The Coleman Institute
UCCS and Coleman Institute
UCCS has a very special relationship with the ColemanInstitute for Cognitive Disabilities (CICD). In addition to participation in grants and fellowship programs and the annual conference sponsored by the institute, UCCS faculty, and graduate students have enjoyed regular personal conversations with the Institute administrators and founders. These conversations have explored the intersections of aging and disabilities work, partnerships for faculty and students in working with persons with cognitive disabilities across the lifespan, opportunities for careers of emerging scholars, and public-private partnerships to develop and test technologies that engage persons with cognitive disabilities in maximizing personal autonomy and person-directed care.
Programs Offered
The Coleman Institute made an early funding commitment to the Geropsychology program when it was under review by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, a show of support that lent credibility to the proposed program. The partnership that emerged from this commitment has been innovative and powerful. Several cohorts of Geropsychology doctoral students have benefitted from the opportunity to be Coleman Fellows. Students and faculty have participated in the Coleman Institute’s past annual conferences that emphasized research on technology to promote wellness. The natural crossover application for technologies to support persons with lifelong cognitive disabilities and late-onset, age-related cognitive disabilities has bred creative partnerships with Colorado-based companies as well as multi-campus collaborations on research.
The Coleman Institute has supported multiple years of trainee research at the intersection of disabilities and clinical Geropsychology. Past research studies have included aging families’ resistance to future planning for adults with cognitive disabilities, adults on the waitlist for disabilities services, and dementia in persons with Down’s Syndrome. The Coleman Institute has sponsored graduate students to collaborate with faculty and local Colorado companies, leading to research on technologies to foster self-management of health and pro-social engagement of families with cognitively impaired elders.
A three-way partnership among UCCS, The Resource Exchange, and the Coleman Institute has built a behavioral services program that meets the needs of individuals and families while serving as a training program. The training aspect of this services program ensures that the field is growing a much-needed professional workforce to meet the needs of future generations.