With a new director and several new initiatives this year, CHEP's Center for Disabilities Studies is more involved than ever in public service and research as well as educational opportunities for UD students, director Michael Gamel-McCormick says.

Gamel-McCormick, professor of individual and family studies and formerly research coordinator for CDS, became its director in January 2001. The center, which opened on campus in 1993 and recently moved into new, larger quarters in Graham Hall, is part of a network of university centers focusing on disabilities that operate in all 50 states. The center deals with Delaware adults and children with developmental disabilities--those disabilities that begin before age 22.

"Everything we do at the Center for Disabilities Studies involves trying to encourage systems change and improved services," Gamel-McCormick says. "The goal is to make sure that people with disabilities are always included in the planning process and are never an afterthought."

The center works with people across the life span, he notes, from early childhood into school age and adulthood. Many programs also concern the needs of families with members who have disabilities.

Gamel-McCormick replaced Donald Peters, Amy Rextrew Professor of Individual and Family Studies, as director of CDS. Peters, who has returned to the faculty, was responsible for creating the center, and under his leadership, its budget grew from $200,000 to $2.2 million.

"Don Peters instilled in the center the centrality of families to all of the work that we do," Gamel-McCormick says. "He also saw the importance of supporting individuals with disabilities throughout their life span."

The center works in partnership with many state and community agencies to improve the quality, quantity and range of public and private services and supports for individuals with disabilities and their families. Its programs include conducting research to determine best practice, developing model programs and training service providers. CHEP undergraduate and graduate students work with the center on research and service-learning projects. (See related article on preceding page.)

"We keep our student researchers busy," Gamel-McCormick says. "We get them out into the field doing real research."

Some of the new, or newly expanded, projects in which the center is involved this school year are:

• A new freshman course, taught by a professor and two parents of children with disabilities as part of the University's "Pathways to Discovery" program that provides first-year students with interdisciplinary and thematic courses, and a senior/graduate-level course to be offered for the first time this spring. "I see us working in collaboration with the academic departments to give CDS more of a presence in the curriculum," Gamel-McCormick says. "It's very exciting to increase our involvement in instruction, as well as in our service and research." 
  
  
• The expansion of Northern Delaware Early Head Start into Kent County, Del., for the first time. Now working in partnership with seven agencies, the Early Head Start program provides child-development services for youngsters from birth to age 3 who either have or are at risk for a diagnosed disability. The center's largest program, it is designed to "ensure that wherever the children spend their day is an enriching environment that supports their cognitive, emotional and social development," project director Martha Buell says.
  
  
• Creation of the Family Support Initiative, launched with the help of a recent federal grant. Through that initiative, CDS is working with the Delaware Division of Developmental Disabilities Services to develop a pilot program in which families will receive vouchers for services, giving them the flexibility to choose which services they need to support their relative with a disability. The initiative also includes researching the needs of underserved communities in Delaware, including Spanish-speaking areas in Wilmington and Georgetown.
  
  
• A major research effort to look at the availability and quality of child-care and educational services available statewide to children, from birth to school age, with disabilities. Calling the project "a vast undertaking," Gamel-McCormick says researchers, in collaboration with four state and two community agencies, will visit 450 sites. They hope to present their report to the Delaware legislature in June.
  
  
• The continuation of programs in Delaware schools, including the Positive Behavior Support program, which now operates in 12 school districts, training teachers and providing technical support in strategies to promote positive behavior for students with and without disabilities. In addition, the Alternate Portfolio Assessment project, which CDS developed as a way to measure the progress of students whose disabilities prevent them from taking Delaware's state-required standardized tests, will expand from a pilot project to full-scale implementation, reaching 400 students this year.