The vision is to build a network of people to share information and activities related to family leadership development for families of children who are deaf-blind or have additional disabilities.
Introduction
The Family Leadership Website at www.familieslead.org is a large collection of resources designed to help parents, grandparents, and other family members of children with disabilites become family leaders. The project is funded by OSEP and was originally developed at the University of Vermont.
[ Screencast showing the main features of the Family Leadership website. ]
Starting with Weebly
The original website was designed and built on the Weebly web-based site design service. Weebly is a platform that allows anyone to quickly create a website for free. The Weebly implementation served the projects purpose for awhile but there were some drawbacks. For example, the Weebly site is not searchable, the navigation is complex, and maintaining the multitude of resources proved to be cumbersome. These factors, coupled with the inability of the original project director to maintain the site over time, are what led The Teaching Research Institute to assume responsibility for maintenance of the site in 2010.
[ The original Family Leadership Weebly site. ]
The TRI Redesign
In 2011, TRI accepted funding from the University of Vermont to redesign and maintain the Family Leadership website.
[ The redesigned home page showcases artwork from deaf-blind children. ]
[ A simpler menu and navigation system makes resources easier to locate. ]
