Child Welfare Training Partnership
The Child Welfare Training Partnership works in conjunction with DCF-Family Services Division to provide training and technical assistance to two populations in Vermont. One population is DCF-Family Services Division employees. Another population is Kin, Foster, and Adoptive families in Vermont.
As a member of the CWTP evaluation team, CDCI Research Coordinator Valerie Wood works with the CWTP Workforce Team to evaluate the trainings that are offered to all DCF-FSD employees. The activities Dr. Wood does for the project:
- Collect data from the training evaluation survey for each training
- Summarize the qualitative and quantitative results
- Share those results with the coordinator who presented the training.
The information is then used by the Training Coordinator to make improvements to future trainings. These training reports form one of the continuous quality improvement cycles of the Child Welfare Training Partnership. By using data to make data informed decisions, the Training Coordinators are better able to support the state's child welfare agency.
Kinship Navigation Project
The Kinship Navigation Project is a collaborative effort between Vermont Kin as Parents, DCF-Family Services Division, and CDCI.
Together, along with teams in Maine, South Dakota, and Wyoming, we have created a model for providing supports and services to families caring for a relative's child. These families are also known as kinship care families. Research has found that children placed with kinship families benefit from the opportunity to remain connected to their extended family, friends, and community.
RISE-VT: Restorative approach Implementation for School Equity in VT
The RISE-VT project is a collaborative effort between UP for Learning, the BEST project at CDCI, and the Vermont Agency of Education. We are working together to support four Vermont schools or school districts in implementing restorative approaches.
Our team is helping four schools with the following activities:
- Documenting the school's process of implementing restorative approaches.
- Using those school's documentation stories to create an online learning module that helps other schools understand how they could begin to use restorative approaches and the benefits of doing so.
- Providing training, technical assistance, and coaching to the schools to help them build upon and grow in their knowledge and application restorative approaches.
Tier 3 Wraparound
The Vermonter Poll
Each year, the UVM Center for Rural Studies sends out a statewide poll for Vermonters, called The Vermonter Poll. In 2021, the CDCI, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council, Disability Rights Vermont, and the Disability Law Project worked together on adding questions about disability to the Vermonter Poll.
We wanted to know to what extent Vermonters agree with the following statements:
- People with disabilities have the same quality of life as people without disabilities.
- People with disabilities can contribute to Vermont’s labor force the same as people without disabilities.
- Students with disabilities benefit from being in the same classrooms as students without disabilities.
- Students without disabilities benefit from being in the same classrooms as students with disabilities.
Completed CDCI Research Studies
Project EVOLVE Plus
Project EVOLVE Plus offered school-based research, training, technical assistance, and collaborative consultation on fee-for-service basis. The mission of Project EVOLVE Plus was to work collaboratively with school personnel, self-advocates, families, and service providers to increase the probability that the lives of students with disabilities will be better because they were educated in our schools. The project ended in 2022.
Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship
The Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship is a 5-year partnership across 8 national sites and seeks to develop, implement, and/or test promising practices for supporting and sustaining permanence in families that have been formed through adoption or guardianship.
RENEW: Rehabilitation for Empowerment, Natural supports, Education and Work
CDCI, partnering with the Institute on Disability, received a $3.5 million grant from the U.S Department of Education to test the RENEW (Rehabilitation for Empowerment, Natural supports, Education and Work) intervention. This study evaluated whether or not high school students who receive the RENEW intervention had better outcomes than students receiving typical services. The study tested for differences in student engagement, self-determination, social support, as well as academic and behavioral functioning. This projected ended in 2020.
