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THE CURRENT STATE OF HEALTH CARE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Posted: October 30, 2009
The National Council on Disability (NCD) recently a report calling for immediate health care reform for people with disabilities. The report provides a road map for eliminating the pervasive barriers to health care for people with disabilities, which will improve the quality of life, productivity, and well-being of greater numbers of Americans as the population ages. The complete report can be downloaded in PDF http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2009/pdf/HealthCare.pdf or HTML http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2009/HealthCare/HealthCare.html
What Can You Do?
Posted: October 29, 2009
The What Can YOU Do? Web site www.whatcanyoudocampaign.org is the centerpiece of the Campaign for Disability Employment, which seeks to promote positive employment outcomes for people with disabilities. Working to raise awareness and change attitudes, the Campaign for Disability Employment's What Can YOU Do? public education effort reinforces that people with disabilities want to work and that their talents and abilities positively impact businesses both financially and organizationally.
GAO Report Available on the Vocational Rehabilitation Funding Formula
Posted: October 26, 2009
Vocational Rehabilitation Funding Formula: Options for Improving Equity in State Grants and Considerations for Performance Incentives (GAO-09-798) September 30, 2009
State vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies play a crucial role in helping individuals with disabilities obtain employment. In fiscal year 2008, the Department of Education (Education) distributed over $2.8 billion in grants to state agencies, using a funding formula last revised in 1978. Questions have been raised about whether this formula is outdated, allocates funds equitably, and adequately accounts for state agencies' performance. GAO was asked to examine the extent to which the current formula meets generally accepted equity standards, present options for revising the formula, and identify issues to consider with incorporating performance incentives into the formula. An accessible text version of the report can be found at http://www.gao.gov/htext/d09798.html a PDF version at
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09798.pdf
FOSTER CARE MENTORING ACT INTRODUCED
Posted: October 21, 2009
The Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2009 proposes to connect children in foster care with responsible caring adults. It would authorize $15 million to establish statewide foster care mentoring programs, $4 million to begin a national public awareness campaign and offer a $20,000 student loan forgiveness program to volunteers who mentor foster youth.
NATIONAL MENTORING PROGRAM
Posted: October 21, 2009
The Institute for Educational Leadership recently announced its selection to receive approximately $3.5 million from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for a 3-year national mentoring program to serve youth with disabilities at-risk of truancy or court-involvement. Through this infusion of resources, research-based strategies, and cross-system collaboration, the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program will match trained mentors to youth with disabilities to reduce court involvement and/or recidivism; increase career preparation and development work-readiness skills for the youth in the program.
THE ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE PRACTICE FOR MENTORING
Posted: October 21, 2009
The Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, Third Edition, includes six evidence-based standards addressing mentor and mentee recruitment; screening; training; matching; monitoring and support; and closure. Each standard offers benchmarks for day-to-day operations, and they are applicable in stand-alone mentoring programs, as well as programs where mentoring is one element. Each standard also offers enhancements that program staff can incorporate, based on the experience of outstanding mentoring practitioners. This resource also includes a section on practical advice in building a new mentoring program or strengthening an existing one. It focuses on program design and planning; program management; and program evaluation.
President Obama Announces New Initiatives During National Disability Employment Awareness Month
Posted: 10/16/09
Washington, D.C. - President Obama announced Monday, that his Administration is taking several steps to ensure that there is fair and equal access to employment for all Americans, particularly the 54 million people in this country living with disabilities. The announcement comes during National Disability Employment Awareness Month, whose theme is Expectation + Opportunity = Full Participation!.
More information about Disability Employment Awareness Month is available at: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/deam-2009/index.html and at http://www.dol.gov/odep/
Tackling Transition in Rural Areas Webinar
Posted: 09/28/2009
NSTTAC will be hosting a webinar on Transition in Rural Areas on September 29th from 4:30 - 5:30 (ET). Presenters from Colorado will be leading the session. To join the session, go to http://tadnet.ilinc.com/ . To register look on the left side of the screen below the greenmeter and click on "Register for a Public Session". Please plan to register for this session by Monday, as you will receive useful handouts for the presentation prior to the webinar on Tuesday. If you do not register ahead of time, these handouts will be available at http://www.nsttac.org . A recording of the session and transcript will be available within 3 days of the webinar.
NIMAS State Implementation Update
Posted: 09/23/2009
This Brief Policy Analysis provides survey findings from 49 state NIMAS coordinators. These findings are an update from a similar analysis in 2007. Findings are clustered in the areas of dedicated staff, coordination and collaboration with national center activities, guidance, professional development, legal issues, data collection, file conversions and availability, challenges and next steps. More>>>
Indicator 13: Collecting Data to Tell the Feds How You're Doing.
Posted: 09/17/2009
Indicator 13 relates to transition services for youth with disabilities. OSEP has just approved a checklist for collecting the data to report on Indicator 13. More>>>
What Post-school Outcome Data Can Do for You
Posted: 9/17/2009
The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities, in partnership with the National Post-School Outcomes Center, has created an online guide, "Making Connections Across Indicators to Improve Post-School Outcomes: Early State Efforts." The guide provides information on six states that have begun to display, analyze, and apply data across Part B Indicators 1, 2, 13, and 14. More >>>
New National Mentoring Program
Posted: 9/14/2009
The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) announces its selection to receive approximately $3.5 million from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for a 3-year national mentoring program to serve youth with disabilities at-risk of truancy or court-involvement. The Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program (RAMP) will provide high-tech career-focused mentoring and is designed to address the over-representation of youth with disabilities in the juvenile corrections system.
In announcing the national mentoring awards last week, U.S. Attorney General Holder said that, "these grants will help steer young people away from criminal activities by providing them with health life alternatives, positive role models and direct contact with caring adults."
In a year, approximately 144,000 delinquency cases result in youth being committed to out-of-home placement. Although the in-school percentage of youth with disabilities averages approximately 9 percent, across states the number of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system averages over 30 percent - with some states ranging as high as 77.5 percent. RAMP will utilize the Guideposts for Success, a transition framework, and Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring for Youth with Disabilities as a foundation to provide mentoring to youth at-risk of truancy or court-involvement.
"This award provides us a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate how important career-focused mentoring can be in the lives of youth with disabilities as well as those without," said Curtis Richards, Director of the Center for Workforce Development at IEL. "We are excited about the diversity of young people and sites that will allow us to test research-based practices and tools through this grant. We believe we will be able to demonstrate that youth with disabilities at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system can lead productive, responsible lives with the assistance of good mentors."
The IEL's Center for Workforce Development (CWD), home to several national technical assistance centers, will work with state and local disability and mentoring organizations to provide one-on-one, group, and peer mentoring using research-based strategies. Youth will participate in weekly career-focused group meetings, as well as regular one-on-one mentor meetings.
In addition to the approximately $3.5 million that OJJDP is providing for this program, state and local sites are also leveraging another $1.7 million in financial and in-kind resources from federal, state, city and county, and private foundation sources for training, career exploration, mentoring, and counseling services. Through this infusion of resources, research-based strategies, and cross-system collaboration, the RAMP program will match trained mentors to youth with disabilities to reduce court involvement and/or recidivism; increase career preparation; and develop work-readiness skills for the youth in the program.
The selected sites for this project include:
Atlantic Region:
* Florida High School/High Tech (FL)
* Start on Success (MD)
* YOUTH POWER! (NY)
South Region:
* Start on Success (LA)
* High School/High Tech UCP of Greater Houston (TX)
North Region:
* Peckham, Inc. (MI)
Mountain Region:
* Employment Works (CO)
New England Region:
* Vermont Department of Labor (VT)
More information about IEL is available at http://www.iel.org
September is Emergency Preparedness Month: Prepare, Plan, Stay Informed
Posted: 9/14/2009
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate have announced the beginning of the sixth annual National Preparedness Month, focusing on becoming better prepared for and more resilient in the face of emergencies of all kinds. Join the Ready Campaign in spreading the emergency preparedness message this month. Watch a video about preparing for emergencies or read the video transcript. Find emergency preparedness and response resources in your state at http://www.ready.gov/america/local/
EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: MAKING IMPROVEMENTS FOR COMMUNITIES AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
The National Council on Disability (NCD) has released a report calling on federal, state and local authorities to make sweeping changes in emergency management practices for people with disabilities. This report assesses scientific studies of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts, and recommends practical, policy, and research initiatives that would maintain and expand this promising momentum. For more information go to http://www.ncd.gov/
Department of Education Proposes Rulemaking on General and Non-Loan Provisions of HEA
Posted: 9/3/2009
The Secretary of Education is proposing regulations that would implement general and non-loan provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) as amended by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA). Proposed regulations include specifying that students with intellectual disabilities who enroll in comprehensive transition and postsecondary programs are eligible for assistance under the Federal Pell Grant, the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) and the Federal Work-Study (FWS) programs. Comments must be received by September 21, 2009.
UCP's Report, "Case for Inclusion", Released for 2009
Posted: 9/1/2009
The United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) has released its annual Case for Inclusion that benchmarks states' actual performance in improving lives for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Among the findings, there remain 169 large institutions (more than 16 beds) housing 36,175 Americans. This is a decline of four institutions from the previous year, as well as 1,536 fewer people living in them. However, nine states (down from 11) continue to report more than 2,000 residents living in large public or private institutions - California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania & Texas. Nine states - Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia, and the District of Columbia - have no large state institutions.
New Disability History Resource
Posted: 8/27/2009
This new on-line video documents the speech given by President George H. W. Bush when he signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 26, 1990. In the video, President Bush speaks to a huge audience of activists, Congressional supporters, people with disabilities, and their families and friends gathered on the south lawn of the White House. The 22-minute film, provided to the Department of Justice by the George Bush Presidential Library, is being re-released on the Internet to increase awareness of the ADA. Watch the Original ADA Signing Ceremony by going to http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm#adasigningcaptioned and scrolling down the page. Note: the video is available in open captions and with audio descriptions.
National Council on Disability Seeks Public Input to Identify Emerging Issues and Trends
Posted: 8/26/2009
The National Council on Disability (NCD) is gathering public input for a study of emerging issues and trends affecting the lives of people with disabilities. Information gathered will be used in the development of NCD's next annual progress report to the President and Congress, "National Disability Policy: A Progress Report," which is required by Section 401(b) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended.
NCD invites interested individuals to comment on any of the following:
Employment
Education
Health status and healthcare
Financial status and security
Leisure and recreation
Personal relationships
Crime and safety
Homeland security
Housing
Technology, Assistive Technology, Telecommunications
The deadline for comments is September 15, 2009.
Connecticut Parent Advocacy Center Winner of TATRA Drawing
Posted: 08/19/2009
Website Encourages Communication with Doctors
Posted: 08/12/2009
The Massachusetts Disability Employment Initiative has launched a new website called "Talking with Your Doctor and Other Healthcare Professionals". This site is geared towards helping youth feel more comfortable talking to their healthcare provider. It is based on the communication model presented in the "Talking with Your Doctor" video (included on the website). For more information go to http://hctransitions.ichp.ufl.edu/gladd/
PACER's site offers many PDF files for download, which require 
