News – Page 6

group photo of summer leadership campers at UK

Applications being accepted for the 2024 Summer Leadership Experience

Posted on December 20, 2023 | by Glen Jennings

The University of Kentucky Human Development Institute in partnership with the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation present the Summer Leadership Experience (SLE) in July 2024. All Kentucky high school upperclassmen (entering juniors and seniors) with disabilities are welcome to apply. Camp will take place on the University of Kentucky campus and includes a 4-night stay in a campus residence hall, all meals & snacks, interactive sessions about education and career planning, financial assistance, and resources to develop skills needed to take steps after high school with confidence and success. The camp application is available online here. The deadline to register is April 30, 2024.

For more information, call 859-257-1714 or email Teresa Belluscio at Teresa.Belluscio@uky.edu.

Glen Jennings, HDI Communications Assistant shares more about the SLE in the following article.

What comes next after you graduate high school?

When students toss their caps in the air, a whole new world opens up and they’re faced with a number of new choices that could have a profound effect on their future. Choices like that are hard to make. How do you further your education? Do you go straight into the workforce? It’s difficult for everyone, with added stresses for students with disabilities.

But the UK Human Development Institute’s Summer Leadership Experience Camp exists to help make those decisions a little less scary and make it easier to adjust to that next step in the educational process which could lead to a career. The camp invites speakers who can help young adults find the right choice for the next stage in their lives and how to take advantage of accessibility resources available – and how to push beyond challenges like getting academic accommodations and dealing with social stigma.

July 2023 was the seventh time the camp has been held, and according to HDI Disability Program Administrator Teresa Belluscio, who leads the team that makes the camp happen, it went wonderfully this year.

“I thought we had a really good group of campers. We had a total of twelve,” Belluscio said. “We had some really good speakers. Speakers were really compelling and engaging.”

Speakers ranged from perennial favorite Cody Clark, an autistic magician who did a special show one day, followed by a talk on resilience the next, a panel college disability service offices to talk about how to access vital accommodations, support and resources, to Travis Freeman, a Kentucky pastor who, in high school, became the first blind football player in America and was the inspiration for the film 23 Blast.

“We packed this camp with so much,” Belluscio said. “There’s more we could do, but we don’t want to make it so busy to where campers are just sitting and sitting in session after session.”

To that end, this year’s camp departed from previous years – fewer speakers, but more fun activities. Students visited the UK Esports Lounge, held dance parties, relaxed at bookstores, and even more. Belluscio thinks this gave the camp a better balance of useful information and fun and made it more effective.

“We made it a little less busy. We built in a little more time in between sessions,” she said. “Even though we were busy, we didn’t feel as rushed.”

Isaiah Jones, one of the campers who attended this year, said that he enjoyed his experience and got a lot out of it.

“It was great,” he said. “The speakers are really helpful because they get to tell you what career you get to choose, how you can get help from your disability center, and what majors to expect you can take.”

He will be attending UK as a freshman soon and felt like he especially benefitted from learning to navigate the campus. But as useful was a taste of the college experience – living in a dorm and with a roommate.

For some, the camp was a powerful experience, giving them the opportunity to see a potentially great future for themselves.

“One of the campers told me after engaging in Cody Clark’s session on reliable resilience, ‘It was like I was looking at myself from the outside,’” Belluscio said. “They connected so much.”

To learn more about the Summer Leadership Experience, contact Teresa.Belluscio@uky.edu.

Johnny Collett joins a special episode of the State of HDI Podcast

Posted on December 13, 2023 | by Beth Potter

The University of Kentucky Human Development Institute (HDI) is pleased to announce a special episode of the State of HDI podcast series. Listeners have the opportunity to join Johnny Collett, Deputy Director at HDI, for Advancing Ideas for Improvement or Innovation in a System Where You are Not the Boss. Learn about five principles that apply in any setting that can be used regardless of where you are organizationally situated, that could increase your ability to lead.

Listen to this episode and download a summary document of the State of HDI podcast here.

Before joining HDI, Collett served as Assistant United States Education Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Prior to that, Collett served as program director for special education outcomes at the Council of Chief State School Officers. He has also served in senior leadership roles at the Kentucky Department of Education, and as a high school special education teacher.

From his role as a classroom teacher, to state special education director, to the United States’ highest-ranking official for special education and rehabilitative services, Collett has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to raising expectations and improving outcomes for people with disabilities. Added to that is his career-long commitment to meaningful and effective collaboration with diverse stakeholders – whether students, parents, educators, business leaders, disability advocates, governors, state legislators, or members of Congress.

Collett’s extensive portfolio of leadership experience, including implementation of state and Federal laws and policies and numerous systems change efforts, provide him with a unique perspective on matters related to improving educational, employment, and other life outcomes of people with disabilities.

Follow Johnny on Twitter @JohnnyWCollett or contact him at Johnny.Collett@uky.edu.

Fund for Excellence Projects Awarded

Posted on December 11, 2023 | by Beth Potter

The University of Kentucky Human Development Institute Fund for Excellence was created to support the development of innovative programs, services, or products to address the needs of individuals with disabilities and their families, for which funding is not currently available. Below is a list of the most recent awards.

Expanding the Social Networks of Adults with Autism

Project Lead: Patti Logsdon

This project supports autistic adults in expanding their friendships, social networks, and community participation in valued community roles and activities. This will be achieved through a blended approach that builds upon person-centered planning, circle of friends/support, peer networks and valued social roles. This project will support HDI’s mission of building inclusive communities by developing social networks.

Mind in the Making: Seven Essential Executive Skills for Families

Project Leads: Dr. Joanne Rojas and Sally Dannenberg

Mind in the Making (MITM) is a research framework that summarizes decades of developmental research into the seven essential life skills. The MITM training consists of eight modules geared to early childhood professionals and family educators to engage them in an experiential and reflective process of self-discovery of their own competence in these life skills, connect their experience to the research, and learn to promote these capacities in themselves as well as in the children in their care. The goal of this project is to provide this training to communities throughout the state that serve families that are at risk because of a variety of circumstances. This project supports HDI’s mission of addressing the inequity of access to resources and support networks.

Working Alternatives to Guardianship (WAG)

Project Lead: Laura Butler

The goal of this project is to form a workgroup of stakeholders that will work together to inform workable decisional support options for people who have not traditionally had viable options beyond legal guardianship. The initial objective of the group will be to create a Continuing Legal Education course that will focus on providing people with legal documents that will be accepted by a wide variety of other professionals. This project will further HDI’s mission of building inclusive communities by helping identify ways for more people to experience full personal and civil rights.

Kindness is Free. A Staff Spotlight on Dr. Angela Cooper

Posted on November 22, 2023 | by Glen Jennings

After earning her associate’s degree, Angela Cooper decided it was enough…until she wanted to learn just a bit more.

She kept learning just a bit more again and again until she added a Dr. in front of her name.

Cooper is a regional childcare administrator for HDI’s Child Care Aware program. Her program provides technical assistance to childcare providers throughout the community. She oversees 18 counties in the south central and southeastern parts of Kentucky. But before all that, she worked in early childhood education, working at a Lexington corporate childcare program. She moved to Somerset in Pulaski County, and started looking for ways to advance her position.

“I had nothing but a high school diploma when I started there,” Cooper said.

A supervisor named Amy Booth who had a connection to HDI took Cooper under her wing, connecting her to a program that would help her pay for it and helping her work it around her schedule. In 2002, Cooper earned a Childhood Development Associate. It only took a semester. She intended to start small. She didn’t end there.

“I just got bitten by the bug,” she said. “I went back in, talked to my supervisor, and said ‘Hey, I think I kind of like this.’”

She applied at Lexington Community College and earned her associate’s in 2004. She thought, once again, that would be the end of it. Then she earned a bachelor’s, and then a master’s by the time she started working at HDI, and now, recently, her PhD, finishing a 21-year journey.

“I was always interested in children and how quickly they would learn concepts,” she said. “Their mind was like a little sponge. Every child, no matter what child was in your classroom, if you could figure out how to meet that child where they were, you could help them develop into the person they were going to be.”

Before she journeyed down the path to her PhD, she had already seen what this could look like in action, but as she furthered her education, she saw the effects her education was having very quickly.

“Once I started going to college and sticking theory to the practice, it opened a whole new world for me,” she said. “I wanted to take everything I was learning back into my classroom. I wanted to introduce new concepts, I found new ways to lesson plan, I found new ways to teach, I understood more about developmentally appropriate practice with children and why we teach the way we do…It was just a job before day to day before I started understanding the why to my job.”

Now that she’s reached the highest echelon of education, Cooper has no intention of slowing down or resting on her laurels. She’ll take a break for the holidays, but then it’s time to figure out what comes next.

“It’s left me relieved that I am finished, yet energized in what can I do now,” she said. “Where can I go with this? What else can I study? How can I answer the questions that this research brought about?”

Cooper’s education appears to have paid off. Her region has consistently high quality ratings, and held those even during COVID. And in her position she gets the chance to mentor other service providers – which not only benefits them, but the community beyond as well.

And she also gets the chance to mentor and cultivate a strong staff – something her own mentor did for her.

“I had a supervisor who was a cheerleader. She saw in me what I did not see in myself and really encouraged my growth and development,” she said. “She built a foundation for me and then I decided to keep going step after step.”

Outside of her career and academic pursuits, Cooper is an avid hiker. She’s hiked many of the trails in the Big South National Forest and Daniel Boone National Parks. She’s putting it on hold for now to spend some time with her new grandchild this holiday. She also summed up her core philosophy in three words: family, kindness, and inclusion.

“Kindness is free,” she said. “There’s not a reason in the world not to be kind to anyone or anything. We are all just here on this big green and blue sphere floating around for the good of each other…I’m just like a big old mother hen. I just want to gather everyone and everything under my wings.”

Supporting People of Color in Employment

Posted on November 18, 2023 | by Glen Jennings

The University of Kentucky Human Development Institute seeks to cultivate a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) with disability as its main focus. In service to our mission and employment priority area, a resource titled Supporting People of Color (POC) in Employment, authored by Sincere Holmes, Stuart Rumrill, Stefani Whaley, and Nicholas L. Wright is available to hiring officials and job seekers. This resource explains the additional obstacles, challenges, and effects that POC may face in the workplace and in hiring due to systemic racism and unconscious biases, as well as open prejudice, and breaks down ways these problems can be addressed. “It aims to provide essential information and support to help POC thrive in their careers and create a more inclusive and equitable career landscape,” Wright said.

While the team creating the article did significant research, they also found the creation of this resource a rather personal process. “It made me think about past experiences in different realms of employment,” Holmes said.

Though HDI’s primary focus is disability, equity and inclusion for all people are parts of its culture, and the members of the team that constructed this resource indicated that breaking down barriers is important to that work – and those barriers don’t need to be limited just to discussions around disability.

“HDI’s goal is support,” Whaley said. “In thinking about this particular project, support through research and representation…As we are researching, who else is at the table? I think that is at the heart of HDI.” The article can be found here:

Supporting People of Color in Employment PDF