Bilingual Educational Consultant

The Bilingual (Spanish/English) Educational Consultant (30 hours per week, full-time) role is part of The Department of Special Education at Vanderbilt University and is a responsible primarily for assessment and data quality. This position reports directly to the project coordinator/Co-PI for all research tasks (e.g. training, conducting assessments, scoring assessments, transcription, data entry). The position start date is not before May 15, 2021 and working hours are flexible and typically occur between 9 am and 4 pm Monday-Friday. The Bilingual Educational Consultant must be able/ willing to travel locally to families homes and community settings.

Ranked as the #1 Special Education Program in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for more than a decade, our department has long been a leader both in research and practice.

The mission of the Department of Special Education is to improve the lives of children and youth with disabilities through (a) the preparation of exceptionally competent teachers and researchers, (b) conducting research that informs and improves educational programs and behavioral interventions, and (c) leadership in professional associations and advocacy for persons with disabilities. We are committed to equipping students with diverse backgrounds and experiences to provide exceptional services and supports to people with disabilities and their families.

Duties and Responsibilities

• In order to maintain integrity of a randomized control trial, the bilingual educational consultant will remain blind to the intervention condition of participants to complete assessments with Spanish-speaking families to gather data for the research project.
• The bilingual educational consultant will provide input on the goals and objectives of the research project by attending project meetings and communicating with the project director their experiences in the field with families to ensure long term success of the study.
• The bilingual educational consultant will aid with creating of training materials such as handouts, video examples, and presentations that will serve as tangible products of the research project to be available to the community of practitioners.
• The bilingual educational consultant will aid with creating of training materials such as handouts, video examples, and presentations that will serve as tangible products of the research project to be available to Spanish-speaking parents who have young children with language delays.
• The bilingual educational consultant will accurately score standardized and observational measures to maintain integrity of the data and results of this research project.
• The bilingual educational consultant will transcribe and analyze observational language samples as needed to create variables that will serve as measures of caregiver use of intervention strategies and child language outcomes.
• The bilingual educational consultant will enter data into secure database.
• To insure fidelity of all aspects of the project, the bilingual educational consultant will follow all research protocols as written and communicate with the project director when there are any deviations.
• The bilingual educational consultant will document all sessions with children/families in a secure online database for the following reasons: data on length of sessions is utilized for a cost analysis of the project, variations in assessment due to unforeseen circumstances could impact the data and will need to be accounted for in the final analysis of the data for publication and distribution, if there are any adverse events in a session they need to be documented and reviewed by the project director, institutional review board, and potentially the funding agency.
• The bilingual educational consultant will maintain a list of resources to be shared with families as needed in order to provide referrals.
• The bilingual educational consultant will aid in recruitment of families to the study by collaborating with community agencies to ensure successful recruitment numbers to meet statistical power needs at the final analysis of data.
• The bilingual educational consultant will provide a limited number of naturalistic language and behavior therapy sessions to families who participated in the control group.

Qualifications

• A master's degree in education, psychology, counseling, social work, special education or a related field is necessary
• Graduate coursework and experience with assessments including standardized assessments is necessary
• Experience with working in research projects and following research protocols is highly preferred
• Bilingual in Spanish and English (speaking, writing, and comprehension skills in both languages) is necessary. Must be fully fluent in Spanish.
• Experience working with Spanish-speaking caregivers and children is necessary
• Experience advocating for low-resourced families preferred
• A minimum of 2 years of experience working with families and/or young children is necessary

Commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

At Vanderbilt University, we are intentional about and assume accountability for fostering advancement and respect for equity, diversity, and inclusion for all students, faculty, and staff. Our commitment to diversity makes us who we are. We have created a community that celebrates differences and lets individuality thrive. As part of this commitment, we actively value diversity in our workplace and learning environments as we seek to take advantage of the rich backgrounds and abilities of everyone. The diverse voices of Vanderbilt represent an invaluable resource for the University in its efforts to fulfill its mission and strive to be an example of excellence in higher education.

Vanderbilt University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.

Please note, all candidates selected for an offer of employment are subject to pre-employment background checks, which may include but are not limited to, based on the role for which they have been selected: criminal history, education verification, social media review, motor vehicle records, credit history, and professional license verification.