An experimental CHEP course that brings together UD students and young adults with disabilities has resulted in growth and accomplishment for both groups, those involved with the collaboration say.

"It was the most rewarding teaching experience I have had," Carol Denson, associate professor of consumer studies and creator of the "Leadership and Disability Policy" course, says. "The change I saw in my University students was astonishing. They started the class saying, 'How can we help these students with disabilities?' By the end of the class, they were saying, 'Look at what we accomplished together.' They really came to view the students [with disabilities] as an active part of their team."

Denson designed the course, first offered last spring by the Department of Consumer Studies, in collaboration with the Transition Partnership Program, which is itself a collaboration between the Red Clay Consolidated School District and CHEP's Center for Disabilities Studies. The program works with 18-to-21-year-old students in the public school district who have moderate-to-severe developmental disabilities, helping them develop skills for more independent living. The goal is to prepare the students for the challenges they face in making the transition from school to adult life.

Teams of professionals--which might include special education teachers, representatives of state agencies that provide services to adults with disabilities, and specialists such as speech pathologists--meet regularly to plan for the future of students in the transition program. Jackie Gallagher, co-director of the transition program, says the UD course came about after she and Denson brainstormed ways to get the students with disabilities more involved in those planning sessions, known as Individual Educational Plan (IEP) meetings.

"We wanted to find a way for our students to increase their self-advocacy skills," Gallagher says. "Research has shown that, even when the students attend their IEP meetings, they usually don't say very much. Their parents or their teachers tend to take over the advocacy role."

In the course last spring, Denson divided her class into groups of five or six UD students, and each group met weekly with one student from the transition program. The goal was for the transition students to formulate their hopes and goals and to present them when their IEP team met at the end of the semester.

"For my students, the benefits were tremendous," Gallagher says. "I could see their self-advocacy skills and their self-esteem increase, and it was wonderful to see the University students really focus on the person and not on the disability."

Denson says that focus was a significant goal of the class, in which she helped the UD students discover how much they had in common with the transition students, including their age and their desire to become more independent of their parents and others. She says she could see rapport grow between the two groups in many ways. "It was evident from the papers the University students wrote, and you could also see it in the enthusiasm that the transition students--even those for whom school attendance had formerly been a problem--brought to their meetings on campus," she says.

"In our first meetings, we talked to our student about his goals and what he wanted for his future, which was something he apparently hadn't been asked much," Monica Marchetta, CHEP 2002, a student in Denson's course last spring, says. "He had short-term goals, like participating in some type of sport and learning to use e-mail, and longer-term goals, like the living arrangements and kind of job he thought he'd like. I think just the process of listing those goals was very empowering to him."

Another member of that team, Steve Mashington, CHEP 2002, says the group worked together to reach the short-term goals. For example, he says, the team set up an e-mail account for the student and showed him how to use it independently. Members also got contact information for Special Olympics and encouraged the student to contact the organization and begin participating in its athletic events. The group then worked together on a Power Point presentation the student could give at his IEP meeting.

"He really created the presentation, and he gave it at the meeting," Mashington says. "We were just there to lend our support. He introduced himself, he expressed his goals, he told them a little about his hobbies and interests ... I think the professionals at the meeting were surprised at how well he did."

All the final IEP presentations were successful, Denson says, adding that the University students had high expectations for the transition program students, who seemed to rise to the occasion. "It was a natural evolution," she says. "The UD students really wanted the transition students to be successful, and they expected it of them. I think that was good for everyone."

This fall, Denson taught another experimental class, this time focusing on the transportation needs of young adults with disabilities. Once again, the class featured one-on-one interaction, as the UD students learned what types of transportation services some individuals with disabilities need to gain greater access to their communities.

Whatever topic the class involves, Denson says she teaches her students to look at people with unmet needs, not at their disabilities. The students who have taken the elective course have had many different majors and career goals, she says. Marchetta, for example, plans to work with the elderly, while Mashington hopes to work with the national Special Olympics competition next year but does not envision a career involving people with disabilities.

That's fine, Denson says. "The students who take this course will be working in a variety of settings, and I'm hoping they'll carry the knowledge and the understanding they gain to whatever work setting they are in," she says. "I think this experience has opened doors of understanding and connection."

-- Ann Manser