NEST: Network for Education, Scholarship, and innovaTion in autism care
Student Led Environment - Innovating Autism Care
What is it? A Student-Led Environment (SLE), an innovative education & practice training model. Our SLE is called - SLED-VAST - SLED VAST stands for Student-Led Environments to Deliver Virtual Autism Supports for Wait-times.
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The goals? SLED-VAST is a) building capacity in the next generation of clinicians who will be supporting children and families within the Ontario Autism Program; and b) filling gaps within the current systems and creating innovative tools and programs to enhance the current system.
(Visit our Action section for more.)
Why is SLED-VAST important? Student-Led Environments (SLEs) are an efficient, effective, and evidence-informed education solution to system and workforce capacity pressures.
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Who is involved?
Co-led by the Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE), University of Toronto, and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, in partnership with:
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George Jeffries Children’s Centre
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FIREFLY Physical, Emotional, Developmental, and Community Services
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NOSM University
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McMaster University
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UHN’s The Institute for Education Research (TIER)
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Western University
Please see the full SLED-VAST Consortium list here.
Facilitation team:
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Amanda Binns, PhD, SLP - CCC Reg. CASLPO, Farah Friesen, MI. and Holland Bloorview Family as Faculty Alifa Khan and Gunjan Seth,
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Funded by the OAP Workplace Capacity Fund.
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SLEs have shown promising results in cost reduction, patient satisfaction rates, and student learning outcomes
(Oosterom 2019).
The SLED-VAST Student Led environment Education Program received the Ministry of Colleges and Universities' 2021/2022 Minister's Awards of Excellence in the category of Future-Proofing Ontario's Students.