Focus Area: Education

Education Emphasis Overarching Goal:

Improve access to and success in all levels of education for Iw/IDD and other disabilities as measured by the number of trainees being served and change in their attitudes, behavior, knowledge, and skills.

CDS and Education

HI-UCEDD is dedicated to increasing educational opportunities for and success of IWD and currently houses 30 projects through leveraging the UCEDD core funding. Our current projects focus on a wide range of needs and include literacy education; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; early intervention; culturally responsive education; postsecondary transition; social-emotional development; twice-exceptionality; and services for individuals with Deaf, hard of hearing, and Deaf/blind. This includes early childhood through postsecondary education programs for students and also family, teacher, and postsecondary education faculty training. Our projects use culturally responsive pedagogy as attending to students’ cultural and linguistic diversity and include family engagement frameworks. CDS also has a statewide Family Engagement Center, which promotes collaboration between schools and families through multiple partnerships with various state and non-profit organizations with a focus on improving student learning. In the next five years we will promote collaboration among various projects within the CDS for more streamlined services for SWD and their families, strengthen the partnership with national, state, and local organizations, and strengthen our early intervention initiatives to be more responsive to the current needs within the State of Hawaiʻi related to early childhood education.