The U.S. Department of Education has bestowed a grant of $1.5 million to Professor Maurine Ballard-Rosa, a teacher in the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and School Psychology. The grant will go to Ballard-Rosa’s project, the “Statewide Collaborative Distance Learning for Early Interventionists.”

“An early interventionist is a professional who may provide a range of services to meet the developmental needs of an infant and toddler with disabilities, and the needs of the family . . . “, Ballard-Rosa said. “The training will involve a two-year sequence of courses on topics including typical and atypical development, working with families: diversity, family support and professional partnerships, evaluation and assessment, intervention strategies, and physical, sensory, and health disabilities.”

Students taking part in the project will participate in a supervised area, working with children and their families in their own communities.

“The grant will be used to support students in rural and remote areas of California to participate in a two year training program via distance learning (video conferencing) technology,” Ballard-Rosa said.

The project was made to address the need for professionals to serve the large number of infants with disabilities and their families across California.

The California Department of Developmental Disabilities and several public and private universities in California developed the project. The project will be offered through CSU campuses in Los Angeles, Northridge, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco.

Maurine Ballard-Rosa first became interested in working with children with disabilities when she was a college student. She has been involved in special education as a teacher, researcher, and policy analyst for the federal government for over 25 years.