News

4/22/2019

Break for High School Students with Disabilities (MS UCEDD)

For one group of Hattiesburg-area high school students, Spring Break 2019 is not about the sand, the sun or the water - it's about preparing for the future. During the week of March 11-15, the Transition of Teens to Adult Life (ToTAL) Program at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Institute for Disability Studies (IDS) hosted an Alternative Spring Break on the Hattiesburg campus focused on preparing high school students with disabilities for employment.

4/22/2019

Disability and Democracy: Barriers in Arizona Elections (AZ UCEDD)

The Institute for Human Development (IHD) at Northern Arizona University has been awarded funding to conduct a year-long, statewide research project identifying barriers to voting for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Arizona from the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (ADDPC).

4/22/2019

Explore Access with UA Partners' Social Media Accessibility Toolkit (Arkansas UCEDD)

University of Arkansas Partners for Inclusive Communities has a new resource to assist organizations in making social media outreach more accessible. The Social Media Accessibility Toolkit provides information about how to use built-in features on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instragram to create accessible posts and videos. Where features are not available to solve certain accessibility issues, the toolkit offers alternative solutions.

4/22/2019

Linking Nutrition and Disability (MN LEND)

What does food have to do with disability? Kalia Thor wanted to know. She is a Fellow in ICI's Minnesota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (MNLEND) Program, but she is also a second-year Master of Public Health nutrition student at the University of Minnesota, a Maternal and Child Health nutrition trainee, and a nutrition educator for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. "During undergrad [in nutritional science], I always wondered why nutrition choices were so limited for certain individuals with disabilities and why they tended to be so 'picky' at mealtime," she says. Thor still wants to know, but her interests have become more specific. "I want to work with diverse populations and figure out the nutritional deficits and needs of people with neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. Being part of MNLEND, I hope to use my knowledge and skills from previous experiences and apply them to children with neurodevelopmental disorders and their nutritional intake."

4/22/2019

SC LEND Trainees Attend the Nurturing Developing Minds Conference

The members of the South Carolina LEND program recently attended a state conference in March 2019 focusing on research and initiatives that are driven to create supportive environments to help children and their families flourish. The Nurturing Developing Minds conference provided several opportunities to the LEND trainees, including attending reviews of recent research and policies on developmental surveillance and screening (with a particular emphasis on the Help Me Grow nationwide initiative) and on the long-term risks of spanking and promising interventions (i.e., the No Hit Zone)

AUCD Webinars

Policy Post Session: A Webinar for AUCD Emerging Leaders who attended DPS2019  

Join us to learn about next steps after attending the 2019 Disability Policy Seminar. You'll get tips about how to follow up with your policymakers.

Read More >

Importance of Sexual Health for Individuals with IDD  

Sexual health is an important topic for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Unfortunately, conversations related to sexual health are often not fully addressed or are pushed aside because of fear, lack of comfort with the topic, or lack of information. Join us for a webinar on the importance of sexual health for individuals with IDD. Participants will hear from Joe Shapiro from NPR and Barbara Thomas from the Tall Institute as they discuss why this sensitive topic needs to be addressed.

Read More >

Power to the Profession  

There are more than 40 million children birth through age 8 in America. One of the best things our country can do to support and improve outcomes for these children and their families is to make significant, substantial, and sustained investments in high-quality early childhood education. And because positive relationships are at the core of quality, investing specifically in early childhood educators is the best thing we can do to improve early childhood education. That is why Power to the Profession is focused on equitably advancing an effective, diverse, and well-compensated early childhood education profession across states and settings. Power to the Profession is a national collaboration to define the early childhood profession by establishing a unifying framework for career pathways, knowledge and competencies, qualifications, standards and compensation. Learn more about this powerful initiative and how you can be involved!

Read More >