Old News Archives

Attending the March 2007 TBI Grantee Meeting sparked Missouri’s curiosity about what was going on in their State’s school systems related to children and youth with TBI.  The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) learned that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) had been considering revamping its existing TBI training modules.  However, the existing three-day training modules were highly medical and DESE was interested in developing a less time intensive and more teacher-friendly training. 

 
DESE and DHSS decided to work together to revise the modules.  Each agreed that they wanted to have the revised training available on-line to allow school personnel to access the information as needed.  Upon reviewing the modules, DHSS reported that the current training materials would require extensive revisions in order to make it a Web-based interactive training. 

 
Knowing that there was no need to “reinvent the wheel” and that many trainings specific to school personnel had been developed, DHSS searched the Federal TBI Program’s Collaboration Space (TBICS).  DHSS then chose and evaluated several of the trainings to determine which would best meet their needs.

The training that Missouri liked best was an on-line training developed by Tennessee’s Project BRAIN under their Federal TBI Program grant.  The training is set up as a “Virtual School” for information on the subject of traumatic brain injury.  The school consists of several “classrooms” containing information that is pertinent to school personnel working with students with traumatic brain injury.  Participants enter the school and access different sections of the school for information.  The sections include: 

Nurse’s Office - This room contains general information about the brain, the causes and effects of TBI, medical issues related to brain injury, and information about concussion or mild TBI. 

Family Resource Center - Information geared towards professionals and families is located in this room.  There are video interviews in which individuals with TBI, family members, and professionals share relevant information and personal insights about the effects of TBI.  The Family Resource Center also includes links to family/caregiver specific Web sites, recommended readings, and printable information for use by school professionals and families/caregivers. 

Classroom - The classroom has information on how the effects of brain injury might manifest within the educational environment, how skills may be impaired, general interventions for the classroom, and how to use the method of “Contextualized Hypothesis Testing” to determine what, how, when, and where interventions should be tested and implemented. Several printable case studies are included for a review of the concepts presented. 

Library - This virtual resource center contains Web links, printable information, recommended readings, and statistics about the incidence of TBI. Learn about terms commonly used in reference to TBI by taking advantage of the “TBI Dictionary.”

Upon DHSS’s recommendation, DESE reviewed Project BRAIN’s Web site and Virtual School.  DESE agreed that the Virtual School was exactly what they had in mind because it presented the material very comprehensively and creatively and the Web-based format would allow educators to access the information quickly and when needed.  Also, the training was created using a teacher-oriented model and not a medical oriented model. 

 
Missouri then approached Project BRAIN to obtain permission for DESE to include a link to the Virtual School on their Web site.  Once the permission was secured (Project BRAIN had to verify that the site could handle the additional traffic), a link was added.  In addition to the training resources available through the link, DHSS developed a list of TBI resources specific to Missouri that is accessed prior to entering the school.  Resources include: family support, educational information, State agencies, and rehabilitation hospitals.  Visit Missouri’s resource page, which includes a link to the Virtual School (PDF format) .

To read more about the collaboration.