Source: CVDaily Feed
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A new $7.6 million five-year grant to build relationship skills for youth in juvenile detention facilities is the latest of $13 million in funding for five different projects in Utah State University’s Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services.
“That’s a really exciting project for at-risk youth,” said the Dean of the College, Dr. Beth Foley. “Many students who are troubled haven’t grown up with really good realized examples of healthy relationships.
“So the purpose of this project is to help them get instruction on healthy relationship skills like communication and conflict management, decision-making and really improving kids ability to recognize abusive or unhealthy behaviors.”
A $2 million grant from the Rehabilitation Services Administration in the US Department of Education will train 240 counselors to work with individuals with disabilities.
“This one focuses on training rehab counselors to help students who are transitioning from high school to adult life,” said Dean Foley. “It helps them develop skills for post-secondary education opportunities or for employment.”
The Aggies Elevated program began in the fall of 2014, offering higher education to students with intellectual disabilities. Now it has received $1.1 million in support from the Office of Postsecondary Education in the US Department of Education.
“We really are excited about this program, it is the only one of its kind in Utah because it offers residential options to students with disabilities. They live on campus, live in the dorms. They work with peer mentors and they’re developing academic skills and going into internships so they can learn different career options and where their talents are. And they’re also getting the advantage of all the social relationships that develop in college.”
A $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help introduce students from three states to science, technology, engineering and math concepts through e-textiles.
“The idea is to help students start picturing themselves as scientists and in a really creative way. It is a collaborative effort with faculty from four departments and two colleges in one of our university centers and they’re trying to integrate best practices across all these fields. But the students will be learning how to make e-textiles; for instance one of the projects is making a temperature-sensing lunchbox.”
The final award, from the National Institutes of Health, focuses on physical rehabilitation of older adults.
“Our college provides services to people across the lifespan, so we have a lot of early childhood and school age programs. But we also have programs that serve the needs of older adults, in this case adults that might have had a stroke and have lost some physical abilities because of that or who might have a physical condition like Parkinson’s Disease that changes their movement abilities.”