NM LEND General Requirements for All Long Term Students

This program is about leadership. Therefore, the following expectations are based upon the premise that each student has chosen this program to build leadership skills. The philosophy supporting the program is one of experiential and process learning. In order for the program to be a successful experience, each student must agree with the philosophy and meet the program expectations.

• Attend and fully participate in 3 days of orientation activities, usually the 3rd week of August
• Attend/participate in all Friday activities and be available from 8 – 4 on Fridays.
• Be available for the additional Thursday of Public Policy, usually the 2nd week of November, and required Friday PM activities when scheduled.
• Be flexible enough to participate in required clinic experiences that are not scheduled on Friday afternoons
• Complete all assignments on time *
• Where applicable, meet all course requirements
• Meet with your Core faculty member at least once a month throughout the program. If problems arise, meet with assigned Core faculty member immediately, if this does not resolve the issue, meet with the Training Director.
• Provide feedback on all activities and projects
• Based upon feedback from former students you can expect to spend an average of 20-25 hours per week on LEND related requirements such as seminars, clinics, projects and research.

Below is a list of past assignments and we do not anticipate significant changes for the coming year.

• Being prepared for each seminar: this may be including reading books and/or some library search
• Meeting on a regular basis with your core faculty
• Developing as overall plan for your year in the program
• Completing several on-line courses such as HIPPA and HRRC
• Facilitating at least one mini-seminar (approximately 1 hour)
• Leadership: Develop a plan to grow in the area of leadership with your core faculty member: this will require the development of specific objectives, matching them to activities that should lead to reaching your desired outcomes. This project has a minimum 50 hours of activities required.
• Clinical expectation of the program: The program expects that each student will spend a minimum of 40 hours in clinical experiences. These will be defined with your core faculty and will vary greatly dependent upon discipline. Please note that if you will be completing clinical hours for your program and they are working with children, these hours DO count for LEND. One specific clinical assignment that all LEND students are required to complete is a guided NICU experience of between 4 – 8 hours.
• Research: Each student is required to complete research activities with a faculty member. This does not mean that we expect students to develop independent research and complete a full project within the year. Dependent upon each student’s skills and interests, an individual plan will be developed at the beginning of the year. This research must have an emphasis in disabilities. If you are doing research for your discipline requirements, we strongly urge you to consider how the same research can be used to meet both requirements. Should you not be started on your discipline research, you may wish to work with the LEND core faculty and your discipline faculty to develop a project to meet both needs. We anticipate that this project requires a minimum of 50 hours over the entire year. At the end of the year, students are required to present their research project using a Power Point presentation.
• Program evaluation: You will be put into groups to learn about various projects within the Center for Development and Disability concerning program evaluation. Each group will report back to the entire group on their findings.
• Community program project: Each student is required to select a community program that serves children with disabilities that the student does not currently nor has in the past worked for. Students will then interview a leader within the program to answer pre-determined questions about the functioning of the program. Taking the wealth of information from the interview, each student will develop a poster to present to their peers, the faculty, invited guests and staff members of the Center for Development and Disability.
• Family-Professional Collaboration: Each student is paired with a family who has a child with a disability. Students spend time getting to know this family not as a professional but to appreciate the daily challenges these families face. The student and family develop a small project that can assist the family that does not call upon the discipline expertise of the student. This project has had a requirement of 36 hours over the year in the past, but it is currently being redesigned.
• Public Policy: Each student is required to participate in the two-day (Thursday and Friday) institute in either November or December. During the legislative session, all students visit the “Round House” for a least one-day. In addition, each student will select a bill that has been introduced in either the House or Senate and follow all actions taken on the bill during the legislative session. Students will keep the “tracking” information on the bill and write a short reaction paper at the end of the session.

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