Elaine Gabovitch, MPA, director of family and community partnerships for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities

“Welcome ambassador” isn’t in her job description, but it certainly could be. Not only is Elaine Gabovitch, MPA, the mother of a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and a grassroots advocate for all families dealing with ASDs, she is the director of family and community partnerships at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), and an alumna and faculty member of the Center’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program. Gabovitch’s multidimensional appreciation for how the Shriver Center integrates research, education and service to improve the quality of life for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families fuels her passion for connecting the disability community with Shriver’s efforts on its behalf.

Gabovitch remembers the warm welcome she received when she first visited the Shriver Center as a community member. “I wanted to participate in the research they were conducting to help families like ours,” she recalled. She met LEND Associate Director Carol Curtin, MSW, research assistant professor of family medicine & community health, who subsequently became her mentor when Gabovitch applied to become a LEND fellow.

One of 42 nationwide programs funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, LEND trains clinical professionals and qualified family members to become leaders in creating responsive, adaptive networks that provide the services and supports that help children and families affected by ASDs and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. Upon completing the nine-month curriculum in 2006, Gabovitch was invited to become a family faculty member. “Elaine was an exemplary LEND fellow, with the perfect combination of knowledge, skills and expertise to invigorate and expand our family-centered initiatives,” Curtin said.

“We are now focused on how to create communities of care for families, children and adults with disabilities,” said Gabovitch, who teaches several LEND courses, notably Family and Consumer Perspectives, in which fellows explore the impact of a child’s disability on the family, and how coordinated systems of care support families to help children with disabilities realize their full potential.

Gabovitch also plays an integral role in the Center’s research projects. She was a key contributor to a National Institutes of Health-funded, community-based participatory research project directed by principal investigator Richard Fleming, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, and helped establish a community advisory board of parents and professionals to inform the design of an intervention to increase physical activity in adolescents with autism. Guided by the group’s input, Shriver researchers designed a walking program at two local YMCAs.

To help ensure that the intervention would be fun for the teens, the team created the SPARC (Supporting Physical Activity and Recreation in the Community) Walking Club, complete with T-shirts, a mascot and a team cheer. “With input from families and professionals already working with physical fitness and kids with special needs in school systems and the community, we were able to make well-informed decisions so that the intervention could be meaningful and successful,” Gabovitch said.