Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Sussex County Health Coalition hosted a virtual community forum on September 13. The event, “Best Practices in Meeting the Academic, Medical, Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs of Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” included a Sussex County community panel. Panelists from the Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities (MCDD) included MCDD director Maureen van Stone, Esq., MS, and Mallory Legg, Esq., JD, staff attorney for Project HEAL (Health, Education, Advocacy, and Law). Kennedy Krieger faculty members included Jennifer Crockett, PhD, BCBA-D; Rebecca Landa, PhD, CCC-SLP; Mary L. O’Connor Leppert, MB, BCh; Deepa Menon, MBBS; and Roma Vasa, MD.
Dr. Crockett is the director of Kennedy Krieger’s Behavior Health Services for Military Families, co-chair of the Institute’s Telehealth Committee and the lead for the Institute’s Telehealth Task Force. Dr. Landa is the founder and director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) and the REACH research program at the Institute. Dr. Leppert is the director of the Center for Development and Learning, co-director of the Infant Neurodevelopment Center and a member of the medical staff in the Department of Neurodevelopmental Medicine, all at Kennedy Krieger, and a consultant physician at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Menon is an assistant professor in the Neurology and Neurodevelopmental Medicine Program at Kennedy Krieger, the assistant medical director at CARD and the director of the Institute’s Telemedicine Committee. Dr. Vasa is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and the director of education and training at the Institute.
In addition to the collaboration with the Sussex County Health Coalition, van Stone gives a guest lecture every semester at the University of Delaware Senior Seminar in Disability Studies. The lecture, “Restraint and Seclusion: An Overview of Law and Practice,” begins with a brief overview of MCDD programs and services, then focuses on the patchwork of state laws, regulations, policies, procedures and guidelines covering restraint and seclusion in school settings because there is no federal law. Van Stone also covers the history of the “Keeping All Students Safe Act,” and offers Project HEAL case vignettes for discussion among the students. Her most recent virtual guest lecture took place on Monday, October 11, 2021.
