Mary Shea visits Lee's Summit, MO

This is Mary Shea and I am writing as I return from Lee's Summit, Missouri after two days of training and consultation with the leadership and staff of Kids Country, one of our newest MEAF national affiliates. It was an energizing and busy couple of days and the staff I worked with was enthusiastic, well prepared for my visit and very welcoming.

It was Sunday (Mother's Day) and I arrived in Kansas City, got my rental car and drive 40 miles south to Lee's Summit, a town with a population of 82,820. It was a sunny day but managed to rain before the night was over, which is very typical of Midwest spring and summer days as I recall from growing up in Wisconsin. The rain was good-it kept me in the hotel reviewing the 3" notebook of policies and procedures, marketing materials, history and highlights of Kids Country over the past 13 years.

Kids Country is the before and after school provider for the 17 schools in the Lee's Summit R-7 School District and all the staff are school district employees. Monday morning started with Dawn Butler, Coordinator of Kids Country and Kristi Fate, Assistant Program Coordinator, both of who, I would spend many hours with during the next two days,s tarting our visits to Longview Farm Elementary School, which was a beautifully refurbished historic horsebarn and I was able to observe the before school program and start my day smiling watching kindergartners and 1st through 6th graders enjoying themselves at play- what a joy!

We spent the rest of the morning (after some good Seattle coffee) reviewing policies, procedures and programs, and outlining our goals for the visit. At lunch the three of us met with the Executive Director of Special Education Services and the Director of Classified Personnel and supervisor of Kids Country and we were joined by Christy Weber, a Registered Nurse and the newest hire on the leadership team. We made several more site visits in the afternoon where I met with and observed some terrific site supervisors and program staff engaged with kids and providing some excellent programs.

That night the entire Kids Country staff (~100) attended the Fear Factor workshop and once we gave them box dinners and let them wind down for a few minutes after working all day, we had a wonderful workshop and lots of energy and great ideas coming from the staff. It was a big success and thanks to Nancy McCutcheon, Quality Advisor, who prepared all the materials and coordinated the training.

Tuesday started with another site visit and was followed by training for the 21 members of the leadership team which included all 17 site coordinators, Dawn, Kristi, Christy and Nancy where I reviewed indicators of quality programming and introduced strategies to support and empower staff. That meeting was followed by a Community Meeting where afterschool directors of 5 other cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area as well as the Director of Parks and Recreation for Lee's Summit and a parent came together to learn more about Kids Country and how they were progressing in their journey to inclusion. Dawn and I led them through the session identifying strengths and challenges of inclusion in their currently existing systems and Dawn, who is a legitimate boundary crosser committed Kids Country to share lessons learned, strategies and resources and together the community group re-affirmed their commitment to ensure that children and youth with disabilities in all of their cities would have access to quality afterschool programming. They are actually planning to host a statewide conference next year on that very issue and I am 100% sure it will happen!

Our afternoon ended with some last minute review of marketing material as well as strategic planning including suggesting a change in the current Kids Country Parent Advisory Committee (PAC). To date the program has had the Advisory Committee and a separate but parallel committee, the Ability Awareness Team (parents of children and youth with disabilities). With some reflection and guided instruction (my very favorite thing to do), Dawn and Kristi and I were able to draft an agenda for the evening PAC meeting where Dawn would introduce the concept of combining both groups of parents as well as inviting other people from the community who are interested in kids and families and would commit as stakeholders to this community vision. It was very well attended and Dawn did an outstanding job of inviting them all to this new process and two hours later they were still meeting in one of four individual subcommittees that would address program, professional development, cultural competence and diversity, and funding and sustainability. The energy in the room was infectious and when I returned to my hotel room 13 hours after the day started, I could only smile and be reassured that these Kids Country folks would continue to make a difference in the lives of children and youth with disabilities and their families, not only in Lee's Summit but in the entire state of Missouri and probably across the river in Kansas!

Meet Alissa Lavelle

As promised, I am going to use this blog post to brag about another KIT superstar- Alissa Lavelle. If you have scheduled or attended a KIT training, you have probably encountered Alissa. In addition to her outstanding work developing curriculum and organizing training events, Alissa also frequently facilitates training. One of our other KIT trainers dubbed her the "power pack." It's true. Alissa is a big ball of passion and fire in a small package. She has a wealth of both knowledge and practical experience, which can be a surprise to our training participants as she also looks a lot younger than her chronological age. Learn more about Alissa and her background on the KIT website.
Alissa's interests related to inclusion are very broad. She frequently researches new topics for training, and her initiatives have included popular training sessions on supporting children's social-emotional needs, creating behavior plans and examining your physical and sensory environment. In the above photo she teaches basic sign language to a group of participants taking a training on accommodations for children with autism spectrum disorders. You can view one of Alissa's recent webinars on the topics of helping children understand their peers with autism or how attachment affects inclusion.

At KIT, staff members tend to wear a lot of different hats. As you can see from the photos, Alissa has served as a model for our new inclusion t-shirts, a trainer, an actor in the video shoot for the eLearning module on Supporting Positive Behavior and the manager of the Snow Zone at a KIT sponsored community festival.

If you haven't had a chance to attend one of Alissa's live trainings or webinars, then I recommend that you do! Check the training calendar to find an upcoming event.

Best Kept Secret

In today's post, I'd like to share with you one of KIT's best kept secrets. A best kept secret is something that is an outstanding service, that many people don't even know about. We actually have a couple of these little gems, so I'll share them with you over the next month or so in the blog. Today's secret is our helpline, which is managed by KIT's Program Specialist, Nili Mathews.



The purpose of the helpline is to provide customized inclusion support for staff at child and youth programs. The service is FREE. I'll say it again. The service is FREE. All you have to do is email your question to help at kitonline dot org (spelling it out to protect us from spammers!) and Nili will respond with an email or phone call and help you with any inclusion-related challenge.






Just so you know what kind of excellent quality you are getting with this service, let me tell you a little bit about Nili. She will not be happy that I am doing this, so I hope she doesn't read the blog. Anyway, Nili has been at KIT since the beginning. In fact, she worked in the original program that became KIT. She then spent years working for the YMCAs in San Diego County as an inclusion specialist, while also serving as a KIT trainer. Nili joined the KIT staff several years ago to head up a project funded by First Five. Nili is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) and she has over 20 years of experience serving people with disabilities in recreation activities.



Many of you have experienced Nili's dynamic and engaging training sessions. She is the only KIT trainer who always gets comments on evaluation forms that she is funny. I believe that people learn better when they are having fun and laughing, so I appreciate Nili's lighthearted approach to training. What you may not have experienced is Nili's ability to come up with accommodations for situations on-the-spot. She is a good listener and committed to helping youth development professionals work through challenges and find solutions. She has experience in many types of early childhood and after school settings. If you email the helpline with a question about how to better serve a child in your program, you will receive some great recommendations of things to try.

I am so grateful for the amazing, passionate and talented people I get to work with at KIT. In my next post I plan to brag about KIT's Program Coordinator, Alissa Lavelle.

Images of inclusion

I am back in the KIT office in San Diego after my trip visiting Metropolitan Family Service (MFS) in Portland, OR and facilitating a two-day training with child care providers in Pleasant Hill, CA. Having the opportunity to get out and do training with child and youth professionals and hear their voices is always an eye-opening experience. I was particularly impressed with the words and images chosen by site coordinators and program managers at MFS when they were asked to portray what inclusion means to them during a focus group. Every organization possesses its own strengths and faces unique challenges with regards to inclusion. It always amazes me that no matter what the organization's strengths and challenges may be, the individuals working within the organization always touch upon the central themes of acceptance, belonging, and support when asked to describe what inclusion means to them.