ICYMI, like I did, the U.S. Department of Labor announced in January 2023 that 10 states, including New York, and the District of Columbia have been selected to participate as “core states” in its National Expansion of Employment Opportunities Network initiative (NEON).
The selection, the department says, will help connect state government agencies to consulting, capacity-building support and ongoing mentoring as they seek to increase Competitive Integrated Employment for individuals with disabilities.
Until now, NEON has focused primarily on advancing CIE by offering national provider organizations technical assistance from recognized subject matter experts and support for local provider organizations. By expanding participation to core states, NEON seeks to focus on promoting positive changes in state-level policies and systems. The department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy has administered NEON since its 2019 launch.
In January 2022, NEON released the National Plan to Increase Competitive Integrated Employment in concert with five national provider organizations: ACCSES, ANCOR, The Arc, the Association of People Supporting Employment First and SourceAmerica.
Some background on NEON from the U.S. Deptartment of Labor website: In 2016, the Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for Individuals with Disabilities (ACICIEID) submitted a Final Report to Congress. The report presented issues that impact the pursuit of competitive integrated employment (CIE) by individuals with disabilities and makes recommendations for mitigating these issues. A key recommendation of the committee was to increase the capacity of employment service providers to provide CIE through both organizational restructuring and staff professional development. To address this need, the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) established the National Expansion of Employment Opportunities Network (NEON).
The Center for Parent Information and Resources has posted a link to a webinar, Get to Know Your School Counselor: Improving Collaboration to Support College and Career Readiness for Youth with Disabilities.
It will focus on the nature of college and career readiness supports among youth with IEPs, on 504 plans, and without disabilities using the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 data. Practical strategies will be shared for improving collaboration between transition specialists and school counselors in order to support youth with disabilities and ensure their inclusion in schoolwide college and career readiness efforts.
Date: March 9, 2023
Time: 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Register: Go to NTACT (at the link above), create an account for free, then register for the webinar.
The National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: The Collaborative (NTACT:C) is a Technical Assistance Center co-funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA).
Image: Stefamerpix
If you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend, check out the Larchmont Public Library’s photography show, Octopus Portraits: Sessions Under Patmos, by undersea photographer Jeff Eyrich. It looks awesome enough to engage people of all ages and abilities.
Eyrich travels to the island of Patmos, Greece, to interact with and photograph octopuses in their natural environment. “My interactions with octopus are by far the most emotionally rewarding and unforgettable experiences I’ve had,” Eyrich says on the Larchmont Library website.
Date: Through Feb. 27, 2023
Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Sundays 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.)
Location: Larchmont Public Library, The Oresman Gallery, 121 Larchmont Ave., Larchmont, N.Y.
What better time than Valentine’s Day to talk about sex ed? It can be an especially complicated topic for parents who have adolescent, teen, or young adult children with I/DD, but as all people are sexual beings with the right to date, marry and nurture sexual relationships, understanding sex and sexual health is of critical importance.
YAI has a great intro that lays the groundwork for discussion. It notes that “too often people with intellectual and developmental disabilities [I/DD] are unable to pursue sexual relationships, mainly because stereotypes deem them asexual or too deviant.”
It goes on to say that only three states in the country have laws that mandate sex education for people with I/DD. New York, it writes, “does not mandate schools to teach sex education.” This is a travesty.
I’ve pulled together some guides that you might find helpful when discussing and teaching sex ed and sexual health, and there are plenty more out there as well.
The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL)’s project to help people with I/DD learn about sex is a 10-video series (to be seen in any order) that discusses, among other things, what sex is; what gender is; what a healthy relationship looks like; how someone can get pregnant; and how to protect yourself against sexually transmitted diseases and infections.
The Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore offers a guide with links to sexual health and IDD resources. The list is vast, and ranges from age-appropriate animated videos for adolescents ages 10 to 14 via amaze.org; and a guide, via the University of California, San Francisco, “Our Sexuality, Our Health: A Disabled Advocate’s Guide to Relationships, Romance, Sexuality and Sexual Health.”
Oregon Health & Science University‘s “Sexual Health Equity for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (SHEIDD)” offers great resources for holistic sexual health education.
A Times Union investigation showing that staff at New York schools serving children with disabilities “intentionally misused physical restraints on students” has resulted in the drafting and submission of a bill, “Keeping All New York Students Safe Act,” by New York State Assemblywoman Michaelle C. Solages, a spokesman in her office says.
The bill would implement a state-wide plan to prevent and reduce the use of seclusion and physical restraint in schools; prohibit the use of seclusion, mechanical restraint, chemical restraint, and dangerous restraints that restrict breathing on students; authorize annual appropriations to provide grants to school districts; and provide for more rapid notice to parents if restraints or seclusion is used on a student. (See the bill here.)
Meanwhile, a federal bill reintroduced in 2021 by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., the Keeping All Students Safe Act, is currently languishing in Congress. Versions of the bill, reports NBCnews.com, have been introduced since 2009.
Ed Department Urges Schools To Limit Suspensions Of Students With Disabilities (Disability Scoop)
The struggle over defining, reporting restraint and seclusion in schools (K12dive.com, from 2022)
Here are a collection of links from around the web for the week ending Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023
Clinicians Get Guidance On Treating Severe Autism Behaviors (Disability Scoop)
New algorithm detects autism in infants. How might that change care? (USA Today)
Advocates fear proposed OPWDD pay differential for state DSPs will further erode the sector (Crain’s)
School superintendents: Don’t ban all long-term suspensions (Times Union)
The promise of telehealth in autism diagnoses (Spectrum News)
Legoland Resorts has announced that the Legoland New York Resort will be autism certified when it opens March 31 for the 2023 season, as will its other U.S. parks. (The Florida and California resorts were certified last year.)
The certification comes from the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES). Here’s some of what this means (link to the full Accessibility Guide here):
Be sure to visit the Iloveny.com Accessible New York page to find other accessible activities, such as wheelchair-accessible walkways above the Adirondack forest treetops at the Wild Center and Wild Walk and the Autism Nature Trail at Letchworth State Park, N.Y., which the park calls the first such trail in the nation.
I hope you have time to read this informative posting on Respect Ability that both honors famous Black Americans with disabilities and reflects on the realities and challenges that continue to shape the lives of all Black people with disabilities. (I found the link on the ARC Westchester’s Black History Month page.)
It reports, among other things, that there are 3.2 million working-age African Americans with disabilities, most of whom face structural barriers to success. Also, “for many of the 1,158,862 Black students (K-12) with disabilities in America today, the deck is stacked against them due to factors such as structural racism, and schools being funded by local property taxes, ‘which perpetuates a cycle of poverty.'”
Inspiring celebrity profiles cover Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelo, Solange Knowles and so many more.
Image: Freepix.com
In late January, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI-6) introduced legislation to expand access to home and community-based services for older adults, people with disabilities and injured workers, while increasing pay and improving benefits for caregivers.
The “Better Care Better Jobs Act” would gives states a 10 percentage point increase in federal Medicaid matching funds for services. It aims to help the “over 650,000 people on waiting lists nationally finally receive care in the setting of their choice, allowing them to stay active in their communities, and live independently,” the joint statement reads. “This legislation would also strengthen the caregiving workforce, improve quality of life for families, and boost the economy by creating good-paying jobs to make it possible for families and workers alike to thrive economically.”
President Biden’s 2022 reconciliation bill, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, had initially promised $400 billion dollars for home and community-based services. By the time the bill was passed, that amount was in tatters.
Photo: Tigercat_LPG via Creative Commons
The BBC has a story about autistic employees and what they face in the workplace. While the story focuses on people in Wales, the points made are universal.
A few highlights:
Department of Labor Selects 10 States [including New York], District of Columbia for National Effort to Expand Employment Opportunities, Outcomes for People with Disabilities (news release from January 2023, Dept. of Labor)
The Arc to Partner with NJ Department of Labor for Targeted Hiring Event for individuals with disabilities (Ocean City Sentinel)
Creating access and inclusion for disabled talent (Employment Benefit News)