Author: haringcomms

The UW College of Education (CoE) 2020 graduating class entered the teaching workforce during a tumultuous time.

“As a first-year teacher, you’re learning the job, but you’re learning a different job,” says Lik Qi Lim, who received her Master of Early Childhood Special Education from CoE last May.

Em Dandridge, who also graduated with a Master of Early Childhood Special Education during the pandemic, explains the newly minted educators were starting jobs that looked like nothing anyone knew.

Dandridge started as a special educator in early intervention at Kindering, a comprehensive neurodevelopmental center providing services to children from birth to age three in King County, in March 2020. In this role, they build foundational language and play skills with children and coach parents to support their children. Until a recent transition to a hybrid model, Dandrige’s work has been exclusively remote.

“Three days a week we do an interactive virtual circle-time class,” says Dandridge. “I use virtual backgrounds and will put myself literally inside of a book to point to things, and play with Zoom features to make myself bigger or smaller. We also do movement-based activities like yoga classes, as we all know no kid has gotten enough movement in the past year.”

Lim also started the school year remotely but moved to a hybrid model after about a month. Lim is a preschool head teacher at the EEU, educating children aged three to five, and explains there have been a variety of challenges this year.

“I had to get to know the kids, my team and the families all online. Some kids struggle with online learning, so we were supporting parents through that,” says Lim. “Getting to know the kids through their homes was a hard start, but also really interesting because we got to learn a lot more about their home life.”

“Then we came back in-person with a hybrid model,” Lim continues. “We had to set up our classroom with COVID regulations — there were materials that couldn’t be used. Play looked different, large group looked different, everything looked different.”

Lim explains that establishing a routine for the children has also been challenging. Some of her children learn in-person twice a week on back-to-back days. She says often they will work hard on something and a child might show progress by the second day, but after five days away from physical school, it can feel like starting over each next week.

For Dandridge, the differences of the online model can be more nuanced.

“In some ways it’s the same — you’re reading the Zoom room to figure out which kids are tuned in and which kids aren’t. You’d be doing the same thing in a physical classroom, it just looks a little different,” they explain.

Both Lim and Dandridge remark their time at CoE helped them succeed in this tough first year on the job.

“I started at the EEU in 2018 as a practicum student and graduate staff assistant,” says Lim. “I could draw back from my practicum experiences and knowing the community has helped me feel supported this year.”

Dandridge cites the cohort model as fostering a strong bond among the graduating students. “Getting through the tail-end of our program in a pandemic together really solidified that bond,” they explain. “The sense of teaming is emphasized heavily in our program and has carried on as we’ve continued to support each other through a challenging first year of teaching.”

The cohort’s collaboration continues formally for Dandridge too. In addition to conducting family sessions, working with children and collaborating with other providers, Dandridge works on Kindering’s equity team. They join another special educator from their graduating cohort to present staff trainings around concepts like neurodiversity and the intersections of gender identity and various neurotypes.

Lim and Dandridge agree being a first-year teacher during the pandemic has also come with some silver linings.

“I’ve had so many extra support factors, because everyone is just an easy message away,” says Dandridge. “We’re as distant as ever, but we’re also closer than ever before because we reach out to each other to try to make those connections.”

Lim says the different relationship with families has been valuable.

“In a typical year, you could easily chat with families during drop-off or pick-up in the classroom,” she explains. “Trying to establish the bond with families at the start was definitely harder, especially remotely, but the silver lining to it is that you get to know more of what is going on behind the scenes at home and build stronger relationships with them.”

Lim also says she is able to create more of her own lessons with the online and hybrid models.

The day-to-day of next year still holds plenty of unknown for educators like Lim and Dandridge. Lim will continue as a preschool head teacher at the EEU, and expresses a longer-term goal of increasing access to inclusive early childhood education worldwide.

“I wish there could be a community and school and place like the EEU all over the world, that anyone can access, and where everyone is included regardless of who they are,” she says.

Similarly, Dandridge hopes to work in education policy in the future, to make publicly-funded education accessible and inclusive for younger ages, but plans to continue to grow in their current role.

“This is a role where you never stop learning,” they say. “That’s one of the beautiful things about working in education, especially with kids this young. Every kid is so unique.”

Despite the tough circumstances for their first year, Dandridge and Lim say they love their jobs.

“You can still see the community being built. Under those masks, the kids are still enjoying school — they love their friends, they love the place they come to, they have so much fun playing and building a community,” says Lim. “Even though some days it’s so intense, at the end of the day the kids go home and have a big smile on their face. That makes the job worthwhile.”

“We know that signs of autism emerge reliably between 18 months and two years,” says Ashley Penney (PhD ‘16), BCBA and research scientist at the UW Autism Center. “But most kids aren’t diagnosed until they’re about four and a half years old.”

Annette Estes (PhD ‘98), who directs the Autism Center, explains that the gap is even greater for children who are Black, Hispanic, eligible for Medicaid or living in rural areas.

“A large number of kids on the autism spectrum in the United States never get autism-specific intervention,” says Estes. “That is just not acceptable.”

With these disparities in mind, the Haring Center joined forces with the Autism Center in 2018 to collaborate on a solution. The On-Time Autism Intervention (OTAI) project now works to increase access to on-time autism intervention services, with a gift from the Seattle Foundation.

“Intervention should be on-time,” explains Haring Center Director Ilene Schwartz, who co-directs OTAI with Estes. “We need to meet children and families where they are and provide them with the services at times and in formats that work for them.”

The project engages community-based practitioners who offer diagnostic and intervention services for children. Experts from the Haring Center and the Autism Center are developing a practice framework for these community partners within King County, with hopes of expanding it in the future. The project also engages UW students from a variety of disciplines, including special education, public health, social work and psychology.

Schwartz explains that the collaborative aspect of OTAI allows the team to use different lenses to view the issues they are trying to address.

“In a meeting, we can go from a detailed description of a child’s assessment to a national view of issues and trends in assessment because of our team’s breadth and depth,” she says.

OTAI focuses on three areas: diagnosis, navigation and treatment. Jessica Greenson, director of clinical services at the Autism Center, leads the project’s on-time diagnosis work.

Greenson works with King County’s birth-to-three providers to improve identification of children who may need an autism diagnosis. She explains there are a number of barriers for children in need of a diagnosis.

“Diagnostic centers often have long waitlists,” says Greenson. “For many families, English is their second language. There are financial barriers in terms of driving to a diagnostic center, plus a lot of diagnostic centers don’t take Medicaid. Also, there are cultural pieces – for some families, there is a huge stigma around the idea of disability.”

“I work with the birth-to-three providers to develop systems for screening kids and for what to do when those screens come out positive – how to have conversations with families and help them find a place to get a diagnosis,” she says.

These families are where OTAI’s navigation arm comes in.

“One of the questions we’ve asked from the beginning is: ‘What should every child and their family have in that first year from the initial signs of autism up through diagnosis and intervention?’” says Penney.

Penney leads monthly online groups for parents of children who are waiting to get a diagnosis or who have recently received one. She reports some of the stories she hears from parents in this position suggest not enough support and sometimes dismissal of their concerns.

“After parents get a diagnosis for their child, there are a lot of different emotions,” says Adriana Luna, a doctoral student at the UW College of Education and Haring Center fellow. “Sometimes they are left without any support at all.”

Luna joined the OTAI team to help facilitate the parent groups and make them more accessible by hosting groups for Spanish-speaking parents. For some parents, it is the first time someone is speaking to them in their first language about their child’s diagnosis.

“We can’t forget to bring in the parents alongside other professionals,” stresses Luna. “We can understand what parents need from professionals so that we work as a unit to help children succeed.”

According to Luna, parents in the online groups have formed friendships outside of the groups, an added benefit of the project. Penney and Greenson are also in the early stages of developing a podcast as a resource for families navigating their child’s autism signs, diagnosis and beyond.

As part of OTAI’s focus on autism treatment, Luna and Penney facilitate a Project ECHO network. The ECHO network brings together service providers who work with children three and under with autism, including Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), Occupational Therapists, Speech-Language Pathologists, special educators and family resource coordinators. The meetings involve case studies and create a platform for different types of providers to learn from each other around working with young children who may or may not have their autism diagnosis yet.

“These two groups of providers – birth-to-three providers who are working with kids free of charge through Part C and BCBAs working with the same population – have different strengths,” says Penney. “Both strengths are really necessary, so our goal is to bring them together to increase meaningful collaboration.”

The diagnosis, navigation and treatment arms of OTAI fuse into the practice framework the team is developing for reaching children and families closer to when they first need services. Estes says the team plans to eventually expand the framework to other birth-to-three providers beyond King County to receive input and observe its use.

“I want every child, regardless of ability or background, to receive the services they and their family need to thrive quickly and in a manner that is respectful, responsive and effective,” says Schwartz, in describing her vision for the future.

Greenson explains that how early a child with autism can access autism-specific treatment changes the quality of their life and their families’ lives.

“We know what to do,” agrees Estes. “We know how to identify autism as soon as it emerges and we know all sorts of effective ways of supporting kids on the autism spectrum and their families. This is the time to bring it to all communities.”

“This is our gym space,” says Chris Matsumoto, Haring Center assistant director and Experimental Education Unit (EEU) principal, standing in front of a pile of mats and trampolines. “And our cafeteria.” He explains how every day at lunchtime, EEU staff push all the gym equipment to the side, set up tables for lunch, and then take down the tables and set it all back up again for afternoon gym.

The lack of space is one of the many reasons the Haring Center building will undergo renovations over the coming few years, made possible by a $30 million gift from the Sunderland Foundation. Matsumoto explains the building is outdated and no longer serves the Haring Center’s desire to create equitable and inclusive educational opportunities for all children.

“The Haring Center was purpose-built for what it was in the 1960’s, but it has gone beyond its useful life.” says Evan Bourquard, associate principal with Mithun, the design firm leading the project.

The renovations will create the space and ability for the Haring Center’s Research and Professional Development & Training teams to work in the same building as the EEU school, fixing one of the Haring Center’s most significant roadblocks, according to Matsumoto. The current design of the Haring Center building prohibits collaboration, he says.

“When the building was built in the 1960s, the state of science was different; research happened in labs and clinics.” says Kathleen Artman Meeker, Haring Center director of research and associate professor at the University of Washington College of Education (CoE). “Now we know science happens in classrooms, communities and homes, and researchers work everywhere.”

“The new space will give us a home base for collaboration, sharing, and learning from one another,” Artman Meeker continues. “It opens up classrooms, so we can all learn from the Haring Center’s teaching teams. It has space for active learning for adults, as well as children.”

Currently observation booths, used for teachers, researchers and parents to watch classrooms without being a part of the environment, double as storage units. Haring Center staff frequently find hallways to hold meetings due to the absence of collaboration space.

“After making our way through this pandemic year, we are reminded of how important it is to think about how space is utilized and how the space itself can play a role in our wellness,” comments Meghan Hanlon, Haring Center program and building coordinator.

The renovations also plan to expand intentional community space indoors and outdoors, connecting two courtyards and opening up offices.

“The Haring Center’s interaction among different staff across units, teams, disciplines and educational standing is one of the characteristics that defines who we are,” says Ilene Schwartz, director of the Haring Center and the CoE special education doctoral program. “This interaction creates a synergy that is part of our DNA. The new community spaces will provide more opportunities for this interaction to take place, and I am excited to think about the new ideas and innovations that will result.”

“The space will transform the way we work,” adds Artman Meeker. “It literally breaks down the walls between our different programs.”

Beyond the space itself, components of the current Haring Center building offer limited access for people with disabilities. Matsumoto explains doorways, hallways, water fountains and more do not meet the Americans with Disabilities Act standards due to their age. Not all children are able to use the counters, sinks and bathrooms in EEU classrooms with the current design.

“This opportunity will bring us into the present and carry us through the future,” says Hanlon.

Matsumoto emphasizes how time and resources stand in the Haring Center’s way in terms of making true change in the community, and these renovations will provide the Haring Center with both of those things.

“The Haring Center has always attracted researchers, trainers, teachers and families who are deeply passionate about equity and inclusion,” says Matsumoto. “This redesign will allow us to take this passion, dedication, knowledge and skill in this building and share it with the broader community.”

For more information, read the press release here.

Haring Center researchers work with teachers, families and communities to advance inclusive education worldwide. In doing so, many serve as faculty at the UW College of Education and train the next generation of early childhood and special education experts.

This year, two doctoral students working closely with Haring Center researchers received competitive national fellowships to advance their research in educational equity and inclusion.

Gounah Choi, a third year doctoral candidate in special education, began her two-year fellowship with the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI) in autumn 2020. Funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, NCPMI works to improve state and local program implementation of the Pyramid Model, an early childhood multi-tiered system of support that promotes young children’s social and emotional development.

In her fellowship, Choi works with a faculty mentor on researching how to best support practitioners to implement the Pyramid Model through increasing family engagement in infant and toddler programs.

“This work aligns with my research interests,” says Choi. “We’re looking at how to encourage family engagement in infant and toddler settings, how to support families to collaborate with teachers more, and how to support teachers to collaborate with and encourage engagement from families.”

Choi explains that she is developing family engagement-specific resources and creating research summaries within her fellowship. She hopes that the materials she creates will be available to teachers and parents at the Haring Center when complete.

After the fellowship, Choi plans to continue her research on family engagement in social and emotional teaching beyond infant and toddler populations into the preschool age. She currently works closely with Haring Center Researcher Angel Fettig studying parent-teacher collaborations for promoting social-emotional learning of children with disabilities or delays, particularly those from underrepresented communities.

“Young children spend more time with their families than at school, so it’s really critical that families know what’s happening at school and teachers know what’s happening at home,” says Choi. “To foster that mutual understanding and consistent learning experiences across settings, the family engagement needs to come first.”

Choi worked as a special education teacher for young children with autism, and as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst prior to coming to the College of Education, which she says ignited her research interest.

“My students’ families were from diverse cultural groups and family engagement was a big piece to improve student outcomes.”

Choi knew teachers often have a heavy workload, and she saw at the same time families were very busy.

“That’s when I started thinking about the best way to promote family engagement, family participation, and teacher collaboration without putting too much pressure on both sides,” says Choi. “Family engagement can’t be put aside.”

William White, who is in his fourth and final year of his doctoral degree, received one of the inaugural Start with Equity fellowships under the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University.

White will conduct, review and translate innovative research on equity in early childhood education, along with three other doctoral candidates and one postdoctoral researcher around the country. The fellowship involves mentorship and professional development throughout the academic year and concludes with a summer internship at a policymaking institution.

As a Start with Equity fellow, White is researching inequities in gifted education and developing policy recommendations for districts and local, state, and federal agencies to reduce these inequities. He says he plans to bring the strength of storytelling into the policy format, and embed stories of Black male teachers in early childhood education within his policy brief.

White is also the co-designer and founder of the My Brother’s Teacher project, which launched earlier this academic year with Cultivate Learning and seeks to increase the presence of Black and Brown males in early childhood education. The Haring Center will be a project site for Black and Brown males to intern and gain experience working with children.

“The master narratives created by white supremacy are perpetuated every day through white teachers to Black students,” explains White. “We know the research says white teachers have lower expectations for Black students, so we need more Black teachers to counter that narrative. I bring out the goodness of what it means to be a Black male teacher — the parts we don’t hear about.”

Over his four years at the College of Education, White has worked in close collaboration with Haring Center Researcher Kathleen Artman Meeker. Prior to obtaining his doctoral degree, he taught special education for ten years and saw how racial inequities impact students.

“Too many times we look at inclusivity as just considering people with disabilities,” says White. “We don’t look at how a Black child who has a disability is less likely to get the services than a white child with a disability.”

“This work is draining at times,” he remarks. “But at the end of the day, if I know a Black kid in some classroom is going to have a better experience, I can go to sleep.”

Choi and William hope their respective fellowships will propel them further into their research interests.

“I would like to pursue a postdoctoral position to gain more research experience,” says Choi. “And in the long term, I am interested in teaching teacher candidates.”

White says he will continue his work with My Brother’s Teacher, expanding and diversifying the education field for all People of Color, regardless of their gender identity.

“Having a deeper understanding now of how policy works, I’ll keep pushing on policymakers,” he says. “I plan to make some changes.”

Challenging behaviors in young children often occur at home during daily routines and activities, according to Angel Fettig, Haring Center researcher and UW College of Education associate professor. A family may be working with a professional interventionist to address these behaviors, but that professional is unlikely to be there in the moment to observe the behavior and create a support plan.

With funding from the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, Fettig partnered with Erin Barton at Vanderbilt University and Hedda Meadan at the University of Illinois to support parents in reducing challenging behaviors.

The research team developed a mobile software application called the Family Behavior Support app (FBSApp), targeted at parents of children ages 2-5 years who display challenging behaviors at home.

“We wanted to create an accessible tool that families can use to address challenging behaviors,” says Fettig. “Based on the percentage of adults who use smartphones, an app is the best way to get that support to families.”

The FBSApp uses functional assessment-based interventions, which work by determining the purpose of a particular challenging behavior and subsequently developing a plan to reduce and prevent that behavior. It begins by prompting parents to enter data about the challenging behaviors exhibited by their child.

“The app guides families through which data to gather: what does the challenging behavior look like, what is its intensity, what happened right before it occurred, and so on,” explains Fettig. “We want enough information to understand the purpose of the challenging behavior, so we can identify strategies for reduction and prevention that are aligned with that purpose.”

With enough data, the app’s algorithm suggests a function for the behavior, and asks the parent to confirm. If the parent thinks the suggested purpose is inaccurate, they can continue gathering data to determine the true function. Once a parent confirms the purpose, the algorithm creates a behavior support plan that matches the data gathered.

“For example, if the identified purpose of the challenging behavior is to get attention, there might be one set of strategies,” says Fettig. “If the purpose is to obtain a desirable object, there are other strategies for the parent to try.”

The FBSApp offers implementation support for the plan, a recording system to monitor progress in reducing and preventing the challenging behavior, and links to other family resources.

The recent release of this app in the Apple Store is the result of three years of research and development by Fettig and her colleagues. After creating and refining the algorithm behind the app, they partnered with the University of Illinois computer science program to develop the software. The research team tested the app out with parents of children showing challenging behaviors, and also conducted a randomized controlled trial for the intervention.

“This tool does not replace professionals who are supporting families,” emphasizes Fettig. “It is built so families can work in collaboration with professionals.”

Fettig explains that data collection is one of the first steps in the process. She says the FBSApp offers an easy-to-use data collection format for families to gather data when the interventionist is not present. The families add any professionals working with their child to their account so the professionals can view the data, behavior support plan, and collaborate and provide support.

“Also, during the pandemic, a lot of behavior services are provided through tele-intervention,” says Fettig. “This might serve as a tool for collaboration when providers can’t be there physically, for the parents to gather data and engage in collaborative planning and support.”

“Technology promotes accessibility to the evidence-based practices we have,” Fettig continues. “Through this app, we are translating the research and strategies we use in early childhood settings into homes.”

---

Find the Family Behavior Support App in the Apple Store, available to download for free.If you have questions or need support using the app, email bartonlabvu@gmail.com.

“When I was a classroom teacher, Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) were the folks I went to the most,” says Carly Roberts, Haring Center researcher and associate professor at the University of Washington College of Education (CoE).

Selma Powell, Haring Center researcher and director of the Special Education Teacher Education Program (SPED-TEP) at the CoE, remarks that special education teachers need to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively with related personnel like SLPs.

This month, UW’s SPED-TEP and Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences (SPHSC) welcome the first cohort of scholars into a master’s training program that will promote collaborative learning between the two disciplines.

Scholars in the Collaboration Across Special Education (CASE) program will receive one year of tuition assistance and annual stipend from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) under the US Department of Education. Over the next four academic years, 48 total scholars will participate in the CASE program’s training experience—six each per year from the SPED-TEP and SPHSC.

“The CASE program is a collaborative training program with a particular emphasis on universal design for learning, assistive and instructional technology and equity and inclusion,” says Roberts.

“Communication is so essential to ensuring students are heard and able to fully participate in meaningful ways in their learning and classrooms,” she continues. “This collaboration really is a natural fit.”

Competencies developed during the first year of the respective degree programs will position scholars to better serve children with high-intensity needs, who OSEP defines as children who have a complex array of disabilities (e.g. multiple disabilities, intellectual disability) and therefore require intensive, individualized interventions.

Each cohort of scholars will attend a year-long seminar together. They will also take two additional interdisciplinary courses, during which they will have the opportunity to collaborate both within their cohort and among other students studying special education.

Another component of the CASE program is community learning. “Scholars will attend social justice-focused speeches or activities, and we’ll use the seminar as an opportunity to draw the connections to their own work and understanding of special education,” says Powell.

Scholars earning their Master of Science in SLP will fulfill a two-year service obligation following graduation, during which they will work in public schools.

“Now more than ever, there is a need for well-trained and highly qualified SLPs entering the field to serve in public schools,” says Sara Kover, SPHSC assistant professor, who co-directs the CASE program alongside Roberts and Powell.

On the SPED-TEP side, the CASE program is a collaboration with Seattle Public Schools (SPS). Annually, the six CASE scholars will be paraprofessionals currently working in SPS. This opportunity is a pathway for SPS to grow their own teachers by identifying classified staff to become certified teachers committed to working in SPS, explains Powell.

According to Roberts, students with high-intensity needs often use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

“This has been an area of our special education program that we’ve wanted to build for a long time,” Roberts explains. “Having such direct access to the SLP faculty and students will immediately benefit our students in SPED-TEP. For example, they’ll be able to ask a peer about an app that promotes communication right in the moment.”

A portion of the grant from OSEP is allocated for purchasing and accessing AAC technology for SPED-TEP students to practice alongside SLP students.

“This is an opportunity for us to truly be learners alongside SLP students, as we explore these technologies together—and in return prepare scholars for implementation in schools,” says Powell. “These are things we’ve previously tabled due to resource constraints.”

Roberts expounds on the longer-term intended outcomes of the CASE program.

“A big focus for us is acknowledging the ways special education in public schools needs to change,” she says. “We want to shift the practices we see in schools by training professionals who can go out and push back on problematic systems in their own school buildings.”

“Transforming oppressive systems in schools is not going to be achieved by one group,” continues Roberts. “It will take interdisciplinary collaboration, lots of different perspectives and lived experiences, and so we see this as an opportunity to try to model this in our pre-service program.”

Faculty from SPED-TEP and SPHSC look forward to continued collaboration. They plan to include each cohort of SLP CASE scholars in SPED-TEP courses beyond the length of the grant.

“In addition to the students, this is a great opportunity for faculty to work across disciplines and learn from each other,” adds Powell.

Kover concurs, “We look forward to watching collaborations grow between the students—and we, as faculty and as a program, look forward to building on this collaboration with the CoE over the coming years.

Roberts says that through this program they hope to support as many students as possible—both at the UW and the future young learners graduates will serve throughout their careers.

“We’re preparing educators to be collaborative and center equity,” she says. “Educators who will be ready to work in schools with a critical lens on special education, and a strengths-based view on students and families.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic reminds us how important childcare is and how hard that work is day-in and day-out,” says Kathleen Artman Meeker, Haring Center director of research and associate professor for the University of Washington College of Education (CoE). “It is vital
that we provide opportunities for the early learning workforce to get the professional supports they need to be successful in their work.”

Artman Meeker is the principal investigator and faculty director for a project that seeks to enhance these supports for Washington’s early learning workforce. With assistance from a five-year grant from the federal Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, the Haring Center is collaborating with CoE’s Cultivate Learning and EarlyEdU Alliance to engage community colleges in a curriculum redesign process. The goal of this process is to ensure early learning practitioners can best support children who have disabilities, are from diverse racial backgrounds and are dual language learners.

Currently, the Haring Center and CoE team is working with two partner colleges, North Seattle College and Columbia Basin College. Both community colleges offer Associate or Bachelor degrees in early childhood education.

“This project builds on the natural relationships between state universities and local colleges,” explains Artman Meeker. “This partnership is a chance for all of us to re-imagine what it takes to create truly inclusive early learning communities. At the UW, we’ve traditionally focused on preparing early childhood special education teachers at the Master’s degree level, but that only reaches a tiny fraction of the workforce. Our community college partners have been leading the early learning profession for decades. This is an amazing opportunity to learn from one another about how to ensure we serve each and every child, each and every day.”

Each partner college leads their own curriculum design with support from the UW team in process facilitation and resource sharing. Staff from the Haring Center and CoE hold regular meetings with each partner to guide them through their goals, activities and assessment mechanisms. The colleges also work with their own community partners to set
priorities for the redesign.

The Haring Center focuses on supporting the colleges in identifying different ways to represent children and families with disabilities throughout the curricula.

“We are coming at it from a preventive viewpoint,” says Artman Meeker. “We’re encouraging faculty to incorporate the everyday practices that have a high impact in making environments welcoming for all children into their curricula. There are little changes that help every child participate in a way that they can learn and grow and play and thrive.”

Colleges are thinking about all their courses with an inclusive lens, according to Artman Meeker. “It’s not just the exceptional children class — it’s across the literacy courses, the science courses, the art courses. Our partners are making sure that every child is represented in each of these.”

“This project is built on ensuring that the early learning workforce is thinking about practices to support children at the intersections of our communities,” says Artman Meeker. “It’s about providing this workforce with resources, ideas and strategies to support children in their own communities, but it’s also about ensuring higher education faculty
have the skills and resources to support a very diverse early learning workforce.”

Both partner institutions have specific equity goals built into their curriculum design plans. Artman Meeker notes that partners already offer early learning programs in language cohorts like Spanish, Somali and Russian, and are able to think inclusively about their curriculum on a variety of different levels.

“A component of this project is helping early learning faculty in continuous learning about accessibility,” says Artman Meeker. “We must be using good universal design principles in our teaching and materials, reflecting on bias and ensuring we create a reflective place for students to learn about their practices.”

Artman Meeker says that the UW team was encouraged by the partners’ commitment to the project in the face of the current pandemic. She notes both colleges are developing creative ways to address issues families of children with disabilities are facing, including challenges with access to services and increased stress.

“If anything, the pandemic has made more clear what all of our curriculum in higher education can and should be doing to support the early learning workforce in completely unpredictable times,” says Artman Meeker. “Our partners saw this as the right time to do this work.”

In addition to guiding partners on an individual basis, UW is shaping a network for colleges to exchange ideas and key learnings. The institutions participated in a virtual retreat this month, and moving forward will engage in monthly virtual discussions.

The Haring Center and CoE team is also developing a statewide resource library to which colleges can contribute materials. Partner institutions will also be able to share their curriculum redesign progress and strategies at academic conferences and within their communities.

“We are just one of these such projects across the country,” explains Artman Meeker. “We are coordinating as much as possible to learn what makes these partnerships and curriculum reimaginings successful.”

Artman Meeker says that by the end of this academic year, each partner institution will have completed revision of about five courses, and actually taught a subset of them. The UW team plans to administer surveys to measure the impact of the redesigned curricula.

“In the long-term, our hope is that this project leads to more inclusive early learning settings across the state,” says Artman Meeker. “As students and faculty see these practices in their coursework, they will see that they are indeed realistic. Early learning faculty and our future workforce will be committed to equity for each and every student, and to making sure that early learning settings are accessible, meaningful and enriching.”

“I am so thrilled to be back at the Haring Center. I began my career in special education here in 2002, and it is wonderful to return,” says Ariane Gauvreau (PhD ‘15), who began this month in a brand new position as the Professional Development and Training senior director.

Professional Development and Training Operations Manager Alison Winfield says the position’s goals are to set the vision and strategy for the professional development team, oversee relationship development and provide leadership and supervision to professional development staff at the Haring Center.

“I am excited for Ariane to focus deeply on the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the professional development we deliver to our partners to most effectively support them and serve our community by including children of all abilities,” says Winfield. “She will be crucial as we set our long-term vision and strategy, and plan to expand over time.”

Gauvreau recently worked as the field director and an instructor in the College of Education’s special education program, partnering with numerous schools, districts and agencies across the Puget Sound to establish fieldwork and student teaching placements, while working with different models of inclusive education.

At the College of Education, Gauvreau taught courses on inclusion and equity, tiered systems of support, early childhood special education, autism and the intersection of homes, schools and communities. She also led faculty groups on evidence-based teaching and was involved with the University of Washington’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which promotes student learning by supporting and strengthening UW teaching in a collaborative manner.

“These experiences have shaped my views on ways we can support our schools, agencies and communities in advancing inclusive, equitable practices, and the most effective, interesting and meaningful ways of providing professional development, technical assistance and coaching,” says Gauvreau.

“I’m excited and honored to work with such a passionate, experienced team at the Haring Center, and I look forward to collaborating with more schools, districts, agencies and organizations committed to inclusion for all learners and families.”

“The skillset required for an early interventionist is really different from the skillset required for a special education teacher,” says Haring Center researcher and Teaching Associate Ariane Gauvreau (PhD ‘15).

Gauvreau explains that the field of early intervention, which provides services to children with developmental delays or disabilities from birth to age three, draws from a variety of backgrounds including education, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, vision therapy and social work.

Students at the UW College of Education (CoE) who are interested in early intervention typically choose a degree specialization in Early Childhood Special Education.

“At the College of Education, we focus on supporting individuals with diverse needs,” says Haring Center researcher and Associate Professor Angel Fettig. “We want to make sure our students are trained in a way that they are prepared to work with the most vulnerable population. Basic needs need to be met before we will see success in child development.”

Fettig and Gauvreau explain that the current assortment of early intervention service providers in Washington state often work in a parallel fashion, resulting in low levels of meaningful interaction.

For this reason, the two teamed up with the UW School of Social Work (SSW) for an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration.

School of Social Work Professor Maureen Marcenko explains, “Both social work and educational services are so critical in that early period that bringing together educators and social workers just seems like a natural.”

The collaboration, which funds CoE and SSW students interested in early intervention during their final year of study, marks the first partnership between these two disciplines statewide.

“Because early intervention work is so unique and so nuanced, so intimate and complex, the collaboration of a larger interdisciplinary team is crucial,” affirms Gauvreau.

Four cohorts of six scholars each (three from CoE and three from SSW) will receive fellowships for this interdisciplinary study from the Office of Special Education Programs under the US Department of Education. The first cohort graduated this month.

In their final year of study, students take courses across both schools and come together for regular seminars to discuss their early intervention work.

“The seminars are a place where we talk about specific practices around home visiting, parent coaching and so on,” says Marcenko. “Students are able to ask questions of another discipline and get that inside view they might not have the opportunity for otherwise.”

Students also complete a paired practicum, which places one CoE student and one SSW student at the same early intervention center.

“It’s innovative to place students together in this way in their practica,” says Fettig. “While early intervention agencies see social work services as critical, it is not yet embedded in the structures.”

Gauvreau explains that opportunities for systematic collaboration are a big need in Washington, especially as families from different socioeconomic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds come together.

“The skills of a social worker and the skills of an educator are so different, and we can learn so much from one another,” she says. “Educators are really good at embedding instruction within families’ homes and routines, data collection and assessment. Social workers are really good at supporting the social and emotional needs of parents and ensuring caregivers build strong relationships with their children that lead to strong attachments.”

This fellowship is an effort to think about better integration at the pre-service level and in the field, says Fettig.

The final component of the collaboration is paired home visit practice. Each pair of students makes home visits together to families who have previously received early intervention services.

“Early intervention providers do the majority of their work in homes with families, and we wanted to ensure we are effectively preparing students to collaborate and do parent coaching to support families in homes and communities from day one,” explains Gauvreau.

“The family piece is core,” continues Marcenko. “If you’re going to do family-centered services, you have to really understand what that experience is like.”

Marcenko says one of the unique aspects of the collaboration is that the families act as mentors to the pairs of students.

“It allows the students to really connect with and understand a family’s experience from the inside-out,” she says. “Families can give immediate and direct feedback to the students and be transparent about it.”

When the in-person practica and home visits ceased earlier in the year due to COVID-19, Gauvreau says there was an abrupt shift to tele-intervention for service providers.

Initially, students had planned to hold weekend playgroups for their home visit families. Each pair of students would have developed the curriculum, helped families through routines like snacks, circles and playtime and embedded parent coaching throughout.

“Our students worked really hard to set these up and scope out their unique roles, so it was a big disappointment to not be able to hold them,” says Marcenko. “But through this adversity, we’re challenged to figure out new ways to do things.”

Students from this year’s cohort say the collaborative model allows the group to share their different experiences and ideas.

Leshawn Dandridge, who received a Master’s in Social Work as part of this program, applied to the fellowship because she wanted to work with children with disabilities.

“If we can start the relationship between social workers and educators working together as a team earlier, it could follow on as we move through the educational ladder,” Dandridge says. “These early partnerships show the benefits of social workers in the classroom providing services.”

Em Dandridge, Leshawn Dandridge’s practicum counterpart, received their Master of Education in Early Childhood Special Education.

“One thing I really appreciated in working with a partner is that during home visits we could both interact with the parent, the child, the child’s baby sister even,” says Dandridge. “It became a true community experience.”

Leshawn Dandridge says she found the paired home visits to be very important. “Learning to work with parents was great because it encouraged a return to a more natural, holistic kind of teaching and interaction between child and parent. I could practice letting parents come up with their own solution and then fostering that solution to see how we could make it work for them.”

In addition to the collaboration benefits, Leshawn Dandridge and Em Dandridge note other advantages they experienced in their fellowships. “This fellowship allowed me to present at the Division for Early Childhood’s annual conference on how to better support gender non-conforming children, which is something I’m really passionate about,” says Em Dandridge. “That was an awesome experience.”

Leshawn Dandridge describes how she was able to observe the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Diagnostic & Prevention Network Clinic at UW’s Center on Human Development and Disability. “I would never have checked it out if I hadn’t done this fellowship,” she says.

Marcenko explains that the faculty also have an opportunity to work together through this program in a way that they do not otherwise.

“That integration happens at the educational level with faculty, then filters to students, and that benefits families,” she says. “The driving question of our curriculum is: ‘How will this benefit the families?’”

Each cohort of students will enter the early intervention workforce following their graduation. Those graduates, Gauvreau says, will be prepared to make changes to existing early intervention systems and champion a higher level of collaboration among disciplines.

“In this first cohort, we have some incredible scholars,” she says. “They are dedicated students who have a clear vision for impacting early intervention in our state.”

“When we talk about inclusion, we’re not just talking about individual practices,” says RinaMarie Leon-Guerrero (PhD ‘06), an inclusion specialist at the Haring Center. “Inclusion is a cultural initiative, and it must be a complete shift.”

In autumn 2019, in partnership with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Haring Center launched a project to create 16 demonstration sites at K-12 schools across Washington state that highlight inclusive education best practices — part of a statewide effort to assist more schools in adopting a culture of inclusion.

“These demonstration sites give us the opportunity to focus on what is working well, and to take a closer look at schools on these amazing continuous plans of improvement as they evolve in response to students that walk through their doors,” says Cassie Martin (PhD ‘10), a senior inclusion specialist and project lead.

The Haring Center selected 10 elementary, middle and high schools from all regions of Washington as the first cohort to showcase their own inclusionary best practices. Next year, six more schools will join the effort as demonstration sites.

After working with the Haring Center this spring, five schools are ready to showcase their successes to visitors. Of course, this suddenly looks quite different than originally conceived, Leon-Guerrero said.

The original plan was for the schools to set a rotating schedule to host visitors, with one site visit every six weeks, she noted.

Instead, the Haring Center and the demonstration sites have quickly pivoted to a virtual format, and are now highlighting their inclusionary practices via webinars.

“It’s no easy task to translate something so tangible like seeing the look and feel of a school to a virtual visit,” Leon-Guerrero said. “But I’ve been impressed — our sites were able to do it successfully. They really stayed committed to the work.”

The 16 demonstration sites range widely in how far they are into their inclusive education journeys.

“A visiting school may see a site five years in, and that can be overwhelming, but they can also look at a school one year in,” says Martin. “They can observe what’s working really well, the high-leverage moves schools have made, and really see how they can implement inclusion in the early stages in their own schools.”

The five schools presenting webinars this spring exhibited a substantial number of inclusionary practices. Some display an inclusive mission and vision, others incorporate master scheduling or apply multi-tiered systems of support, while others demonstrate visible learning, co-teaching or collaborative professional learning communities.

Katy Bateman (PhD ‘17), a senior inclusion specialist for the project, noted the strong positive behavior interventions and supports in place at Meadow Ridge Elementary School in Spokane. 

“They have worked hard to develop multi-tiered systems of support to support all learners,” she says.

“Another great thing about the demonstration sites is that by including middle and high schools, we can really look at the continuum of inclusionary practices,” noted Leon-Guerrero.”Hidden River Middle School [in Snohomish] discussed how to prepare students for middle school, high school and beyond as we look toward the long-term success of our students.”

In addition to the webinars themselves, demonstration sites provide artifacts that can aid other schools as they work toward integrating inclusion into their culture. Examples of these artifacts include master schedule templates, inclusion handbooks and lesson-planning tools.

Another aspect of the demonstration sites project is the Haring Center’s role in building a professional network for the schools.

The Haring Center is hosting a virtual summer institute in June for this year’s demonstration sites. During the institute, schools will work together on demonstration site replication and information dissemination to effectively inspire other schools to implement inclusionary practices.

An award-winning journalist from NPR will join the institute to work with the schools to help them tell their stories of inclusion in a transformative way.

Then, in August, the group will re-convene virtually to share their stories.

Marci Anderson-Youngstrom, a school psychologist at McMicken Heights Elementary School in SeaTac, says, “One of my favorite things about our community is that we’re never done growing our inclusive practices.”

“These schools have the opportunity to have tremendous impact both on the way we think about inclusive education across the state, but also within their own regions and districts,” says Martin.

While Martin, Leon-Guerrero and Bateman agree that there is no substitute for feeling the culture of inclusion in a school and seeing inclusive learning take place in-person, they point out benefits of this spring’s webinar structure.

“The webinars mean we’re able to share the incredible work these sites are doing on a larger scale,” explains Bateman. In one week, four schools hosted webinars and attendance reached nearly 400 people, including families as well as educators.

“That family engagement piece is definitely a benefit, because we need to weave it into all the work we do anyway,” agrees Martin.

Martin noted that not only did the schools have to quickly pivot in the format of their work as demonstration sites, but they also had to do so while they were transitioning to distanced learning at a similar fast pace. And, she explains that many inclusive practices, such as co-teaching, are significantly more challenging virtually.

“I am constantly impressed with the way these sites have adapted to new technology and creative ways to share their stories of inclusion,” affirmed Bateman. “We are all on a learning curve, but this curve has lent itself to stronger partnerships as we work through this new world together.”

As for the five demonstration sites slated to open their doors to visitors in the autumn, they are planning ahead for all possible scenarios.

“One of the wonderful things about our demonstration sites is that they’re innovators,” says Martin. “They’re ensuring an inclusive community outside of the confines of a school building, and they understand that providing others with an opportunity to see strong inclusive practices and culture is important regardless of whether or not we’re in a physical school building right now.”

Bateman says she is inspired by how well the first five sites told their stories.

“When you listen to this team present their work, you can’t help but feel the passion, dedication and collaboration that went into their development and implementation of their practices.”

Visit the IPP Demonstration Sites webpage.