead them to be active advocates for their children and their community. This document is written by a group of LEND programs for other LEND programs and contains several examples of this experience from across the network.
Thank you to the following LEND programs for sharing examples of family mentorship:
- Alabama LEND
- CA-LEND
- Iowa LEND
- Kansas LEND
- Miami LEND
- NY - CERC LEND
- Oklahoma LEND
- Oregon LEND
- Pittsburgh LEND
- Rhode Island LEND
- South Dakota LEND
- Utah LEND
- Virginia LEND
- Washington LEND
- WIHD LEND
- Wisconsin LEND
This document was developed by members of the LEND Family Discipline Network:
- Stephanie Coleman, Kansas LEND, KUMC Center for Child Health and Development, Kansas City, Kansas
- Fran Goldfarb, CA-LEND, USC UCEDD/LEND Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
- Dori Ortman, LEND Center of Pittsburgh, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
- Linda Russo, The LEND and UCEDD Programs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
- Cristy James, Indiana LEND, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana
With support from:
- Jackie Czyzia, Senior Manager, ITAC, AUCD
- Jeanette Cordova, Program Manager (Bilingual), ITAC & URC, AUCD
