This webinar is part of the Transition Workshop Series from Rockland BOCES, which covers topics relevant to all New York families and students with disabilities.
This webinar will explain the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), a Medicaid program that provides services to disabled individuals who need help with activities of daily living (ADLs). You’ll learn:
Details
When: Wed., Jan. 10, 2024
Time: 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Register here or you can email Mary Ellen Urinyi at murinyi@rboces.org to participate.
This is the first event in a five-part Lunch & Learn series hosted by the New York State Special Education Task Force (SETF).
Participants will learn the following:
Panelists:
Details
When: Wed., Jan. 10, 2024
Time: 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Adapt Community Network, a New York City not-for-profit that provides programs and services for people with disabilities, is holding a free webinar for parents, family members, caregivers, and professionals who want to enhance the lives of children, teens and young adults with autism.
It will introduce the different tools, resources and services available through Autism Speaks, a non-profit autism awareness organization that calls itself the largest autism research organization in the U.S.
Spanish and Mandarin translations will be provided.
The speaker is Andrew Nelson, director of the Autism Response Team at Autism Speaks. A certified case manager, he has worked locally and globally to help grow autistic leadership, train others in self-advocacy principles, and teach theater-based approaches in the autism community.
Details
When: Thurs., Jan. 11, 2024
Time: 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Subway Sleuths is a 10-week after-school program for 4th and 5th graders at the New York Transit Museum that builds on a shared interest in trains among students on the autism spectrum. It supports peer-to-peer interaction, provides a context for navigating social situations, and develops students’ confidence by affirming their interest in public transit.
Ten weekly sessions are facilitated by Transit Museum Educators and contracted professionals trained in ASD support.
The sessions are at 4:30 p.m. on Thursdays or at 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays at the Transit Museum in Downtown Brooklyn. For students accepted into the program, the first regular Thursday session will be Feb. 29, and the first regular Saturday session will be March 2.
The in-person screening for 4th-5th graders will be on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 3 and after school on Thursday, Feb. 8. Group sizes are small, and space is limited.
The in-person program costs $350 for the semester for accepted students. Limited partial scholarships are available.
Deadline: Jan. 24, 2024
In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance that included how to support children with disabilities whose behavior impedes their learning or that of others. In doing so, it addressed the short-term removals of students with disabilities by administrators and staff, and noted that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specifically requires IEP Teams to consider the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports instead.
Now, K12dive.com has published an update on how states and districts are taking steps to ensure that these removals do not violate civil and educational rights. (Read the whole article here.) These removals can occur in a variety of ways, but center on dismissing the student before their school day, or week, is completed, and “have raised alarms about the practice being overused as a way to sidestep IDEA discipline due process for students with disabilities.”
Those procedures, K12 adds, “include extra protections for students with disabilities who are disciplined, such as the right to receive special education services if they are removed from school for more than 10 days.”
In February 2023, The New York Times took a comprehensive look at these removals, which it says “largely escape scrutiny because schools are not required to report them in the same manner as formal suspensions and expulsions, making them difficult to track and their impact hard to measure.”
An attorney and parent advocate on how to use the IEP, functional behavioral assessment and the law when your child is removed from school.
The non-profit organization CIDA has announced the expansion of the Social Co-op project, a workforce development program targeting Asian-American adults with disabilities between 18 and 40 years old.
The program will assist the program participants with employment resources and social services while providing work readiness training. CIDA will also provide resource and capacity-building training to parents of these individuals and local employers so that the entire community “can grow together.”
The trainees will be offered work opportunities with the CoSpire business, a cooperative business developed by CIDA, or referred to other companies if qualified.
For more information, visit CIDA.
Another group home operator in New York sounds the alarm about low pay for DSPs, Hawaii tries an out-of-the-box method to retain special ed teachers, and more news to know for the week ending Jan. 6, 2024.
Pleasantville Struggles to Handle Influx of NYC Kids in Crisis
This report on the crisis at Pleasantville Cottage Campus, a residential program that houses about 160 young people with behavioral challenges, focuses on how it’s “an extreme and very public version of something that’s occurring at foster care programs across New York state: Government child welfare authorities are placing kids with acute mental health challenges on campuses that are ill-equipped to handle them — largely because there’s nowhere else for them to go.” (Thecity.nyc and ProPublica)
Posted back in August, the article Crisis Rocks JCCA Children’s Residential Treatment Center in Pleasantville, NY, has some helpful background. (The Boost)
Could developmentally disabled face return to institutions if group homes can’t pay staff? Another New York group home operator sounds the alarm. (lohud.com)
Hartsdale train station unveils new elevators to aid commuters The elevators serve as a significant help for individuals requiring assistance to access the train platform in the Westchester County town. (News12 Westchester)
Survey Of Disability Service Providers Finds Deepening Crisis Survey finds that almost 600 providers of community-based services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities nationwide are facing staffing shortages. (Disability Scoop)
The Pervasive Loneliness of Autism An autistic Ph.D. Neuroscience student at Vanderbilt looks at how “independent living” can increase some people’s sense of isolation. (Time)
Hawaii Gave $10,000 Raises to Special Ed Teachers. It’s Working—for Now In Hawaii, the challenges of recruitment are more pronounced than elsewhere in the country. (Mother Jones)
Disabled women talk about what they bring to medicine Important perspectives given how a majority of doctors and med students say they don’t know how to treat people with disabilities. (Bloom Blog)
How $37 billion in federal funding is being used to improve at-home caregiving VP Kamala Harris touted new data illustrating how $37 billion in American Rescue Plan funding has expanded and improved home- and community-based services. (19thnews.org)
How AI helps some people with disabilities communicate Project Relate is an artificial intelligence-enabled app that makes conversations easier for people who have difficulties speaking clearly. (Marketplace)
Ruben Reuter challenges disability prejudice in the media industry The young Channel 4 News journalist with Down syndrome is winning over viewers. (journalism.co.uk)
When a teen in New Jersey went to the movies with his mother earlier this year, a simple night out turned into a nightmare when an irate manager called the police to have the young man removed from the theater. The teen’s crime? He’s autistic, nonverbal, and needed to accompany his mother to the women’s restroom.
It’s the type of scenario all too familiar for families who have children with autism and other developmental disabilities.
“It’s hard to put into words the feeling you get when somebody looks at your child like she’s ‘other,’” explains Bedford, NY, resident Wendy Belzberg, mother of a 25-year-old daughter with developmental disabilities named Leigh. “She sometimes does things that can be unexpected, but it doesn’t [justify] the lack of respect” people often show her.
So Belzberg decided to do something about it. She’s the driving force behind Bedford’s Inclusive Initiative, an official community commitment to better accommodate residents with autism and other disabilities. Launched this past fall, more than 60 stakeholders — from local government officials to first responders and shopkeepers — have already received specialized training on the tools and strategies that help the neurodiverse live rich and fully inclusive lives.
The initiative “benefits everyone,” says Belzberg. “We are all a little bit different. Who doesn’t need some accommodations or fine-tuning or consideration?”
Bedford joins a fast-growing list of municipalities, airports, amusement parks, and local businesses embracing neurodiversity initiatives. Some work with education and training programs to become certified as autistic or sensory-friendly, including Philadelphia, which was just certified as the nation’s first-ever “sensory-inclusive city” by the non-profit organization KultureCity, while others are creating their programs to tackle specific challenges, including ways to make autistic drivers safer.
Even Walmart has gotten into the action, this year implementing sensory-friendly hours (think: no music and static TV walls) to accommodate those with sensory perception issues.
There’s a good reason for the growth in these initiatives: Autism diagnoses are skyrocketing.
In 2020, the last year for which data was available, 1 in 36 8-year-old children were identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), up from 1 in 68 in 2012 and 1 in 150 in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
To read the rest of the story, go to The New York Post, where it’s published in its entirety.
If you haven’t heard about the Broadway musical How to Dance in Ohio, I’m here to help.
The show is based on a true story. It stars seven autistic young actors and follows them and their families as they prepare for a spring formal dance in Columbus, Ohio. It’s been getting rave reviews, and its director and one of its stars are Westchester County (New York) natives.
It also has what’s called an Education Outreach Coordinator. Taylor Janney-Rovin’s job is to get the word out to students, educators, and families. He recently sent out a release with some great ways to get tickets:
Group sales: The show is partnering with Broadway Inbound to bring groups (10 or more people) to the theater, and you can find more details about the group sales here. Broadway Inbound can also answer questions such as how to work within your budget should prices be inaccessible.
Families can also take advantage of the “Buy 3, Get 1 Free” holiday sale to buy tickets online using the code HOLIDAY4 here. (Valid through 1/2/24).
Students and educators can use the code AMIGO to unlock discounted tickets for performances through 2/25/24. Just follow these steps:
See a sneak preview and hear more from the cast in the show’s prologue!
Engage with the More to Talk About series where you can find conversations among the show’s creative team and greater community about disability activism and allyship.
Check out this Resources Page to further your learning about autism and our in-theater accessibility offerings.
The Kids Can’t Wait campaign from The Children’s Agenda wants New York to fix the crushing delays for Early Intervention Services experienced statewide by young children with developmental delays and disabilities.
The key cause of the delays, the campaign says, is a severe shortage of therapists and other Early Intervention professionals. It’s calling for legislators and the governor to provide an 11% increase in reimbursement rates for all Early Intervention services delivered in person to help address “decades of stagnant payment rates coupled with a payment system that is not providing increased compensation for the added costs, such as transportation and travel time, of delivering services in person at a child’s home or child care program.”
RELATED NEWS: Early Intervention Services Not Reaching 42% of NY’s Eligible Infants and Toddlers
There are two easy ways to have your voice heard, choose one!
It’s easy! Click here.
Parents of children who have waited in the past or are currently waiting can record a short video to have their voices heard by the governor. It’s easy to do, thanks to a how-to video from Kim Dooher, VP, Parents Helping Parents Coalition of Monroe County, that walks you through the simple steps.
Just click here to watch the video.