Abstract
Parent/professional partnerships have been credited with improving outcomes for children and enhancing satisfaction for both parents and professionals. Family involvement in preservice programs is minimal and often limited to parent panels or parent involvement in a class activity such as an interview. Preservice students who have had multiple opportunities to interact with families, over a variety of settings, have greater chances of developing family-centered dispositions and skill sets and are more likely to generalize these skill sets to the job. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the Intensive Extensive Collaborative Learning Program (IECLP), a special education personnel preparation program at Bowling Green State University. This program was developed to provide students with opportunities to interact with parents of children with disabilities in a college course to develop knowledge, abilities and dispositions for parent partnerships.