Last week, Dr. Connie Brooks was appointed the new executive director of the Thompson Center for Autism & Neurodevelopment. She takes over for Dr. Stephen Sheinkopf, who will continue as a valued member of the Thompson Center team as he returns his focus to his research projects. Dr. Brooks has been an integral part of the Thompson Center since she joined in 2015 and then became a member of the executive leadership team in 2020. Get to know Dr. Brooks below as she discusses her background, her passions, and her vision for the future of the Thompson Center.
Tell us a little bit about your academic and professional background.
I’ve been a Mizzou tiger since my undergraduate studies and received my Ph.D. in 2007. My internship, postdoctoral residency, and first faculty position were with the Assessment and Consultation Clinic at MU where I specialized in trauma, the foster care system, psychological evaluations, and clinical supervision. In 2015, I transitioned to the Department of Health Psychology and the Thompson Center as the Health Professions Division Director and a few years later became the Director of the Missouri LEND program, TIPS for Kids. In 2019, I was honored to be part of the interim Executive Leadership team, alongside Dr. Ben Black and Abby Powell, when our former Executive Director, Dr. Steve Kanne, took a position in New York.
How did you become involved in the field of autism and neurodevelopment?
It’s a funny story, actually. Several years ago, Dr. Kanne asked me to present to the Thompson Center on working with foster children, due to my expertise in that area. Following that lunch talk, he asked me if I’d considered working with children with autism. I told him that neurodevelopmental concerns seemed complicated and that I wasn’t sure I was up for it, but he easily convinced me to come shadow at the center. After shadowing a few clinics, I fell in love—with these patients, with their families, and with the Thompson Center and its people. Shortly thereafter, I accepted a part-time position to see patients, put in many hours of training and learning about autism and neurodevelopmental disorders, and was hired for a full-time position shortly thereafter. Now I can’t imagine doing anything else.
What are you most passionate about at the Thompson Center?
I’m passionate about quite a few things, so narrowing it down can be tricky. However, I think it’s vital that the Thompson Center continue to be innovative clinical leaders in terms of complex patient needs. Our focus in this area is reflected in our launch of several specialty clinics including the Foster Care Autism Diagnostic Clinic, Rare Disease Clinic, and the Multilingual/Lingually-Diverse Autism Diagnostic Clinic. We’re also piloting a program with collaboration between our medical and applied behavior analysis (ABA) teams, using precision medicine strategies with patients in our Severe Behavior Clinic. Additionally, we continue to expand and strengthen our long-standing multi-disciplinary medical clinics (Cerebral Palsy Clinic, Down Syndrome Clinic, and NICU Follow-Up Clinic) which allow families a “one-stop shop” to see many medical specialists for their child in one day and in one place.
When I think about training at the Thompson Center, I honestly think it is one of the most underrated areas of our work. Throughout the center, we provide training to students at all levels, ranging from undergraduate through fellowship, in a wide variety of disciplines, and in clinical service and research. There simply aren’t enough clinical providers with expertise in pediatrics or in neurodevelopmental disorders, so we intend to grow the next generation of providers through our clinical training and through programs such as the MO LEND program, TIPS for Kids. It’s clear we’re making a dent as just last year we provided clinical training to more than 90 students!
Additionally, I’d like to highlight our Training Core who provides free professional webinars, in-school consultation, caregiver/patient modules, Autism Friendly Business training, and our annual conferences for professionals and for parents. My current favorite program provided by the Training Core is the ACE program: Accessing Career Experiences. This post-secondary employment program is for individuals with autism and an intellectual developmental disability and was piloted this past year with great success! ACE is the sister program to STRIVE (Self-Determined Transition Readiness Through Individual Vocational Experiences) which focuses on employment and life skills development for adults with autism. Both programs are accepting applications, by the way!
Frankly, research at the Thompson Center is mind-blowing. Not only do we have an amazing Research Core team which supports internal and external research partners with their expertise, we are running clinical trials, patient-centered projects, and genetic analyses. One of the most impressive components of our research is cross-collaboration; we are proud to partner across disciplines, across departments, and across the nation and the world. Equally important is our value of including self-advocate and family-advocate voices in our research projects and we’re pleased to be establishing more structures toward that purpose.
What has been your favorite thing about working at the Thompson Center?
Finally, an easy question to answer! It’s the people, without a doubt. I love working alongside our Thompson Center team, I love our patients and their families, and I love our collaborative partners. Every day is challenging but we’ve all got the same goal—to help our patients be their best. I feel so fortunate to work with a team that feels the same that I do about the families we serve. We get to make a difference in the world, and we get to do it together.
What are your top priorities for the Thompson Center moving forward?
Our highest priority is two-fold. First, our goal is to recruit more staff and faculty as we prepare to open our new building, balanced with retention of our current staff and faculty who are already making an impact. Additionally, it’s no secret that our diagnostic waitlists are long, like so many autism centers around the nation. Revamping our diagnostic processes, and expanding our wraparound services and training, is vital for our success. Moreover, we need to continue on our path of integrating our work in all three areas of focus—clinical care, training, and research—as we innovate and expand. We want the Thompson Center to be THE place where families want to be seen, students want to be trained, and researchers want to explore.