Background
Part
of the role of the Bureau of Maternal Child Health (a part of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services) is to provide training grants
to organizations that shape the future leaders in health care and health
policy for the United States. The largest of these grants is the LEND
program, which is the shortened form of Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental
and Related Disabilities.
URLEND
The
Utah Regional LEND, or URLEND, is an interdisciplinary program that
trains professionals to move beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries to
provide optimal services to child and adolescents with special health
care needs. Because families are essential to well-being, this program
emphasizes the role of family-centered care.
URLEND Learning
Approach
Each year, a diverse set of trainees from each of the disciplines listed
below are brought together with faculty and families of children with
special health care needs, to form an interdisciplinary learning cohort.
Each long-term trainee participates in three forms of learning: didactic
(classroom), leadership, and clinical.
URLEND
Classroom Curriculum
Because
the URLEND services a large geographical area (Utah, Wyoming, Montana,
North Dakota and Idaho) trainees and faculty are co-located twice for
didactic sessions during the year. The rest of the didactic meetings rely
on video conferencing to bring participants together. This
year's syllabus may be found on the right hand side of this page.
URLEND
Leadership Curriculum
Because
the goal of this grant is to train the leaders for tomorrow, leadership
skills are a key outcome for the program. Over the course of the year,
each trainee completes a leadership project either individually or as
part of a team. Previous
leadership projects may be found on the left hand side of this page.
URLEND
Clinical Curriculum
One
way to appreciate the complexity of care that some children require
is to fully experience clinical settings that are out of one's own area
of specialization. URLEND trainees visit a number of specialized clinics
and medical home providers. The list of clinics available for trainees
may be found on the right hand side of this page.
Disciplines
Represented
Audiology
Dentistry/Pediatric Dentistry
Education
General Medicine
Genetics
Health Administration
Nursing
Nutrition
Occupational Therapy
Pediatrics
Physical Therapy
Psychology
Social Work
Speech-Language Pathology