Va-LEND Trainee Receives Champions of Accessibility Award

February 21, 2020

Va-LEND Trainee, Lynne Fetter received the Champions of Accessibility Award from the Transforming Accessibility Initiative (TAI) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Fetter was one of thirteen honored at TAI's annual fall conference. This award aimed to honor individuals, departments, groups, or websites committed to advocating for accessibility in their community. Recipients show passion and drive for promoting access and are making a large impact on the VCU Community, according to TAI. Fetter won under the graduate category, as her Social Work internship at the Center on Transition Innovations (CTI) at VCU focused on supporting youths with disability transition from school to the workplace.

The CTI is Virginia's center on best practices for helping youth with disabilities, transition into the workplace. Fetter's work bridged ACE-IT in college participants to the community as she helped facilitate the internship course for this program. ACE-IT in College is VCU's inclusive post-secondary education program for students with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Additionally, Fetter was instrumental in providing the School of Social Work at VCU suggestions and feedback on how to improve the student experience for Masters of Social Work interns with disabilities, which were well received. She said "I feel honored to have received the Graduate Champion of Accessibility Award. The award itself is meaningful to me as a confirmation that my efforts have paid off and I am in the right field! I have been passionate about promoting accessible, inclusive communities for a long time, and my experience as a Va-LEND Trainee has only deepened this passion." Congratulations Lynne!