Focusing on Supports to Families: Specific Strategies for Including Family Support in UCEDD CORE Grants

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Webinar Description:

This session highlighted how three UCEDDS (Missouri, Virginia, and Nebraska) engage, partner, and employ families in the core functions of their UCEDD.  This event is targeting UCEDD grant writers, directors, program staff, and Family Support SIG members who are involved in the grant development and writing process. 

Presenters:

 Dana Yarbrough 

Dana Yarbrough is the assistant director of strategic initiatives for the Partnership for People with Disabilities, Virginia's university center for excellence in developmental disabilities located at Virginia Commonwealth University. Among her many roles at VCU, Dana is a community supports specialist and directs the Center for Family Involvement and its initiatives statewide to support diverse families of children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to become effective advocates for their children and leaders for systems change. Dana holds a master's in transformational non-profit leadership and a master's in special education secondary transition.

Mark Smith

Mark Smith an Omaha native, joined the Munroe-Meyer Institute (MMI) in January 2003 as its Consumer/Family Coordinator. MMI is the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). He currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the University Center grant program and as Family Faculty in the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) grant program. He supervises the UCEDD traineeship program and grants, contracts, and related activities on disability policy, legislation, and leadership. Mark's educational experience includes earning Bachelor's and Masters Degrees in Psychology from the University of Nebraska. He is also the parent of and sibling to family members with intellectual/developmental disabilities. Mark has over 40 years of experience in the Disabilities field.

Sheli Reynolds

Sheli Reynolds is the Sr. Associate Director of the UMKC Institute for Human Development, a University Center on Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, and serves as an Associate Professor at UMKC School of Medicine’s Department of Biomedical and Health informatics. She currently is leading a national effort to develop a Charting the LifeCourse framework which provides a theoretical foundation for policy, practice and systems change within systems that provide supports to people with disabilities. She is the Co-Director of the National Community of Practice on Supports to Families with Members with Developmental Disabilities, with her partners at the National Association for Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services, which focuses on transformative policy and practice change for enhancing person- and family-centered outcomes. Her passion for the developmental disability field comes from growing up as a sibling to a younger brother who has a developmental disability.

Please Note:

• This webinar will have CART live-captioning. For additional disability accommodations please email [email protected]
• There is no cost for this webinar.
• CEUs are not offered for this webinar.
• This webinar will be held on the Zoom Platform. You can test your connection with Zoom before joining the meeting here.
• This webinar will be archived and available on the AUCD Webinar Library. 

This webinar is funded by the Administration for Community Living through technical assistance contract # 75P00121C00057. The contents do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Administration on Community Living, US Department of Health and Human Services, or the US Government.