By Michelle Hines, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 1-8-07
GREENSBORO, NC – Researchers at UNCG have won an $800,000 federal grant to prepare graduate-level early childhood educators to work with young children with disabilities and their families, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
“There’s a big need in North Carolina to work with diverse groups,” said Dr. Belinda Hardin, one of the researchers in Specialized Education Services who pursued the U.S. Department of Education grant. “Almost 100 different languages are spoken by school children in Guilford County alone, according to the Center for New North Carolinians.”
The project marks a collaboration between the Department of Specialized Education Services within the School of Education and the Department of Human Development and Family Studies within the School of Human Environmental Sciences. Twenty full-time master’s level students and 12 part-time students will be accepted into the program. The full-time students will be split into two cohorts, each finishing in two years. The part-timers will finish in two to four years.
Hardin’s colleagues and collaborators Dr. Judith Niemeyer and Dr. Deborah Cassidy say more diversity among the people who work with children with disabilities is a necessity.
“We need more professionals who are from diverse backgrounds,” said Niemeyer, also with Specialized Education Services. “We want students from underrepresented backgrounds to come back and get their master’s degrees.”
Cassidy, who works in Human Development and Family Studies, agrees. “Children with disabilities are very diverse, but the people who serve them don’t share that diversity.”
Program administrators will be seeking applicants from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, looking for diversity in gender, income level, culture and sexual orientation, Hardin said. They are now recruiting students for the Fall 2007 semester.
The program will provide internships, and cover stipends and fees for the full-time students. Cassidy says a graduate-level teaching license will open a lot of doors to leadership positions in the community – positions with Smart Start or similar agencies, teaching jobs in public schools or community colleges, or jobs in neonatal care.
“You decide what you want to do and go after it,” Niemeyer said.
For more information on the program, call Belinda Hardin at 336-256-1083, Judith Niemeyer at 336-334-3447, Deborah Cassidy at 336-256-0090, or Linda Hestenes at 336-256-0093.
