The AUCD Leadership Academy is a week-long intensive experience, paired with a year of pre and post interactions designed to enhance the skills of current and emerging leaders from disability networks to build coalitions to improve systems of supports and services. The Leadership Academy engages participants from UCEDDs, LENDs, IDDRCs and the wider community of disability partners to come together to immerse themselves for a week of study, shared experiences, self-evaluation, and skill development.

This webinar, offered by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network in partnership with the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P), will provide an overview of plain language writing for people who may be more used to writing in academic language. Attendees will learn the principles of plain language writing and have a chance to put them into practice with interactive exercises. There will also be time for questions and answers.

The Disability Policy Seminar is an annual federal legislative conference co-sponsored by The Arc, Autism Society, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Association of University Centers on Disabilities, National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities, United Cerebral Palsy, and Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (the partners). The Disability Policy Seminar strengthens our federal advocacy efforts by providing training, learning opportunities, and updates, and opportunities to visit their Members of Congress. The Disability Policy Seminar promotes unity, movement building, and amplifies the concerns of people with IDD before Congress.

This workshop will help prepare trainees for the 2024 Disability Policy Seminar taking place from April 8-10, 2024, in Washington, DC, to learn how to educate policymakers in DC and at home, as well as how to connect their experience and expertise to policy.

In this webinar, the research team will tell the story of a community-engaged, academic-industry partnership to create online video libraries for autistic young adults and parents of autistic youth. Join the conversation about community-engaged research, sexuality, and academic-industry-partnerships for enhancing health among autistic people across the lifespan.

The National Training Directors Council (NTDC) hosted an interactive discussion on recruiting and supporting diverse trainees within your training programs. The panel highlighted three training programs in the AUCD Network with experience recruiting and supporting diverse trainees, including trainees across states, trainees utilizing distance learning, trainees with lived experience and finally, second-year trainees.

We are excited to invite you to the LEND Lived Experience Summit! The summit will be held via Zoom on Monday and Tuesday, March 4-5, 2024, from 3:00 PM-6:00 PM Eastern Time. The LEND Self-Advocate Discipline Network and LEND Family Discipline Network voted to join forces for future summits to showcase the work and best practices in both LEND disciplines.

This webinar-- sponsored by the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P) -- will focus on: The intersection of race and ASD. The webinar will include a presentation by Dr. Sophie Molholm on the findings from a multisite study on autism in African Americans focused on increasing diversity in genetics studies and understanding reasons for later age of diagnosis in this group as well as a collaborative discussion led by Dr. Lisa Shulman, a clinical leader of a large, diverse inner-city Developmental Center in concert with a parent of children with ASD and an Autistic Adult on practical strategies for supporting a diverse ASD population and their families in accessing diagnosis, therapeutic and medical services, and encouraging participation in research.

This webinar offered interested potential applicants an opportunity to interact with the AUCD Leadership Academy faculty. The webinar featured a brief overview of the 2024 Academy curriculum and timeline. It was followed by a time for questions from potential applicants to the 2024 AUCD Leadership Academy. In addition, alumni will shared their reflections about the benefits they gained from participation in the week-long academy. and the follow-up activities.

ITAC's new LEND and Learn Monthly TA Series is an opportunity for LEND leadership and faculty to gather once a month to discuss priority TA topics and to learn from each other! Each month will focus on a different topic. A different LEND program will lead each session, including a 15-minute presentation and a 45-minute discussion. Please note that this is not a webinar series. Instead, it is designed to be an informal opportunity for LENDs to connect with one another on topics identified as top TA needs. DBP programs are welcome to participate.

This webinar-- sponsored by the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P)-- will feature a collaborative discussion and brainstorming session hosted by the AIR-P Big Data Working Group, a newly formed interdisciplinary committee focused on using large datasets to improve equity and health for autistic individuals. This discussion will include insights from AIR-P research node leaders regarding the highest priority areas for big data work in autism as well as discussions on key issues in big data (e.g., participatory approaches, real-world implications, and others).

We know that a substantial number of autistic people are sexually-diverse (e.g., gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual) or gender-diverse (e.g., transgender, gender non-conforming), but what do we know about their mental and physical health? Dr. Graham Holmes will discuss the current state of the literature and present findings from two studies that used innovative methods to learn about health disparities for this population. The first study investigated suicidality disparities among autistic versus non-autistic sexually-diverse and gender-diverse youth using a U.S. national sample recruited via social media. The second study investigated mental and physical health disparities more broadly among autistic sexually-diverse and gender-diverse adults versus cisgender heterosexual adults using electronic health record data. Clinical implications will be discussed.

ITAC's new LEND and Learn Monthly TA Series is an opportunity for LEND leadership and faculty to gather once a month to discuss priority TA topics and to learn from each other! Each month will focus on a different topic. A different LEND program will lead each session, including a 15-minute presentation and 45 minutes discussion. Please note that this is not a webinar series. Instead, it is designed to be an informal opportunity for LENDs to connect with one another on topics identified as top TA needs. DBP programs are welcome to participate.

Join us on Tuesday, November 28th from 5 pm-6 pm EST to learn about the Emerging Leaders Community and how you fit within the AUCD Network. Presenters will share resources and opportunities to help you make the most of your traineeship! Former trainees or fellows are also encouraged to attend.

Join the Project ECHO Orientation to learn more about the ECHO model and how you can incorporate it into your work as a UCEDD or LEND program (or partner organization). Cari Glantz and Amy Rieser from the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities will share how they have utilized ECHO in their trainings and how you can become an ECHO partner. ECHO is a training and capacity-building model intended to support inter-professional connection and best practice implementation. Hosted by AUCD's Community Education and Dissemination Council.