A Space of Their Own: UWG’s SHINE Program Fosters Community and Advocacy for Siblings Share this page
For families navigating the complexities of raising children with disabilities, the unique emotional needs of their other children can sometimes fade into the background. Oftentimes, these children are forced to minimize their own problems to avoid adding to their parents’ stress, a phenomenon described by University of West Georgia graduate counseling student Rodrick Jordan.
“These children usually go unnoticed,” Jordan informed. “In actuality, they’ve learned to minimize their problems to avoid adding to the stress of their parents.”
UWG’s SHINE program provides support for these children and gives these children a dedicated space to process their experience while also offering UWG students an opportunity for real-world preparation. It’s a small group therapy initiative powered by a triad of graduate counseling students, graduate applied behavior analysis (ABA) students and undergraduate speech-language pathology (SLP) students.
The idea for SHINE came when UWG faculty listened to families they were already serving through the IGNITE program, an early intervention program for children with autism or developmental delays. Families were emotional about the impact that a supportive space had on the siblings of children with disabilities.
This led to Dr. Brandy Locchetta, assistant professor in the UWG College of Education’s Department of Special Education, reaching out to Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Morgan Jenkins as well as Dr. Kyndel Tarziers in the counseling program to create informational support workshops.
“More than 80 percent of leaders in our field [of special education] are personally impacted by someone with a disability, often a sibling,” Locchetta referenced. “It’s important for them to learn about advocacy – for themselves and their siblings.”
To best support the young advocates, the program requires a diverse set of clinical skills from its student facilitators.
SHINE’s interdisciplinary model ensures every emotional, behavioral and communication need is addressed. Counseling students facilitate group activities focused on mental health, emotional regulation and vulnerability, while ABA students use trauma-informed practices to support positive behavior and engagement. Counseling facilitator Briana Williams draws on her experience as a former registered behavior technician to bridge these disciplines. SLP students round out the team with expertise in language and communication development.
This intersection of skills and specialties is what makes the SHINE program so effective. Inherently, navigating a room of young children requires teamwork. It’s vital for SHINE students to understand their own scope of practice and defer to peers when needed.
“At one point, we noticed we were doing many things separately instead of together,” SLP student Kiersten Jackson recalled. “It was a learning curve for us all to efficiently work as a team while functionally doing that in our own scope of practices.”
A typical SHINE session combines icebreakers and reflection to create a safe, supportive space where siblings feel heard. Sessions begin with check-ins and self-affirmations before moving into therapeutic activities, such as a mask-decorating exercise on bravery. Participants illustrated how they believe others see them on one side of the mask and how they see themselves on the other.
“One particular sibling noted that other people believe she is brave, but she doesn’t feel brave,” Locchetta shared. “She sees what her sister goes through and feels like her sister is the brave one.”
Through processing this with the group, the sibling later recognized moments where she was brave, resulting in an extremely impactful moment of empowerment. In SHINE, siblings learn interpersonal effectiveness and build self-advocacy skills, realizing that they are allowed to take up space as well and that their needs and desires matter.
This growth was even more apparent during a scenario-card activity. Williams describes the impact of witnessing this growth from participants in the program as profound.
“Seeing them vulnerable, working together and encouraging one another was the first time I really felt a breakthrough between them,” she described. “They weren’t just strangers who met in a group anymore; they built a community that helped them feel more confident and empowered.”
And while the siblings walk away with newfound confidence and new skills to support themselves, the UWG students walk away with invaluable clinical experience.
For the students who participate, SHINE bridges the gap between classroom theory and real-world application. The students are forced to improvise and adapt the activities to be developmentally appropriate while authentically engaging with the siblings and families.
“The real-world application piece is essential in truly understanding the concepts we read about,” Jordan said. “This group gave me a deep understanding of my class material because I’m experiencing it in real time.”
Faculty hope to expand the program to include more age groups – as well as individual sibling sessions and caregiver therapy – in the future. SHINE ultimately demonstrates how UWG is committed to actively validating and serving the local and wider West Georgia community.
“I hope this program shows the community that everyone has needs, even when it’s not obvious,” Jenkins concluded.