Tennessee Believes Grant helps IDEAL students achieve more independence

Grant funds new Advanced Certificate for IDEAL completers who desire a four-year college experience.

Courtney Grable  |  10/02/2023

This fall, the Igniting the Dream of Education and Access at Lipscomb (IDEAL) program started the school year by marking its 10th anniversary and providing more support and services to its participants than ever before.

Thanks to a three-year, $300,000 Tennessee Believes Grant from the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD), IDEAL is now enrolling students in an optional Advanced Certificate program, providing services for another two years after they have completed the two-year Certificate of Career Exploration.

This fall, 22 IDEAL students, the most ever, are enrolled in the two certificate programs.

“IDEAL is a two-year certificate program and I feel strongly that we need to maintain that program because for some families, that’s all they really want is two years,” said Misty Parsley, professor and executive director of the Office of Accessibility and Learning Supports. “We have other families that really want the four year experience, so we added the Advanced Certificate.” 

During the first two years of the IDEAL program, enrolled students are encouraged and supported to experience all Lipscomb has to offer, right alongside their peers. This includes taking classes, going to sporting and cultural events, completing internships, eating in the cafeteria, attending chapel and much more within the Lipscomb community.

In the third year, students have the choice to live on or off campus and still have classes on campus, but they’re also working a paid job on or off campus. In the fourth year, students are primarily working off campus, but are still provided support. “It really takes staff to provide that support to third- and fourth-year students, so the grant is helping us fund a staff member whose job is partially dedicated to the Advanced Program,” says Parsley. 

The grant also helps fund transportation for students to commute to work. “One of the biggest challenges with our young people in IDEAL and young people with intellectual disabilities is that a lot of them don’t drive, so while they have a job off campus, they don’t have a way to get there,” said Parsley. “The grant provides funds so that the Uber cost is not so expensive to the student or the family, because otherwise they get their paycheck and it all goes to get them to work.

“Everything about the third and fourth year in the Advanced Program is working towards independence as much as possible, so that when they leave us at the end of the fourth year, they are ready to live however independently that they want to live,” she said. “That’s why the funding is really helping us be able to dedicate the time, staff and materials for our students to be successful.”

When the College of Education launched the IDEAL program in January 2014, they had one goal: to help as many students with intellectual disabilities experience a college education as possible. The first cohort had only three students, today 65 students have earned their Certificates of Career Exploration. 

The idea for IDEAL was inspired when Candice McQueen, formerly the Dean of the College of Education, participated on the task force that started the Next Steps program at Vanderbilt University. In 2012, after the task force evolved into the Tennessee Alliance, McQueen asked Parsley to take her place on the Tennessee Alliance and to pursue starting a similar program on Lipscomb’s campus.

The two-year IDEAL certificate, acknowledged by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, is designed to encourage and support  students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to experience college as their peers do. The program incorporates academic and skill-building classes, exercise sessions, daily internships, leisure time and a daily study period. 

In 2015, IDEAL received a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education through its Model Comprehensive Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities initiative.

“We now have nine programs across the state of Tennessee, but there’s no way we could ever serve all the students with intellectual disabilities who want to come to college, which is why the DIDD provides the Tennessee Believes grants,” remarks Parsley. “We still don’t have enough spots, so it’s crucial to our state leaders that these programs continue to grow.”