How UCEDDs and AT Act Programs Advance Disability Inclusion Through Strategic Collaboration

Strong partnerships between UCEDDs and AT Act programs can expand access, improve service coordination, and strengthen disability systems change efforts. This session will highlight successful state-level collaboration strategies, lessons learned, and practical approaches for building sustainable relationships that benefit individuals with disabilities and their families. Relevant to disability policy, assistive technology, community living, education, workforce development, health, and interdisciplinary leadership.

Navigating the PATH to Adulthood: Empowering Families and Individuals with Disabilities Through Integrated Care and Navigation Support

Navigating the transition to adulthood for individuals with disabilities requires coordinated, informed, and family-centered approaches. This session offers a practical framework addressing healthcare, legal planning, employment pathways, and access to benefits and community supports. Featuring the Family Navigator Program and the University of Miami's PATH Clinic, participants will explore an integrated model of care and engage in interactive, case-based learning to strengthen transition outcomes.

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Expanding Project ECHO to settings where people learn, play, and engage in their communities

Instead of taking place inside a medical setting, this unique and innovative Project ECHO brings together community organizations (e.g. museums, parks, theatres) to learn from each other and become places of belonging. Using the Project ECHO structure, presenters will discuss how other LEND, UCEDD, and other related programs, can use their connections to make their communities more accessible and inclusive for individuals with disabilities and their families.

Leading from Lived Experience: Embracing the Messy Middle

Your greatest leadership strength isn't pristinely polished: it's your lived experience. Join two disability advocates, educators, and parents, as we challenge the myth of perfection and instead celebrate the wisdom derived from navigating disability systems first-hand. In this session, you will discover how authenticity, vulnerability, and "messy" experience can become your post powerful tools for advocacy, connection, and lasting change. This session is open to all disciplines.

Supporting Students with Disabilities and their Families in Rural Local Educational Settings (LEAs): Innovative Training Models

This panel presentation will review two innovative training models where a UCEDD located in an urban area partnered with a rural, under resourced LEA to support children with disabilities. The first training model built inclusive education capacity by training school-based staff to provide responsive behavioral support to children with disabilities. The second training model strengthened school-family partnerships by working directly with school staff and administrators, families, and support agencies.

Linking Adults with Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities to Health Resources: Lessons, Outcomes, and Impacts from a 10-State Linkage Demonstration Project

Adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) experience significant disparities in preventive health care and health outcomes. As part of an interdisciplinary, multistate demonstration project, the ten current disability and health state programs (DHSP) co-developed and implemented a person-centered, wellness and care coordination protocol to support adults with IDD to identify and select unmet health needs to address with wellness goals, accessible resources, and linkage supports.

The State of the States and AUCD Data Ambassador Program

This presentation provides an overview of the Data Ambassador Program and experiences of Ambassadors participating. The program established regional cohorts of UCEDD/LEND Trainees as Data Ambassadors, knowledgeable in national IDD data and data accessibility to advance leadership in policy, education, research, and practice. The program is a partnership between the State of the States in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Project of National Significance and AUCD.

Collaboratively Designed Digital Mental Health Interventions: Increasing access to mental health care

Digital mental health interventions (DMHI), interventions that are accessed through online webpages or mobile applications, deliver evidence-based mental health interventions with similar efficacy to in-person services. DMHIs can be easily adapted with varying levels of community engagement using participatory action methods. The following presentation highlights lessons learned, including success and challenges, in developing and disseminating DMHIs with the disability community to help expand access to similar programs.

The Role of Vocational Rehabilitation Funding and Social Benefits in Employment Outcomes Following Section 14(c) Repeal

This session presents national findings on employment outcomes after state level Section 14(c) repeal. It uses RSA 911 data from over 270,000 vocational rehabilitation participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Repeal alone was associated with lower six-month employment retention. VR funding and Medicaid enrollment did not buffer this effect. Medicare enrollment was the only factor that reduced this negative association. Relevant for VR counselors, policymakers, and disability employment researchers.

IDD Counts Advancing IDD Data: Defining the Population, Measuring Prevalence, and Learning from the 2026 IDD Counts Summit

The September 2026 IDD Counts Summit will bring together self-advocates, researchers, federal agencies, and community partners to advance how people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are represented in national data, especially data used to understand prevalence and health. Presenters will share Summit priorities and takeaways, including work to clarify who is included in the IDD population, estimate developmental disability prevalence using the DD Act definition, and improve national IDD data.

UCEDDs as Drivers of Translational Science

We'll present an innovative partnership between UCEDDs and their co-located Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) programs driving a translational science approach to disability health research. We'll describe the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS)-funded "Disability as Difference: Reducing Researcher Roadblocks (D2/R3)" study, our UCEDD-CTSA collaboration to extend it, and how this responds to the NIH 2026–2030 Strategic Plan for Disability Health Research's call for interdisciplinary, ecosystem-level action.