In this issue you will Find Topics On:
Community Living for Individuals with Disabilities
Friends: Connecting People with Disabilities and Community Members (November 2013)
Manual
https://ici.umn.edu/index.php?products/view_part/579/
“Friends: Connecting People with Disabilities and Community Members” is a manual from the Institute on Community Integration’s Research and Training Center on Community Living that provides concrete “how-to” strategies for supporting relationships between people with disabilities and other community members. It describes why such friendships are important to people with disabilities and why it is important to promote community belonging and membership. The manual includes specific activities to guide users in creating a plan for connecting people. This manual is designed for agency staff, but can also be used by parents, support coordinators, teachers, staff, and people with disabilities to support community relationships. Additional Activity Worksheets are available.
Job Seeking Information
eTrac Online Job-Seeking Information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tr-wugIZOU
eTrac provides job seeking/retention information in a YouTube video to help promote independence and confidence. Midwest Special Services (MSS), a non-profit serving adults with disabilities, developed eTrac based on their own experience and best practices to help job seekers achieve employment success. The program walks the job seeker through every step, from the initial job search, to the interview process, and the skills necessary to retain and advance at work.
Assistance accessing the on-line video (for information on pricing or to pre-view a demo copy of the program) is available from MSS by emailing or calling Josh Franzen (jfranzen@mwsservices.org or 651-777-7220).
Participation Requests
National Youth Violence Prevention Week, April 7-11, 2014
https://nationalsave.org/
The National Association of Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) is a founding partner of the National Youth Violence Prevention Campaign. The campaign’s goal is to raise awareness and to educate students, teachers, school administrators, counselors, school resource officers, school staff, parents, and the public on effective ways to prevent or reduce youth Violence. This week-long national education initiative will involve activities that demonstrate the positive role young people can have in making their school and community safer. SAVE offers a campaign Action Kit that serves as a planning guide, with suggestions for how to support the campaign, activity ideas, links to co-sponsors, and articles and interviews on violence prevention.
PACER Legislative Alert – Supporting Youth With Disabilities
https://house.gov/representatives/find/
Congress is considering changes to the Workforce Investment Act and the federal Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Program that assists youth and adults with disabilities to get the education and training they need to obtain and retain a job. While Congress is trying to strengthen the VR services that students with disabilities would receive as they transition out of high school, some possible changes would hurt families of youth with disabilities. PACER is asking families and others to call their representatives to make the following points critical to families and youth: (1) Oppose moving the Vocational Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology programs out of the Department of Education (the Senate version of this legislation seeks to move Vocational Rehabilitation to the Department of Labor and the Assistive Technology program to the Department of Health and Human Services, but separating these programs and moving them out of the Department of Education would disconnect them from a culture valuing parental involvement and the other programs that support students with disabilities, and such a move would damage the strong family connections and important services provided to youth and adults with disabilities by providing such services together in Department of Education); (2) Strengthen competitive employment awareness provisions (ensuring that young adults with disabilities transitioning from high school to employment are aware that jobs which pay the minimum wage and higher are available is an important aspect of providing individuals the opportunity to reach their potential, and the bill could be strengthened by ensuring that there are no exceptions to making sure young adults are made aware of the possibility of working in a competitive workplace, in addition to the non-competitive, often less than minimum wage, work possibilities). The phone numbers of Congressional Representatives can be found at the website.
Relationships
Lessons of Reciprocity and Relationships (January 2014)
Essay
https://tinyurl.com/n8jtnpd
“Community Works Journal,” an on-line magazine for educators, has posted “Lessons of Reciprocity and Relationships” as a featured essay on service learning and making sure that both the volunteers and the population they are working with feel the real benefits of their relationship, and that the activity is purposeful and empowers all those involved.
Student Interaction
The Soul of a Teacher (January 2014)
Essay
https://tinyurl.com/kdwt455
“Community Works Journal,” an on-line magazine for educators, has posted “The Soul of a Teacher” as a featured essay on the importance of keeping in touch with the unique experience of each teacher’s interactions with the students and with other educators. Each learning opportunity, each conversation, each perception, is worth taking the time to listen for it, and to allow and encourage it to be expressed, and not letting it be lost under the weight of standards, testing, scales, and standardized curricula.
