The Wisconsin Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (WI LEND) program trains the next generation of leaders to improve the health and well-being of individuals with disabilities

Brooke Mortensen, NP, always wanted to be a nurse. “I’ve always enjoyed science but I also love human interaction and connection. I feel that nursing really embodies those two spirits equally,” Mortensen says. Today, she is a pediatric nurse practitioner at UW Health American Family Children’s Hospital in the Complex Care Program. The UW Health Complex Care Program is designed for children with medical complexity to help manage their care and support the family through the various stressors they face. And without the WI LEND Program, Mortensen says she wouldn’t be where she is today.
Several years ago, Mortensen was working as an ER nurse and decided to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. At the time, she was also working with a few patients in their homes, one of whom was a boy with paraplegia. “He really opened my eyes to the challenges that families face. He lives in Madison, one of the most well-resourced areas in the state, and yet he and his family were constantly running into barriers with getting the supports he needs,” Mortensen says. “He helped me realize that there was a real need to connect the dots for these families.” He is the one who inspired Mortensen to specialize in working with children with disabilities.
As she went through school, she realized that she needed more formal education and training working with people with disabilities. After speaking with several people, Mortensen was recommended to the WI LEND program. “I was told it would give me a better, more holistic view of working with people with disabilities, not just from a nursing perspective but from a multidisciplinary perspective,” Mortensen says. One application and several interviews later, Mortensen was accepted into the program at the Waisman Center.
“LEND was amazing. It changed my life. Truly it did,” Mortensen says. LEND’s variety of methods for imparting information, hands-on training, and clinical and family experiences, all came together to give Mortensen a comprehensive understanding of what it means to live with a disability and how she can provide the best and most respectful care possible.
Then it was through connections she made during LEND that Mortensen first learned about the Pediatric Complex Care Program at UW Health. Without the training she received
through WI LEND, she says she would have been unlikely to get her current job. “I would not be where I am today,” Mortensen says.
When asked about her biggest takeaways from the training program, Mortensen has two answers: remembering how resilient families are, and the importance of language. “One of the mantras I developed from LEND is that families are navigating a world that is not built for their child, and often exceeding expectations while doing it.” Mortensen says. Her second is all about language.
The language around disability has evolved greatly over the last several decades and continues to change rapidly. She stresses the importance of understanding how an individual and their family wants to be represented because it shows respect for their unique experience. “All families have their own different perspectives on how they view disability. And it is our job as healthcare providers to honor wherever they’re at in their journey and do what makes sense for them at the time,” Mortensen says. “We can’t come in with a preconceived agenda or notion of what living with a specific diagnosis looks like or means to someone.”
Mortensen is grateful for what LEND provided her, knowing she would be in an entirely different place without the program. She loves where she is and the families she gets to work with every day. Being a part of their team is a special honor for her.
“I love when families and children come in for an appointment and show us a new skill or milestone they’ve reached that they were told they would never have. I had a six-year-
old a few weeks ago who was taking steps in the exam room and her family was told she would never be able to walk. Those are beautiful moments to witness,” Mortensen says.
“Those experiences remind me all the time that yes, I have education in how a disability may present, and it’s my job to offer evidence-based diagnostics and treatments, but the child and family are the leaders. We’re there to walk alongside them and share our knowledge, not to dictate how their journey is going to look.”
Wisconsin LEND
WI LEND or the Wisconsin Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities program is a training program based at the Waisman Center that provides interdisciplinary leadership training for individuals across disciplines to improve systems of care and access to resources and services for children with neurodevelopmental and related disabilities and their families. The program covers an entire academic year.
Training involves lectures and seminars, interdisciplinary small group work, working in the community with families, shadowing in a clinic, completing a research project, family mentor experience, leadership development workshops, and mentoring. LEND graduates leave the program with a broad spectrum of knowledge and experiences that enable them to be more effective advocates for the disability community.
The cohort of LEND trainees includes a range of disciplines to underscore the importance of interdisciplinary perspectives and expose the cohort to the variety of disciplines that work with individuals with disabilities. Each cohort includes a parent or family member of an individual with a disability and a self-advocate – an individual with a disability.