National Professional Development Center on Inclusion

Staff

[ left to right: (top row) Virginia Buysse, Pam Winton, Shelley deFosset
(bottom row) Camille Catlett, Linzy Abraham ]

Pam Winton

Pam Winton is currently a Senior Scientist and Director of Outreach at FPG Child Development Institute. She has been involved in research, outreach, training, personnel development, and publishing related to inclusion for the last 25 years. This includes involvement on five different early childhood research institutes and directing (PI or Co-PI) six federally funded projects focused on professional development. Most recently, she was a Principal Investigator on two professional development projects: (1) Project IMPACT, funded by the US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the purpose of which is to implement and evaluate a model for providing credit-based professional development to early childhood teachers through distance learning via community colleges; and (2) Natural Allies, funded by OSEP, which has implemented and evaluated a model for statewide systems change related to serving young children with disabilities in inclusive natural environments. She has published over 35 articles, chapters and books on these topics. She and Co-PI Camille Catlett edited a book Preparing Effective Professionals: Evidence and Applications in Early Childhood and Early Intervention (Winton, McCollum & Catlett, in press). Committed to bridging the gap between research and practice, Dr. Winton has developed training curricula, serves on numerous advocacy boards and for seven years was Director of the Research to Practice Strand of the National Center for Early Development & Learning. She is also a Research Professor in the School of Education at UNC-CH and has taught interdisciplinary graduate courses in the areas of families, diversity, and teaming.

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Virginia Buysse

Virginia Buysse is a Senior Scientist at the FPG Child Development Center and Research Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She serves as PI (with Mary Ruth Coleman, PI) on a grant funded by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation to examine the evidence base of Recognition and Response, an early intervening system for children in pre-k who may be at risk for learning disabilities. She also serves as PI on Nuestros Niño: a grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education (Institute of Education Sciences) to examine the effects of professional development on teaching practices and language and literacy outcomes of Latino children enrolled in public pre-k programs. She is the Chair of the Research Committee for the Division of Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children. She also Chairs the FPG Disability Initiative and Co-Chairs the Diversity Committee for the FPG First School Initiative. Her research interests include early childhood inclusion, friendship and social-emotional development, language and literacy learning among Latino children, models of professional development, models of collaboration and change such as consultation and communities of practice, and program evaluation. She is the co-author (along with Patricia Wesley) of Consultation in Early Childhood Settings published by Paul H. Brookes and co-editor (along with Patricia Wesley) of a forthcoming volume, Evidence-Based Practice in the Early Childhood Field to be published by Zero To Three. She is a member of the editorial boards of Exceptional Children, Infants and Young Children, Journal of Early Intervention, Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, and Young Exceptional Children and serves as the co-editor (along with Pamela Winton, co-editor) of Early Developments, a national magazine published by FPG.

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Camille Catlett

Camille Catlett (Co-Principal Investigator) is currently an Investigator at the FPG Child Development Institute. In the past 16 years, Ms. Catlett has directed eight federally funded personnel preparation projects, and currently directs an OSEP project (Crosswalks). Ms. Catlett has extensive experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of state, regional and national training and technical assistance approaches, with emphasis on inclusive approaches that engage early childhood and early childhood special education/early intervention partners in collaborative planning to support all young children.

In addition to providing consultation to states, IHEs and industry, Ms. Catlett has presented nationally and internationally on preservice improvement, inclusion, cultural diversity, family-professional collaboration and interactive learning for diverse groups of adults. She brings 22 years of significant, focused experience in successful model development, implementation, and evaluation, productive collaboration with 30 different states, effective design, coordination, and evaluation of quality immersion institutes and quality product development and dissemination to this project.

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Shelley deFosset

Shelley deFosset (Co-Principal Investigator) is currently the Associate Director at the National Early Childhood TA Center (NECTAC) at the FPG Child Development Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill. In her eighteen years at NECTAC she has directed technical assistance for the Section 619 Preschool Program and is currently the Director of the Partner and Family Unit. In this role, she develops and implements group and individual TA activities for the Part C and Preschool Programs, guides NECTAC collaborative cross-agency work by maintaining awareness of and communication with the other national early childhood systems, projects and agencies. Shelley chairs the team that maintains the Center's expertise on inclusion and least restrictive environment (LRE) and develops and maintains a national Web Site on Inclusion. She is a facilitator of the OSEP Preschool LRE Community of Practice and co-chairs the National Early Childhood Summer Inclusion institute. Shelley is also staff to the Early Childhood Outcomes Center (ECO) where she provides technical assistance to state Part C and Preschool Programs developing outcome measurement systems. Shelley has presented nationally and internationally on inclusion, state and local systems development, service integration, collaboration, early childhood outcomes and IDEA. Shelley's thirty years experiences in the provision of consultation and technical assistance include work with Child Care, Head Start, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Navajo Indian Reservation, the Pacific Basin and Education Ministries in Russia and Mongolia.

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Linzy Abraham

Linzy Abraham has over 10 years of experience as a pediatric speech-language pathologist. She has worked directly with young children and their families in their homes and childcare settings. In addition, she has expertise in the use of assistive technology to support inclusion efforts. She has first-hand knowledge of the benefits of inclusion for children with disabilities and their families and also appreciates the challenges facing service providers and early childhood educators as they work to promote inclusive opportunities. Linzy has recently completed her Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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About NPDCI

Staff

Principal Investigator

Co- Principal Investigators

Project Coordinator