question:Can you please provide some more examples of how solar-powered outdoor showers can benefit the environment? Also, do you have any recommendations on which brands or models to consider?

question:Can you please provide more information on how to properly maintain a solar-powered outdoor shower? Also, do you have any tips for installation and set up?

question:Can you provide more information on how to properly winterize the solar-powered outdoor shower? Also, do you have any tips for maximizing the water temperature during colder months?

question:Through outreach education, training and technical assistance, CCIDS faculty and staff enhance the capacity of individuals, communities, organizations, and state systems to create services and supports for individuals with disabilities. Methods reflect current and emerging evidence-based practices that are inclusive, accessible, self-determining, culturally competent, and socially responsible, respecting the inherent abilities of each person to contribute to society. The Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies seeks to enhance the capacity of individuals, communities, organizations, and state systems to create services and supports for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which reflect current and emerging best practices of inclusion, interdependence, self-determination, cultural competence, and respect for the inherent abilities of each person to contribute to society. An alphabetical listing of current CCIDS projects and initiatives appears below. Click on the project or initiative name for additional information. The R.M. Beaumont Corporation of Brunswick, ME and three University of Maine Researchers are collaborating on a 225K National Institutes of Health (NIH) Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant to complete the design, safety and usability testing of Afari™, a three-wheeled, aesthetically designed, adaptive mobility and fitness device. Over the one-year project period, inventors Elizabeth DePoy, Ph.D., and Stephen F. Gilson, Ph.D., professors of interdisciplinary disability studies at the University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies; and Vince Caccese, Ph.D., UMaine professor of mechanical engineering, will research the major barriers to timely commercialization of Afari™ so that they can be eliminated. For many people with disabilities and their families, faith communities can be a powerful source of natural community support and connection, as well as a doorway to other important outcomes in the areas of relationships, work, community living, recreation, and service. The University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (CCIDS) is one of many University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs) that will serve as collaborating partners on a new initiative, the Collaborative on Faith and Disability. The University of Maine has been contracted as a partner in a multi-site effort to conduct follow-up studies of Educare children as they enter kindergarten and progress through the early elementary years. This project is one of six to participate in the “Educare Follow-up Studies” project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). The University of Maine will be responsible for gathering Educare data in Maine over three school years and will contribute to the cross-site dataset at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC. The Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies, with funding from Maine EPSCoR/SEANET, is partnering with the Community Environmental Health Laboratory (CEHL) at MDI Biological Laboratory to train and engage middle/high school students with disabilities from coastal Hancock County school districts, in intertidal census work. CEHL works to identify and help remedy threats to public health and water quality on and around Mount Desert Island. Enrolled students are offered paid internships and receive training in the identification of invasive species, such as green crabs; data collection and data management. Student interns, supervised onsite by mentors, follow a scientific protocol and receive a variety of hands-on worksite skills. The University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (CCIDS) has received a subcontract from the University of Southern Maine, Muskie School of Public Service to provide professional development and consultation to the Statewide Professional Development Network (PDN) working to improve the quality of early care and education settings in Maine. The University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (CCIDS) is a member of Maine’s Supported Decision-Making Coalition, led by Disability Rights Maine. As a Coalition partner, CCIDS supports the expanded use of Supported Decision-Making by older adults and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to exercise greater self-determination, and the reform of policy and practice to make Supported Decision-Making a universally accepted alternative to guardianship. The University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies is partnering with the University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability, and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, in the New Hampshire-Maine Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (NH-ME LEND) Program. NH-ME LEND provides graduate level interdisciplinary training for students and professionals from diverse disciplines, including developmental pediatrics, early childhood education, social work, psychology, occupational therapy, health management and policy, and speech language pathology. Program activities include leadership development, clinical training, continuing education/technical assistance, research, and cultural competency field work. University of Maine trainees participate remotely in the weekly NH-ME LEND seminar through the use of eLearning and videoconferencing technology. Founded in 2007, the Sibling Leadership Network (SLN) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to providing siblings of individuals with disabilities the information, support and tools to advocate with their brothers and sisters and to promote issues important to them and their entire families. With assistance from a 2014-2015 New Hampshire LEND Program Community Fellow, the SLN and other state chapters, the University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies will create a Maine chapter of the Sibling Leadership Network for adult siblings of individuals with disabilities. What Shape is the Relationship between Child Outcomes and Classroom Assessment Scoring Systems? Child care quality is associated with child outcomes, but high-quality child care is rare. The goal of this project is to improve the understanding of the quantitative relationship between child outcomes and a measure of teacher-child interactions (the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, or CLASS) increasingly used in program improvement and in high-stakes applications such as quality rating and improvement systems and Head Start renewal. It addresses two research topics of current relevance to decision makers at local, state, and national levels: ongoing child care quality improvement and child wellbeing. View a listing of completed CCIDS projects and initiatives here. How is the University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies involved in improving the quality of early care and education settings in Maine?