CEHD News Amy Hewitt

College of Education and Human Development wordmark.

CEHD News Amy Hewitt

ICI director testifies before Congress

July 17, 2019

On June 25, ICI director Amy Hewitt testified in Washington, DC before the U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health, urging Congress to reauthorize the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support (CARES) Act before the law expires on September 30, 2019. In a hearing titled, “Reauthorizing Vital Health Programs for American Families,” she explained to members of Congress how the Autism CARES Act has provided the opportunity to answer critical questions and address disparities in the area of autism through research, public health surveillance, and workforce development.

Hewitt told members that the Autism CARES Act has helped build critical infrastructure that has furthered our understanding of autism. Several CARES projects are at ICI, including the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, “Learn the Signs, Act Early,” and the Minnesota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (MNLEND) Program. Hewitt serves as the President of the Board of Directors for the Association of University Centers on Disabilities, a network that includes all 52 LEND centers, as well as the CARES-funded national resource center that provides technical assistance to LENDs, Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics Training Programs, and the nationwide presence of the “Act Early” Ambassadors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Hewitt also personalized her remarks, noting that she trained as a LEND Fellow decades ago and now has a family member with autism. She pointed out that, thanks in part to data gathered through CARES funding, we now know that autism affects 1 in 59 children and about 1 in 6 children has a developmental disability. “This means that it is highly likely that everyone in this room knows someone that has a family member with autism or another developmental disability,” Hewitt reminded the members of Congress. “While I am here in my professional role as a researcher and professor, I understand the importance of these issues as a family member, too. My brother-in-law, Nathan, is 45 years old and is autistic. He has lived with our family, in his own apartment in our home, for the past 25 years. He reminds me daily that children grow up and become working adults who want good lives in our communities. Nathan makes me aware that we have much to learn from autistic adults about the systems we create to support autistic people and that we need these systems of support across the lifespan.”

Johnson receives George S. Jesien Distinguished Achievement Award from AUCD

November 19, 2018

David R. Johnson receives award from George Jesien.
David R. Johnson (right) receives award from George Jesien at AUCD conference.

On November 13, ICI’s David R. Johnson received the George S. Jesien Distinguished Achievement Award at the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. This national award recognizes an executive, faculty or staff member from a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program, or Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center (IDDRC) who has demonstrated a distinguished career of excellence and leadership in support of AUCD’s mission to advance policy and practice for and with people living with developmental and other disabilities, their families, and communities.

Johnson, who directed ICI from 1997 until June 2018, was nominated by the current director, Amy Hewitt, and David O’Hara of the Westchester Institute. “Dr. Johnson has a lifetime of leadership, service, scholarship, published authorship, as professor and mentor,” they wrote in their letter to the AUCD Award Committee. “For nearly 40 years, Dr. Johnson has devoted his career to improving education and transition services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through research, demonstration, teaching, and education. Without question, Dr. Johnson has made significant contributions to dissemination of knowledge in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities that have made an impact at a national and international level. His resume could come in chapters but has a simple theme: equality, access, and opportunity for all persons with disabilities.”

“David is the iconic scholar and gentleperson who has always been ready to help, to listen, and to offer support to friends, colleagues, and students alike,” said George Jesien, the former AUCD Executive Director for whom the award is named and who presented the award to Johnson. “His engagement in any discussion invariably raises the level of discourse, bringing new information, relevant historical facts, along with the rare ability to focus in on details while maintaining a thorough recognition of the big picture. David Johnson is an accomplished researcher, effective teacher and mentor, a highly respected administrator, and incredibly productive professor who is eminently qualified to be recognized for his commitment and contribution to the field of disabilities and to the AUCD network of centers.”

“I have enjoyed a wonderful, fulfilling career,” said Johnson (pictured at right with George Jesien) as he accepted the award. “And I have come to fully recognize that my work with the members of this organization influenced my conviction that our great universities are essential partners in advancing the public good through our interdisciplinary research and education, and sustained community engagement. It is important for us all to recognize that the work we do makes a difference in people’s lives.”

Johnson continues to work on ICI research and development projects focused on the transition of youth with disabilities from school to further education, employment, and community living. He is also professor and coordinator of graduate programs in evaluation studies at the College’s Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development.

New director and new five-year funding for Institute on Community Integration

July 16, 2018

Amy Hewitt.The College’s Institute on Community Integration (ICI) has begun its 33rd year of operation with the appointment of a new director, and the award of renewed five-year funding. On July 1, Dr. Amy Hewitt became ICI’s director, the fourth to hold that position since ICI was established in 1985. The Institute also received renewed federal funding from the Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which continues ICI’s designation as a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD).

For more than 30 years, Hewitt has worked to improve community inclusion and the quality of life for children, youth, and adults with disabilities and their families. She has been ICI’s training director since 2002, and is the director of both the Research and Training Center on Community Living and the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (MNLEND) program, as well as co-director of the Rehabilitation and Research Training Center on Outcome Measurement. In the course of her work at ICI she has additionally directed numerous federal and state research, evaluation, and demonstration projects in the area of community long-term services and supports for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and their families.

A national leader in the disability field, Hewitt is president-elect of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) and a past president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). In Minnesota, she has served on the board of The Arc Minnesota, and several state level advisory and work groups, where she emphasizes community collaboration. She currently serves on the statewide advisory committee of the Minnesota Disability Law Center.

“I am honored, humbled, and looking forward to the opportunities and challenges to continue our mission-based work to improve policies and practices to ensure that all children, youth and adults with disabilities are valued by, and contribute to, their communities of choice,” Hewitt says. ICI’s renewed core funding as a UCEDD will support the Institute’s continued engagement in collaborative research, training, and outreach in partnership with service providers, policymakers, educators, advocacy and self-advocacy organizations, researchers, families, and individuals with disabilities around the world. The first year’s funding award is $547,000 in federal funds, with a $200,000 match from the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development.

Minnesota DHS renews Positive Supports contract with RTC-CL

December 21, 2017

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) has renewed its contract with the Research and Training Center on Community Living (RTC-CL), at the Institute on Community Integration, for continuation of training and technical assistance to build capacity for implementing positive support practices across the state. The $1.2 million contract extends the current work begun in 2012 by RTC-CL’s  Minnesota DHS Systems Change and Capacity Building Through Research, Training, and Technical Assistance Projects, work that enhances Minnesota’s capacity to support community living for individuals with disabilities and/or mental illness. Minnesota DHS has made a new five-year commitment to working with RTC-CL, beginning with a two-year agreement for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019. The project directors at RTC-CL are Amy Hewitt and Rachel Freeman. “This DHS contract provides an important vehicle for building the capacity for person-centered practices and positive supports across the state of Minnesota and to improve the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities using large-scale systems change,” says Freeman.

The new contract’s primary areas of focus include expanding implementation of statewide person-centered practices and positive behavior support through regional training and technical assistance; building service professional capacity using DirectCourse, the online competency-based training system operated by a partnership of the RTC-CL and Elsevier; facilitation, coordination, and implementation support for Minnesota’s statewide plan for building effective systems for implementing positive practices and supports; technical assistance and training for organizational change to promote the use of person-centered practices within Minnesota DHS; building and sustaining in-state training capacity for person-centered thinking and person-centered planning; development of Web-based resources on best practices in implementing person-centered and positive behavior supports; and coordination of communities of practice for person centered practices and positive behavior supports.

Hewitt accepts University’s Innovation Award

March 31, 2017

Amy Hewitt, holding the award, accepting it on behalf of the DirectCourse team, who are also in the picture.
Amy Hewitt (fifth from right) accepted the award on behalf of the DirectCourse team (pictured).

Crediting her colleagues at DirectCourse, the Institute on Community Integration’s Amy Hewitt accepted a Committee’s Choice Award at the University of Minnesota’s 2017 Innovation Awards on March 28.

Hosted by the University’s Office of the Vice President for Research and the Office for Technology Commercialization, the event at the McNamara Alumni Center recognized 220 University inventors whose technology had been licensed or patented between July 2014 and June 2016. Hewitt’s award was one of only four Innovation Awards presented, all of which recognize the accomplishments of outstanding University innovators who have demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit, are actively engaged in developing new innovations and transitioning those technologies to the commercial market, and have made an impact on society.

DirectCourse is an online training curriculum designed to empower support and care professionals to help people with intellectual, developmental, physical, and psychiatric disabilities, and older adults, lead meaningful lives within their communities. During last year alone, it provided more than 6 million hours of training to over 500,000 learners in 41 states and abroad.

Hewitt has led the research, development, and management of DirectCourse over the past 15 years, working with a team of staff at ICI, its business partners at Elsevier, and its community roots. “I am delighted that this award recognizes an ‘invention’ that was created by and for the community in alignment with our university’s land grant mission to promote education and collaboration that advances knowledge which benefits communities, the state, and the world,” Hewitt told the gathering. “DirectCourse was not created in a laboratory on campus: the community was its laboratory and this has made all the difference. The learning provided by DirectCourse has had an immediate and lasting effect on hundreds of thousands of direct support professionals and the people with disabilities they support.”

Image of Amy Hewitt in a short video about DirectCourse.
Amy Hewitt speaks about DirectCourse in this short video.

The photograph (at top of post) was taken at the awards ceremony. Pictured, from left to right, are Bill Waibel (Elsevier), Barb Kleist, Jennifer Hall-Lande, Macdonald Metzger, Mark Olson, Barbara Cullen (Elsevier), Merrie Haskins, Susan ONell, Claire Benway, Kelly Nye-Lengerman, Amy Hewitt, Dan Raudenbush (Elsevier), Kristin Dean, David R. Johnson, and Bill Tapp (co-founder). Click here for more information about the awards and a short video.

Judge Donovan Frank to keynote MN LEND Forum on litigation for disability rights

October 20, 2016

Banner image promoting the MN LEND Forum on November 17, 2016.The Minnesota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopment and Related Disabilities Program (MN LEND) at the College’s Institute on Community Integration will present its fall forum, “Litigation: Advancing the Rights of People with Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities” in St. Paul on November 17. The keynote speaker is the Honorable Donovan W. Frank, U.S. District Judge for the District of Minnesota, and long-time champion for the rights of people with disabilities. He will be joined by a panel of local and national legal experts to discuss how litigation is framing and moving forward the human and civil rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities:

  • Greg Brooker, First Assistant U.S. Attorney
  • David Ferleger, Attorney with Supreme Court and federal court experience
  • Pamela Hoopes, Attorney, Legal Director at Minnesota Disability Law Center
  • Shamus O’Meara, Attorney, Managing Shareholder at O’Meara, Leer, Wagner & Kohl, P.A.
  • Roberta Opheim, State of Minnesota Office of the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities

The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited and registration is required. “MN LEND focuses on improving access to and equity of high quality assessment, services and supports for all children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families,” says Amy Hewitt, MN LEND training director. “Litigation has always been key to transforming systems and moving forward the disability rights movement in the United States. We are so fortunate to be able to bring together such an esteemed group of professionals for our MN LEND forum.”

The forum will be on Thursday, November 17 in the Grand Hall at the TIES Event Center, 1644 Larpenteur Avenue West, St. Paul, MN 55108. The program, with a light lunch at the start, runs from 12:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m., followed by an ice cream reception.

The event will also be filmed and posted on the MN LEND website in the LEND Webinar Archive for later viewing.

New national center at ICI examines quality-of-life measurement

November 19, 2015

Are you living where you want, with whom you want? Are you doing the type of work you want to do? Do the services and supports you receive help you achieve your goals in life? These are some of the questions that, when asked of people with disabilities, provide information about their quality of life as seen from their perspectives. Ensuring that information of this type can be gathered in a reliable and valid manner is a key part of the work of the new Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Home and Community Based Services Outcome Measurement (RRTC/OM) at the Institute on Community Integration (ICI).

Federal and state policymakers increasingly speak of the importance of demonstrating the effectiveness (“outcomes”) of public investments in services for persons with disabilities. No longer satisfied with descriptions of money spent, staffing ratios, and movement of people from institutions to the community, they desire more specific information on the quality of life experienced as a result of receiving services and supports. And they desire outcomes information measured in a consistent and accurate manner nationwide.

In response to these needs, ICI has received a five-year, $4.4 million grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to launch the RRTC/OM. The new center, directed by ICI’s Brian Abery and Amy Hewitt, is a partnership of five organizations: ICI’s Research and Training Center on Community Living, the Research and Training Center on Community Living for People with Psychiatric Disabilities at Temple University, the Research and Training Center on Community Living Policy at the University of California San Francisco, The National Council on Aging, and the Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation at The Ohio State University.

“The National Quality Forum recently unveiled a draft framework for HCBS outcome measurement for people with disabilities,” says Abery. “We will initially look at that framework to see whether it captures the perspectives of a wide variety of stakeholders, including people with different types of disabilities who are of different ages and from different cultural groups, as well as their family members, service providers, and policymakers. We’ll then recommend modifications to ensure the framework reflects what’s truly important to people with disabilities in terms of service outcomes.”

Five subsequent RRTC/OM studies will identify gaps in measurement areas and best practices in HCBS outcome measurement, refine and develop measures, determine the reliability and validity of measures, and study factors (e.g., age, gender, residential setting) that need to be considered in interpreting results.

Ultimately, the work of the RRTC/OM will result in a set of recommended measures and procedures that can be used for collecting data on whether the HCBS-funded programs do what they’re intended to do in supporting quality-of-life outcomes for individuals with physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities; individuals with traumatic brain injury; and adults with age-related disabilities.

“The U.S. spends nearly $40 billion a year on HCBS-funded services that are used by nearly 1.5 million individuals, yet, we have very little information on the outcomes of these services and supports for most HCBS recipients,” says Hewitt. “We hope this new center will lead to improvement in this area.”

For more information about the RRTC/OM, contact Brian Abery at abery001@umn.edu or 612-625-5592.

ICI’s Amy Hewitt part of training team in Malawi

November 6, 2014

Dr. Amy Hewitt, from the Institute on Community Integration and Minnesota LEND, recently completed a visit to Africa where she participated in a collaborative training project with long-time colleague Mikala Mukongolwa of the Baulini Project and Dr. Jason Paltzer, director of the Kingdom Workers Lutheran Health Alliance. The team made stops in Zambia and Malawi, where they taught volunteers from Kingdom Workers how to assess the needs of, and implement strategies to improve the lives of, children and adults with disabilities in a number of southern villages in Malawi, where the need for education and training is great. For more see the Association of University Centers on Disabilities Member Spotlight.

Hewitt begins as president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

July 16, 2014

Hewitt_Amy_print_quality_photoAmy Hewitt, director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living in the college’s Institute on Community Integration, began her term as president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) on July 1, 2014. With over 5,000 members, AAIDD promotes progressive policies, sound research, effective practices, and universal human rights for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Hewitt Guest Blogs for AUCD

April 16, 2013

Hewitt_Amy_140pixels_wAmy Hewitt, director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living, Institute on Community Integration, is the April 2013 guest blogger on “Early Career Professionals,” a blog hosted by the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD). In her April 9 post, titled “Just Some ‘Food for Thought,” she describes her career path in the field of disabilities research and advocacy, and shares some principles that have guided her work.

ICI staff presentations at international conference

August 16, 2012

On July 9-14, eight staff members from the College’s Institute on Community Integration (ICI) were presenters and/or moderators at the 2012 International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities World Congress in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The staff and their topics were: Brian Abery, self-determination; Angela Amado, social inclusion; Amy Hewitt, family support; David Johnson, postsecondary education for individuals with intellectual disabilities; Sheryl Larson, predictors of outcomes, and health and wellness; Derek Nord, staff training, employment and economic self-sufficiency; Lori Sedlezky, self-determination; and Renáta Tichá, self-determination and participation in activities.

Hewitt named Vice President of AAIDD Board of Directors

April 16, 2012

Hewitt_Amy_140pixels_wIn March, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) named Amy Hewitt as vice-president of its 2012-2013 board of directors. The board of AAIDD is elected by its membership in annual elections. She and her fellow board members assume their new duties on July 1, 2012. Hewitt is director of the Research & Training Center on Community Living at the College’s Institute on Community Integration.

ICI staff speak at conferences

November 17, 2011

Staff from the Institute on Community Integration presented at three conferences around the country this past month. On November 8, Amy Hewitt and Kelly Nye-Lengerman spoke on understanding and building socially inclusive communities in the African nation of Zambia at the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) annual conference in Washington, D.C. Jean Ness co-presented on The Young American Indian Entrepreneur curriculum and culture-based arts integration at the National Indian Education Association conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico on October 29. Sharon Mulé co-presented a workshop on internships and e-mentoring for persons with disabilities at the Arc of Minnesota Conference on November 4-5 at Breezy Point Resort. She also facilitated panel discussions on innovative postsecondary education options for students with disabilities, and parent perspectives on friendship-building for young children with disabilities.

Hewitt new director of Research and Training Center on Community Living

August 1, 2011

Hewitt_Amy_140pixels_wAmy Hewitt, Ph.D., has been selected as the new director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living (RTC) in the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration (ICI). She will assume the new role effective August 15, 2011, succeeding Charlie Lakin, Ph.D., who has been appointed director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research in the U.S. Department of Education.
Hewitt has worked at the RTC for the past 20 years and has an extensive background of research, publishing, and training in the areas of services, supports, and policies impacting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She has served as coordinator of the College of Education and Human Development’s Certificate in Disability Policy and Services, jointly offered through ICI and the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, and is also co-director of the Minnesota LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Other Disabilities), a joint program of the Department of Pediatrics and ICI. She and her many colleagues within the RTC look forward to continuing to build upon the strong foundation for the center’s internationally-respected work developed under Lakin’s decades of leadership.

A focus on autism in Zambia

March 16, 2011

A delegation from the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) will fly to Zambia on March 30 for two weeks of work with disability rights leaders developing and improving services and supports for people with disabilities and their families. The trip is part of the work of the Twin Cities Zambia Disability Connection — a partnership of ICI, Arc Greater Twin Cities, Fraser, Opportunity Partners, and Zambian disability rights leaders — which was formed in 2008.
This will be the fourth time ICI staff have traveled to Zambia (Zambian delegations visited the Twin Cities in 2008 and 2010), and it will be the first time there has been an emphasis on autism. “The last time our Zambian colleagues were here they had a chance to visit the autism spectrum disorders clinic at the University and a number of autism-specific programs in Minnesota,” notes Amy Hewitt, project director. “They asked us to help them build autism expertise in Zambia. This trip is hopefully the first of many exchanges that will focus on autism.” To learn more, see the ICI staff newsletter.