About the Presenters

Call 1: Implementing Positive Behavior Supports Within Local Systems

Dr. Lise Fox is a professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies of the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida and the Director of Florida Center for Inclusive Communities: A University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (flfcic.fmhi.usf.edu/). Lise is also the Director of the Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Interventions for Young Children (challengingbehavior.fmhi.usf.edu/) funded by the Office of Special Education Programs and a faculty member with the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (www.vanderbilt.edu/csefel). In addition, she is involved in research efforts related to the implementation of the teaching pyramid model in early education and care classrooms, program-wide models of implementation, and positive behavior support. Dr. Fox has numerous publications related to supporting young children with challenging behavior and their families including resources for training practitioners on research-based practices for classroom implementation.

Linda Broyles serves as a member of the Leadership team at the Southeast Kansas Community Action Program (SEK-CAP) in Girard, Kansas and is the Deputy Director of the agency. Linda is also responsible for overseeing the Early Childhood Services Department which includes child care and Head Start services for 838 children from birth to age five. Linda began her journey in the field of early childhood as a child care provider in her home. She became a Head Start parent in 1978 when her youngest child entered the program. Since that time she has worked within the same program at a variety of positions, including a classroom teacher, a home visitor, parent involvement specialist & transition specialist. She has served in a variety of leadership roles within the early learning community with the most recent being the president of the Kansas Head Start Association. Linda currently serves on the board of the Kansas Association of Community Action Programs (KACAP). Her expertise has been gained through real experience working in the field of early childhood over the past 30 years.

In 2001, the SEK-CAP Positive Behavior Support Leadership Team implemented a program-wide model of the Teaching Pyramid. Through the implementation of this model of addressing challenging behaviors over the past seven years, the program has seen increased staff satisfaction and teamwork, decreased staff turnover, teachers who feel more competent and confident, child outcomes strengthened due to additional opportunities to teach, staff who know the children better, and decreased mental health referrals. As the program administrator, Linda has had a key role in the development and implementation of the program-wide model over their twelve counties and 7200 square miles. She will discuss the critical role of an administrator in sustaining this approach.

Call 2: Implementing Professional Development Strategies with Direct Service Providers Using Positive Behavior Supports

Sandra Reifeiss, M.S.E. is the Special Education Early Childhood Program Director in the Arkansas Department of Education, Special Education Unit. She has maintained that position from 1990 until the present. Other positions she has held have included Chapter I Language Development Supervisor and Speech/ Language Pathologist. Sandra has over 34 years of experience in the field of Early Childhood and holds a M.S.E. and B.S.E. degrees in Special Education (Learning Disabilities and Communicative Disorders) from the University of Central Arkansas. She holds a National-Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech Pathology by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and a State of Arkansas license in Speech Pathology and Teacher Licensure in Special Education.

Judy Clay, M.S.E. is the Early Childhood Special Education Director for Arch Ford Education Service Cooperative in Plumerville, Arkansas. Judy is responsible for the overall operations of the Early Childhood Program which provides special education services to children with disabilities age three to five. Services are provided on behalf of 27 public school districts in seven counties. Arch Ford Cooperative is the largest cooperative in Arkansas in terms of member districts and geographic location. The areas served include both urban and rural communities.

Judy helped organize and incorporate the Arkansas Special Education Early Childhood Professionals (ASEP) in which she serves as President. She currently serves on the Board of the Arkansas Association of Special Education Administrators and has actively been involved and served on the Board of the Arkansas Council of Exceptional Children (CEC) and the Arkansas Division of Early Childhood (DEC). In 1997, Judy was awarded the American Council on Rural Special Education (ACRES) Exemplary Program Award in recognition of professional excellence and outstanding contributions to rural special education.

She has a total of 32 years experience in the field of special education. She began her career as a Speech Language Pathologist and worked in both private and public school settings for 12 years. She has served in the current position for the past twenty years. As Early Childhood Coordinator, she has worked closely with local agencies and universities to promote the development of best practices for teachers and the students they serve. She emphasizes the importance of providing quality preschool services in an effort to prepare children for future school success.

Dr. Shelia Smith serves as the Early Childhood Behavior Specialist at Arch Ford Education Service Cooperative located in Plumerville, Arkansas. In 2005, Dr. Smith in collaboration with Judy Clay, Early Childhood Coordinator, established the Behavior Services Program to address challenging behaviors in the early childhood setting. As an Early Childhood Behavior Specialist, Dr. Smith travels across the seven counties served by the cooperative consulting with teachers and parents to assist with the implementation of positive behavior supports in the early childhood setting. She also provides training to early childhood teachers, special educators, speech language therapists, parents, and other professionals across the state on managing challenging behaviors using research-based practices.

Dr. Smith is a licensed psychologist in the state of Arkansas. She received a doctorate in school psychology with a training emphasis in early childhood from the University of Central Arkansas. Her previous experiences include psychological examiner in a pediatric day treatment program, school based mental health therapist, and assistant professor at the University of Central Arkansas.

Call 4: Response to Intervention Goes to Pre-K: An Early Intervening System Called Recognition and Response

Dr. Virginia Buysse is a Senior Scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is PI on a study that is developing and validating Recognition and Response, an early intervening system adapted from Response to Intervention (RTI) for use in pre-kindergarten programs. She serves as Co-PI on the National Professional Development Center on Inclusion and is Co-PI on CONNECT (Center to Mobilize Early Childhood Knowledge), both funded by the U.S. Department of Education (OSEP). She is Vice President and future President-Elect of the Division of Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children. She is Associate Editor of the Journal for Early Intervention and serves on the editorial boards of a number of other leading journals in early education and early intervention.

Dr. Ellen Peisner-Feinberg is a Scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute, and a Research Associate Professor, School of Education, both at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). She is the Co-PI on the Recognition and Response Project. She studies the effects of child care experiences on children's development; quality of practices in child care centers, family child care, public preschool, and Head Start; evaluation of early childhood programs; family beliefs and practices.

For information regarding these calls, contact Kathy Whaley at NECTAC at (919) 962-7317 or whaley@mail.fpg.unc.edu

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