Zambians Using College of Direct Support

It has been exciting for us to hear about how the College of Direct Support (CDS) has been used in the country of Zambia. Makela has been using the CDS and has completed two courses, Positive Behavior Support and Teaching Skills. She is a Principal at Bauleni and has reported using the information and skills that she has learned in the CDS courses to teach and develop the skills of her teachers at the boarding school and in her home based education program. She indicated, "I learned that when a child has behavior it could be because they are trying to communicate. That had never even entered my mind."

In addition to the use of CDS by the Zambian team members who attending the leadership training program in the United States, others are interested as well. The Lusaka Ministry of Education is likely going to set up a learning lab in their resource center so that teachers can access the College of Direct Support. Additionally, Zamise (Zambia Institute for Special Education) is interested in providing the College of Direct Support curriculum to the 120+ special education teachers that they graduate each year. Having learned about their
curriculum, it is evident that the College of Direct Support curriculum could be useful in many ways.

In a meeting earlier in the week we learned about the many needs that educators, families and policy makers have regarding disability services and issues in Zambia. These include working with families and support networks, basic values and attitudes toward people with disabilities, supporting children and adults with autism, working with children who have challenging behavior, transition and employment issues among many others. The CDS certainly contains much of this content.

We will follow up with our Zambian colleagues and begin registering new learners for the CDS as they are identified.