Peishi Wang and Sara Woolf were awarded $1.25 million from the United States Department of Education to fund their research to recruit, train, and mentor candidates to provide culturally responsive early intervention and early childhood special education services to families and young children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
The project, Culturally Aligned and Responsive Early Intervention (I-CARE), is a two-year development effort spearheaded by Wang and Woolf. Both are excited about their newly supported project. “Sara and I are both ecstatic about this project!” exclaims Wang. “It will provide us a mechanism to address three critical issues in the field: a critical lack of professionals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds; gaps in teacher education relative to the preparation of competent early interventions that can effectively work with students and families from said backgrounds; and proactive strategies to support early intervention and special education teacher candidates in ‘real time’ structures as an explicit step toward enhancing their early career successes and retention.”
The project also promotes the ongoing partnerships between Queens College and community-based agencies and schools in the metropolitan area that offer services to children with disabilities and their families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. “They will support us as practicum and internship sites,” says Wang. They will also request a more in-depth approach in identifying staff who will be serving as professional mentors to the program candidates. “We will be providing training and support to these professional mentors as one of the components of our grant,” continues Wang. “We envision the growth of many partnerships as a result of these activities; however, they will be nurtured in collaborative ways, once we more formally identify our community partner agencies.”
Read story brief in NY Daily News
