The Shriver Center’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program, funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, is one of more than 52 LEND programs nationwide. The purpose of LEND is to provide graduate-level interdisciplinary training to improve the health of children and youth with developmental disabilities. We accomplish this by preparing trainees from diverse professional disciplines and backgrounds to assume leadership roles in their respective fields, serve as agents of systems change, and to engage in high levels of interdisciplinary clinical service. The Shriver Center LEND program has two components: the Advanced Leadership Fellowship Program and the Leadership in Clinical Care Program.
The Advanced Leadership Fellowship Program is a nine-month intensive program located at the Shriver Center in Worcester, MA. LEND Fellows learn to radically rethink the ways in which health care, services, and supports are delivered to children and youth and their families, and develop the knowledge, skills, and tools to make policy recommendations, support exemplary services, devise new training strategies, and lead systems change efforts.
The Leadership in Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Program is an interdisciplinary clinical training program that trains clinicians at the masters or doctoral level from an array of clinical disciplines. Training is focused on enabling trainees to provide exemplary, family-centered, culturally competent care for children and their families, and to assume leadership roles in their work. The training is carried out at our affiliated clinics within UMass Medical School and our clinical training partner at Tufts.