Absolute Priority: Preparation of Related Services Personnel Serving Children with Disabilities who have High-Intensity Needs. The purpose of this priority is to increase the number and improve the quality of related services personnel, including multilingual personnel and personnel from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, who are fully credentialed to serve children who have high-intensity needs in related services. The priority will fund high-quality projects that prepare scholars in related services at the bachelor’s degree, certification, master’s degree, educational specialist degree, or clinical doctoral degree for professional practice in natural environments, early childhood programs, classrooms, school settings, and in distance learning environments serving children with disabilities who have high-intensity needs.
Within this absolute priority, the Secretary intends to support projects under the following two focus areas. Applicants must identify the specific focus area (i.e., A or B) under which they are applying as part of the competition.
Related services includes the following: speech-language pathology and audiology services; interpreting services; psychological services; applied behavior analysis; physical therapy and occupational therapy; recreation, including therapeutic recreation; social work services; counseling services, including rehabilitation counseling; and orientation and mobility services.
For further details on scholar recruitment and support, see https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepprep/325r-2023-program-brochure.pdf#page=4.
Estimated Total Program Funding:
