Leadership training in UAFs supported by the Division of Maternal and Child Health.

The team mailed surveys to 29 University Affiliated Programs (UAFs) that train staff who work with people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

They asked one question: how many of your long-term trainees now hold leadership jobs in disability services?

About 1 in 4 long-term trainees had moved into director-level or policy roles.

Programs tracked this by keeping informal lists; no one used a standard form.

Vergason et al. (2020) shows you can boost staff behavior fast with a token economy, but Timberlake et al. (1987) says leadership growth takes years and is harder to count.

Cox et al. (2015) and Carraro et al. (2012) also report positive service outcomes, yet all three later studies measure client or staff change right away. The 1987 survey is the only one looking at career paths five to ten years later.

None of the neighbor papers overlap methods, so there is no clash—just a gap. We know how to change staff behavior tomorrow, but we still do not track who becomes a leader next decade.

If you run practicum sites, start a simple alumni spreadsheet today: name, graduation year, current job title. In ten years you will have the hard numbers this 1987 study lacked. That single step turns a feel-good program into evidence-based leadership development.