The UCLA Tarjan Center hosted a webinar in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Boston on Supported Education: Finding the Right Support for College Success. In this webinar, Dr. Maria Paiewonsky and Ashley Luce discussed supported education models and highlighted the benefits of providing educational support to students. They delineated specific roles and responsibilities that support staff fulfill, including offering encouragement, providing academic assistance, giving corrective feedback, and prompting organizational skill-building and social-skill awareness.

In collaboration with Dr. Brian Freedman at the University of Delaware, the UCLA Tarjan Center hosted a webinar on “Students with Autism and Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities: Considerations for Returning to In-Person Instruction”. As we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, our society remains scared, confused, and exhausted. In particular, students with disabilities and higher education staff who support them have faced incredible challenges and what seems like constant – often uncomfortable – changes. Through this webinar, Dr. Freedman led webinar participants to reflect on the stress experienced by college students who are autistic and those with other intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD). He described individual and systemic strategies and resources to support them as we consider returning to in-person instruction.

The UCLA Tarjan Center hosted a webinar on “Neurodiversity on Campus: Student-Centered Services and Faculty Support”, in collaboration with Dr. Natalie Holdren of Santa Barbara City College. Through this webinar, Dr. Holdren provided an overview of the ways Santa Barbara City College worked to facilitate student success through a package of supports that embrace a neurodiversity perspective, student-centered approaches, and faculty and staff training. Dr. Holdren highlighted some of the barriers that students on the spectrum face in navigating postsecondary education, especially in the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. She shared the college’s struggles, student feedback, and lessons learned to create dialogue around promising practices for meeting student needs, and strategies that were implemented to provide student-centered services.

The Tarjan Center at UCLA, in collaboration with Larry Schallert, LCSW, DCSW of College of the Canyons, and Molly K. Rearick, Ed.D., of Ignite Collective, Inc. hosted a webinar on “Guidance and Coping Strategies for Supporting Students (Including those with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and with an Intellectual Disability) and Colleagues with Anxiety and Stress, in Uncertain and Turbulent Times”. The webinar provided information about coping with stress, anxiety, and trauma. The presenters shared protective factors, as well as methods for addressing anxiety and distress with students and colleagues. Cultural factors, issues related to IDD, lessons learned from the implementation of distance learning, and how those lessons apply to supporting students with IDD in an online environment, were discussed.

The UCLA Tarjan Center hosted a webinar in collaboration with Mount San Antonio College on connecting students to campus resources in order to decrease barriers in achieving educational goals in the online setting. The webinar is divided into four segments. In the first segment, Briseida Ramirez Catalan, M.A., and Susan Stroebel, M.S. Ed., provide an overview of strategies to help students with an intellectual disability (ID) engage in online learning environments, and how to maximize students’ participation. In the second segment, Naomi Avila, MSW, M.A., provides a variety of outreach strategies that are used to decrease barriers encountered by students. In the third segment, Dr. Laura Espinosa, DPA, MSW, and Yasmin Cardona-Byrne, MSW, share information about connecting students with educational plans to keep them motivated and on track to complete their educational goals. In the final segment, Elizabeth Hernandez, M.Ed., and Heather Ponce, M.S. CCC-SLP, and Jacquelyn Dunlap introduce the Puzzle Project and how they persisted to engage students by creating successful online communities.

This webinar is designed to explain ways to impact students by collaborating with campus supports and faculty in order to increase student engagement in online classes. More specifically, it lists supports and resources for students who have autism and/or ID to aid social interaction and learning in a remote higher education environment.

The current crisis of COVID-19 including far-reaching responses such as “Stay at Home” directives, closures of schools and non-essentials businesses, mandated social distancing, and personal hygiene procedures have profoundly impacted the well-being of people nationally. Students enrolled in higher learning institutions when the pandemic hit are experiencing challenges impacting their mental health. Students with intellectual and other developmental disabilities, including those on the autism spectrum, are no exception. Personnel charged with assisting students academically, find themselves with an increasing duty to support the mental health of these students in addition to addressing their support needs in new virtual learning environments.

This webinar featured a panel presentation of lessons learned and “instructional nuggets” shared from the past (2020-2021) year. COVID-19 turned our instructional world on its head. The panelists shared authentic stories of uncertainty, failures, and successes, emerging practices, and lessons learned from our students. Allison Ferrier shared the invaluable role of and ways to utilize instructional assistance during a synchronous Zoom class. Beth Syverson presented online tools that helped her capitalize on the unique benefits of online teaching. Ivan Stanojkovic provided ways of keeping our sessions engaging, interactive, and with limited bugs. Katie Stubblefield shared how she used TV game-show strategies to inspire participation and engagement. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer session.

The UCLA Tarjan Center provided a webinar on Belonging in a College Community (both virtual and traditional) for Students with Autism and/or Intellectual Disabilities. The purpose of the webinar was to provide an overview of belonging in a college community of belonging in a college community (both virtual and traditional for students with autism and or intellectual disabilities. The presenter, Michael Hoggatt, M.S., MPA, Ph.D., DSPS Chair/Advisor-Saddleback Superfriends, of Saddleback College examined how program structures affect image and competency perceptions of students involved in programs for students with autism and/or intellectual disabilities. Moreover, Dr. Hoggatt led community colleges to look at key indicators of program success and belonging, and how these may be applied to local programs/ departments.

The Tarjan Center at UCLA hosted a webinar on Practical Strategies for Engaging Students with ID and ASD in the Emerging Online Higher Education Environment on Friday, April 17, 2020. The presenters will be Angela Guevara, M.S., Associate Professor/Faculty Coordinator, Santiago Canyon College; Stacy Eldred, M.A., Chair of Occupational and Academic Skills for Independence and Success (OASIS)/Adult Education with Disabilities (AEWD) Program, Saddleback College; and Michael Hoggatt, M.S., MPA, Ph.D., Chair DSPS/Advisor-Saddleback College.

The presenters discussed elements of planning, training, implementation, and follow-through that they pursued over several weeks, in the transition to online instruction. They shared emerging practices and practical strategies for engaging students with ID and ASD in the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the 2019-2020 academic year, the 115 California Community Colleges were initiating and implementing practices designed to improve student outcomes (e.g., focused on increasing the number of students who earn a degree, credential, certificate, or transfer to four-year institutions or attain employment, in high demand jobs).

In the advent of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, it will be important for the colleges to engage with students with an intellectual disability (ID) and students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as soon as possible in the new online environment. This webinar was designed to respond to emerging needs to support students in the wake of the Coronavirus. It features presentations by Maria Paiewonsky, Ed.D. and Jane Thierfeld-Brown, Ed.D. Dr. Paiewonsky provided strategies for supporting students with ID, and Dr. Theirfeld-Brown provided strategies for supporting students with ASD.

California community colleges (system wide) are currently working on improving the institutions’ ability to assist students to enter and move through higher education. San Joaquin Delta College found that the transition to college was a challenge for some students with disabilities and developed the Transition for Academic Success is Key (TASK) Program. TASK is a two-week learning community curriculum designed to assist 30 students to transition from high school to college. The primary goal of TASK is to build students’ (with disabilities) ability to achieve academic success. The purpose of the webinar was to share how to design and implement programs like TASK on other college campuses.