Podcasts about rehabilitation act

In this episode of Volunteer Nation, Tobi Johnson is joined by Allyson Ferrari, Director of Connections at Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, to explore how organizations can make volunteering more inclusive and accessible. Together, they dive into practical strategies for building, growing, and scaling volunteer talent by designing opportunities that welcome people with disabilities. From addressing legal and logistical challenges to embracing neurodiversity and co-creating roles with volunteers themselves, this conversation offers actionable insights for any organization looking to diversify and strengthen their volunteer base. Whether you're just starting out or looking to improve your current practices, this episode is packed with inspiration and tools to make volunteering more welcoming for everyone. Full show notes: 165. Let's Make Volunteering Accessible for All with Allyson Ferrari Accessible Volunteering - Episode Highlights [03:03] - Allyson's Nonprofit Journey [05:04] - The Value of Liberal Arts in Nonprofits [09:00] - Defining Accessible Volunteering [16:34] - Legal Aspects of Accessibility [28:27] - Pairing People with Complementary Skills [29:36] - Empowerment Through Disability Identity [30:48] - Recognizing Unconscious Bias in Organizations [32:39] - Practical Tips for Accessible Volunteering [35:08] - Engaging People with Disabilities as Co-Creators [40:40] - Creating Accessible Volunteer Opportunities [49:03] - Supporting Neurodiverse Volunteers Helpful Links Volunteer Management Progress Report  Volunteer Nation Episode #Episode #124: Equity Tools for Nonprofits Volunteerism with Faiza Venzant Crip Camp Movie Info on US Section 504 of the US of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Info on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)  LightHouse for the Blind SF Find Allyson on LinkedIn  Contact Allyson Volunteer for LightHouse for the Blind SF   Thanks for listening to this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review so we can reach more people like you who want to improve the impact of their good cause. For more tips and notes from the show, check us out at TobiJohnson.com. For any comments or questions, email us at WeCare@VolPro.net.

In this episode of Passing Judgment, Jessica Levinson previews the Supreme Court's most anticipated pending cases as the term nears its end. She highlights upcoming decisions on nationwide injunctions, Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, evolving standards in discrimination lawsuits, and major cases involving religious exemptions and parental rights in education. Jessica offers her predictions and insight on how these rulings could shape the law and impact daily life, setting the stage for a dramatic finale to the Supreme Court term.Here are three key takeaways you don't want to miss:Nationwide Injunctions – Trump v. Washington/New Jersey/California: This case tackles whether federal district courts can issue nationwide injunctions blocking federal policies, as opposed to limiting decisions to just the plaintiffs in the case. The backdrop is Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship, which attempts to limit who qualifies as a citizen by birth.Transgender Rights and Equal Protection – Skrmetti: The Court is considering whether Tennessee's ban on certain gender-affirming treatments for minors violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The predicted outcome is that the Court may allow such state restrictions, but notes there could be future challenges regarding parental rights under a different part of the Fourteenth Amendment.Religious Objections in Public Schools – Parental Opt-Outs for LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum: A Maryland case considers if public schools must offer opt-outs for parents whose religious beliefs conflict with LGBTQ-inclusive materials and lessons. The prediction: the Court may require such opt-outs under the Free Exercise Clause, but will need to write the opinion carefully to avoid overly broad exemptions.Follow Our Host and Guest: @LevinsonJessica

Issue(s): Whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 require children with disabilities to satisfy a uniquely stringent "bad faith or gross misjudgment" standard when seeking relief for discrimination relating to their education.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode of Passing Judgment, Jessica Levinson goes solo to break down the latest in legal and political news. She starts by analyzing fresh polling data on President Trump's approval ratings at the 100-day mark of his second term, noting significant public disapproval and discussing what drives this administration's bold use of executive power. Jessica then turns to the Supreme Court's current docket, spotlighting two major education-related cases: one about the legal standard for disability discrimination in schools, and another questioning whether a religious school can be established as a taxpayer-funded charter school. Here are three key takeaways you don't want to miss:Presidential Approval Down, But Base Remains Loyal: Despite approval ratings hovering around 39–43%, President Trump's core supporters (about 33–35%) aren't likely to abandon him, illustrating a growing divide between the general public and a steadfast political base.Economic Policies & Tariffs Fuel Discontent: Many respondents reported feeling worse off economically since Trump's reelection and a majority expressing disapproval of new tariffs and federal agency cuts.Supreme Court Watch—Education and Religious Freedom on the Line: Two major cases could redefine legal standards for disability discrimination in schools and determine whether religious institutions can operate publicly funded charter schools.Follow Our Host: @LevinsonJessica

A case in which the Court will decide whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 require children with disabilities to satisfy a “bad faith or gross misjudgment” standard when seeking relief for discrimination relating to their education.

Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below.Kennedy v. Braidwood Management (April 21) - Appointments Clause; Issue(s): Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred in holding that the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force violates the Constitution's appointments clause and in declining to sever the statutory provision that it found to unduly insulate the task force from the Health & Human Services secretary’s supervision.Parrish v. United States (April 21) - Federal Civil Procedure; Issue(s): Whether a litigant who files a notice of appeal after the ordinary appeal period under 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a)-(b) expires must file a second, duplicative notice after the appeal period is reopened under subsection (c) of the statute and Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4.Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Zuch (April 22) - Taxes; Issue(s): Whether a proceeding under 26 U.S.C. § 6330 for a pre-deprivation determination about a levy proposed by the Internal Revenue Service to collect unpaid taxes becomes moot when there is no longer a live dispute over the proposed levy that gave rise to the proceeding.Mahmoud v. Taylor (April 22) - Religious Liberties, Education Law, Parental Rights; Issue(s): Whether public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.Diamond Alternative Energy LLC v. EPA (April 23) - Standing, Redressibility; Issue(s): (1) Whether a party may establish the redressability component of Article III standing by relying on the coercive and predictable effects of regulation on third parties.Soto v. United States (April 28) - Financial Procedure; Issue(s): Given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s holding that a claim for compensation under 10 U.S.C. § 1413a is a claim “involving … retired pay” under 31 U.S.C. § 3702(a)(1)(A), does 10 U.S.C. § 1413a provide a settlement mechanism that displaces the default procedures and limitations set forth in the Barring Act?A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, Independent School District No. 279 (April 28) - ADA; Issue(s): Whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 require children with disabilities to satisfy a uniquely stringent “bad faith or gross misjudgment” standard when seeking relief for discrimination relating to their education.Martin v. U.S. (April 29) - Supremacy Clause, Torts; Issue(s): (1) Whether the Constitution’s supremacy clause bars claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act when the negligent or wrongful acts of federal employees have some nexus with furthering federal policy and can reasonably be characterized as complying with the full range of federal law; and 2) whether the discretionary-function exception is categorically inapplicable to claims arising under the law enforcement proviso to the intentional torts exception.Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Davis (April 29) - Civil Procedure; Issue(s): Whether a federal court may certify a class action pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) when some members of the proposed class lack any Article III injury.Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond (April 30) Establishment Clause, Education Law, Federalism and Separation of Powers; Issue(s): (1) Whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free educational option for interested students; and (2) whether a state violates the First Amendment's free exercise clause by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s charter-school program solely because the schools are religious, or instead a state can justify such an exclusion by invoking anti-establishment interests that go further than the First Amendment's establishment clause requires. Featuring: Thomas A. Berry, Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato InstituteProf. Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law SchoolSarah Parshall Perry, Vice President & Legal Fellow, Defending EducationTim Rosenberger, Fellow, Manhattan InstituteProf. Gregory Sisk, Pio Cardinal Laghi Distinguished Chair in Law, Professor and Co-director of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas School of LawFrancesca Ugolini, Former Chief, DOJ Tax Division, Appellate Section(Moderator) Elle Rogers, General Counsel, United States Senator Jim Banks

Disability Series. Episode #2 of 4. In 1973, Richard Nixon signed the Rehabilitation Act, a bill intended to increasing hiring, extend rehabilitation services and increase assistance programs for Americans with disabilities. In the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, politicians and activists discussed the bill in explicitly civil rights terms, arguing that as the federal government had protected the civil rights of Black Americans and women, it must also protect the rights of disabled people. While there had been other bills focused on rehabilitation and services before, the Rehabilitation Act stood out to disabled Americans for one reason: one sentence in Section 504 of the bill. While other bills had appropriated money for services or called for programs, they didn't include a provision for enforcement – but Section 504 did exactly that. Disabled people saw an opportunity: Section 504 could radically change life for disabled people in the United States. And when the federal government failed to fully enforce Section 504 in the years after its passage, disabled people took matters into their own hands. Find show notes and transcripts at: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this powerful episode of IDD Health Matters, Dr. Craig Escudé sits down with longtime civil rights attorney, disability advocate, and former Acting Administrator of the Administration for Community Living, Alison Barkoff. Now serving as the Hirsch Health Law and Policy Professor at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, Alison shares her personal journey rooted in her experiences as a sibling of a person with an intellectual disability—and how that shaped her life's mission to advance health equity, civil rights, and inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Together, they explore: The historic update to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act—modernizing anti-discrimination protections in healthcare for the first time in nearly 50 years. The hard truths about ableism, medical bias, and discriminatory crisis standards of care exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The urgent need to incorporate clinical care curricula into medical and health professional training to eliminate health disparities for people with IDD. The challenges of navigating a fragmented service system—and why it's still worth the fight. Alison also shares her top three calls to action for improving the lives of people with IDD: building personal connections, embracing inclusive healthcare reform, and confronting the systemic complexity with commitment and compassion. If you're a healthcare professional, policymaker, or advocate looking to better understand the intersection of disability rights, healthcare, and public policy—this is an episode you don't want to miss.

In this powerful episode of IDD Health Matters, Dr. Craig Escudé sits down with longtime civil rights attorney, disability advocate, and former Acting Administrator of the Administration for Community Living, Alison Barkoff. Now serving as the Hirsch Health Law and Policy Professor at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, Alison shares her personal journey rooted in her experiences as a sibling of a person with an intellectual disability—and how that shaped her life's mission to advance health equity, civil rights, and inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Together, they explore: The historic update to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act—modernizing anti-discrimination protections in healthcare for the first time in nearly 50 years. The hard truths about ableism, medical bias, and discriminatory crisis standards of care exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The urgent need to incorporate clinical care curricula into medical and health professional training to eliminate health disparities for people with IDD. The challenges of navigating a fragmented service system—and why it's still worth the fight. Alison also shares her top three calls to action for improving the lives of people with IDD: building personal connections, embracing inclusive healthcare reform, and confronting the systemic complexity with commitment and compassion. If you're a healthcare professional, policymaker, or advocate looking to better understand the intersection of disability rights, healthcare, and public policy—this is an episode you don't want to miss.

In this episode, host Justice Shorter welcomes Jalyn Radziminski (Founder of Count US IN) and Henry Claypool.The podcast discusses the potential impacts of proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid services on people with disabilities in the United States. Medicaid cuts of $880 billion could significantly impact eligibility, services, and access to community-based living for people with disabilities. This threatens hard-won gains in deinstitutionalization and community integration. Closure of Social Security Administration offices and staffing cuts will exacerbate delays and denials of disability benefits, especially for those in rural areas who rely on in-person access. Increased government surveillance and scrutiny of disability program data raises concerns about privacy, discrimination, and distrust in accessing essential healthcare services. The disability community has a long history of advocacy and legal battles to secure rights and access, from the Rehabilitation Act to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Olmstead decision. This legacy must guide future efforts to protect Medicaid and Medicare. Disability advocates and organizers need increased funding and support to effectively push back against harmful policy changes and center the perspectives of marginalized communities within the disability movement.Our podcast theme music is by Andre Louis and Precious Perez. Thank you to Recording Artists And Music Professionals With Disabilities (RAMPD) for connecting these talented disabled musicians with the Disability & Philanthropy Forum.

 CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's Nightline, CBS's Sunday Morning, NBC's Today Show, PBS,, CNN,, Fox; National Public Radio;Washington Post, NewYork Times, are just some of the places you have read or seen him!Civil & Disability Rights are the topics of this show. With Civl Rights History being Preserved for Generations to learn about, What about Disability Rights with it's Multiracial History of Leadership & Activists?? I am concerned.Ralph was an author of the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973&  the American with Disabilities Act along with many others in many Drafts it took to get through a Bi-Partisian Congress as the national law. His work in Civill Rights is amazing as he was trained by many icons including Dorothy Height, Senator Edward Brooke (R, MA), Benjamin Hooks, Roy Wilkins, Wade Henderson. Senator Edward Kennedy, Bayard RustinYou hear very little of  Black Disability Leaders & Activists that are so pivitol to helping in this fight. Brad Lomax, The Black Panters, Dr. Sylvia Walker, (my mentor), Don Galloway or The Honorable Rep. Major Owens ( D, NY). & the Honorable Justin Dart, Tony Coehlo, Ed Roberts, Senator Lowell P. Weicker(R.CT) & others to advance Disability Rights & ADA History.Ralph Neas was both active duty and reserve in the United States Army (1968–1976). In late 1971, he joined the Congressional Research Service's American Law Division at the Library of Congress as a legislative attorney on civil rights. In January 1973, he was hired as a legislative assistant to Republican Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, eventually becoming the Senator's chief legislative assistant.From 1981 through 1995, Neas served as Executive Director of the nonpartisan Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the legislative arm of the civil rights movement. Neas coordinated successful national campaigns that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1991; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Civil Rights Restoration Act; the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988; the Japanese American Civil Liberties Act; the preservation of the Executive Order on Affirmative Action (1985–1986 and 1995–1996);and the 1982 Voting Right Act Extension.Final passage on all these laws averaged 85% in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; in addition, another 15 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights legislative priorities were enacted into law in the 1981–1995 period"The Americans with Disabilities Act Award" from the Task Force on the Rights of the Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities for "historic leadership regarding the enactment of the world's first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities" October 12, 1990;Benjamin Hooks "Keeper of the Flame" award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the 91st Annual Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, July 10, 2000"President's Award for Outstanding Service", Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, September, 2007.© 2025 Building Abundant Success!!2025 All Rights ReservedJoin Me ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASAmazon ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

Don't mess with Texas? More like don't mess with Section 504—and Kaleigh Brendle. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects the rights of people with disabilities in universities, hospitals, and other institutions that receive federal financial assistance. But in September, 17 states filed a lawsuit claiming Section 504 is unconstitutional as it stands. Their argument? That recent guidance from the Biden administration, particularly those including gender dysphoria as a disability and emphasizing accommodations be provided in integrated settings, goes too far. Kaleigh Brendle joins Marissa (again!) on Blonde & Blind to unpack what this lawsuit could mean for Section 504 and the civil rights of the disability community. They tackle the misconception that the lawsuit only targets trans people, and stress the importance of cross-community allyship in the fight for justice.Kaleigh Brendle is a senior at Villanova University studying English, Justice & Peace, and Argumentation & Advocacy. She's heavily involved with the National Federation of the Blind and is on the executive board of Villanova's disability alliance LEVEL. Kaleigh is extremely passionate about disability rights and is an aspiring lawyer. She previously appeared on Blonde & Blind in December 2020 to share her experience suing the College Board in "Not Blind to Injustice."Connect with Blonde & Blind!Website  - https://www.blondeblind.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/blondeblindgirl/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/blondeblindLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/blonde-blind YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJz_ng0bHVm0s33plEl5Kpg X - https://twitter.com/marissa_nissley Connect with Kaleigh! Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kaleighbrendle/ Facebook - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaleigh-brendle-8a8a0124b LinkedIn - https://www.facebook.com/friday.live.31/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@kaleigh.brendle/video/7472500905045282091 Key Points:5:09 - What is section 504?9:50 - What is section 504 important?12:00 - What is Texas v. Becerra?18:05 - Some argue that this lawsuit is only about gender dysphoria, not about eliminating 504. What is your response to that?26:14 - What can people do to get involved?Get Involved - https://dredf.org/protect-504/Resources & Transcript - https://www.blondeblind.com/post/37-don-t-mess-with-section-504-feat-kaleigh-brendle

Nebraska VR is on a mission to elevate careers and empower businesses through its innovative Disability Innovation Fund Career Pathways Advancement Project (CPAP 2.0). In this episode, Carol Pankow sits down with Cathy Callaway, Nebraska VR's Assistant Director, to discuss how the program helps individuals with disabilities advance in high-demand fields like STEM and skilled trades. With over 130 business partners signed on, the initiative is breaking barriers, fostering workforce development, and proving that growth doesn't stop at job placement—it's about career progression. Tune in to hear how Nebraska VR is redefining success through strategic partnerships and a dual-customer approach!   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   Carol: Listeners, we would like to dedicate this podcast to Mary Eunice Neary. As the different CPAP 2.0 director. Mary played a vital role in this work, but was unable to join us for the recording. In her absence, Cathy Callaway, the interim director, stepped in for the discussion. Sadly, Mary has since passed away, but her impact on Nebraska VR will always be remembered.   {Music} Cathy: We look to find those clients that were closed previously in VR and work with them to advance them in their careers, and then in conjunction, we work with businesses to create a business model that we can help businesses work to advance people in their business so that it assists them in their workforce as well. The number of business partners we had a goal in the grant of signing 100, and we're at 130 plus with still a year and a half on the grant to go.   Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Cathy Callaway, Nebraska VR assistant director and interim director of the DIF CPAP 2.0 project. So, Cathy, how are things going in Nebraska?   Cathy: Cold right now? Other than that? Very well, though. Very well with the grant.   Carol: Excellent. No, it is cold here today, too, in Minnesota. I tell you, we go from 54 degrees down to minus eight. It has been a lot. So for our listeners, three years ago, Nebraska VR received a Disability Innovation Fund grant for the Career Advancement Project, and the Rehab Services Administration funded this initiative and is focused on helping people with disabilities who are eligible for VR services, including those who are previously served and have returned to the program, advance in their careers, and the goal is to help individuals move into high demand, high quality fields like science, technology, engineering and math. Those Stem kind of professions, including computer science, and the initiative also supports entry into career pathways and key industries through programs like pre-apprenticeship, registered apprenticeships and industry recognized apprenticeship programs. And the efforts really designed to help people achieve better jobs with competitive wages, become more financially independent and reduce their reliance on public benefits or state and local support, and promotes independence and full inclusion in their communities. Oh my gosh, that's a bunch. So I know Nebraska has been at this for a bit, so let's dig in and find out what's going on. So Cathy, help our listeners out. Let's start by getting to know you a bit. What's your role and how did you get into VR?   Cathy: That's a long story actually. As you mentioned, I'm currently in the assistant director role. I started when the 1992, amendments to the Rehabilitation Act were implemented. In those amendments, the State Rehabilitation Council was created, and I was hired clear back then to work with the State Rehab Council. And then I just kept working with VR. I actually have a business degree, and I kind of started working in the financial area and really was working in the fiscal area when the push to integrate data and program was kind of a thing. And so I started working on integration of fiscal and program and data and all of that. So I worked very closely in both of those areas and kind of just got to know the program side and the fiscal side and the data side, and moved from then the fiscal arena into the program director for quality assurance for a few years. And after that, just two years ago became the assistant director. So kind of had a little bit of a role in everything.   Carol: Well, excellent. You're a person that takes after me in my heart with having the fiscal program combined. I might have to tap you for some other things about that, because we often talk in our work about combining fiscal with program and data, and there aren't a lot of places that have people who've done all of that. So good to know. Thanks for that fun fact.   Cathy: You're welcome.   Carol: So I hear you had a pretty unique situation in Nebraska that made you the perfect fit to apply for this grant. Can you share a little bit about what that was?   Cathy: Sure. We applied for the grant in 2016 to 2021, and it was our what we call Career Pathways Advancement Project CPAP 1.0, and it focused specifically on promoting, upskilling and backfilling incumbent workers with disabilities. So that project ended in 2021. And at that time then another DIF project was made available. So we applied and expanded that. We are still looking to upskill and advance workers, but we also then included another component that was related to working with businesses directly. So this grant was kind of a add on to the CPAP 1.0. We actually call this one CPAP 2.0. Yeah it's the similar but it expands into working with the businesses as well.   Carol: Well and just for folks, so they know what is CPAP. Can you just tell them...   Cathy: Yes, it's career pathways advancement project.   Carol: Perfect.   Cathy: Advancing clients in those career pathways that you mentioned in those STEM areas.   Carol: Excellent, thank you. I just know VR is notorious for our acronyms. And then some new people are in there like, I don't know what you're talking about. So give us the big picture. What are you really hoping to accomplish with this project?   Cathy: We're hoping to develop a business model under this grant that can be sustainable. And once the grant ends with VR and we look to find those clients that were closed previously in VR and work with them to advance them in their careers. And then in addition to that advancement, whether that's in a new career pathway or in the jobs they're already in, we hope to increase their wages, benefits, maybe their hours, and to help improve their economic self-sufficiency. And then in conjunction, we work with businesses, as I mentioned, to create a business model that we can help businesses work to advance people in their business so that it assists them in their workforce as well.   Carol: I love that you're really living into WIOA, you know, the whole dual customer approach.   Cathy: Yep.   Carol: Now, I know early on when you were introducing this idea to clients, people were thinking you guys were scammers. What was going on with that?   Cathy: They were we started out thinking, well, we'll just call back these clients that we closed and talk to them about advancing. And because of the world today, many of them. Yeah. Thought we were scammers and there's no way somebody's going to pay for my training or me to go back to college and advance. So we really had to kind of refine our outreach efforts. We actually moved to sending them a letter with the name of the counselor that they previously worked with and some more about. Remember when you worked with VR and we assisted you. And so we send out those letters first and provide some information about the grant. And then we follow up about a week after the letter goes out with a phone call from someone. So that's really made a difference. They kind of are like, oh yeah, I worked with VR before, I know who you are. And I remember that counselor. So that's made a difference for us in terms of outreach.   Carol: Well, good. And hopefully your phone isn't showing up as, um, scam possible scam call.   Cathy: Exactly.   Carol: So what have been some of your biggest challenges you faced while getting this project off the ground?   Cathy: Yeah, I would say probably some of the things we wrote into the grant, maybe we would do a little bit different. We had written into the grant that we would like to sign businesses up, I guess, to make referrals to us. And we've had some resistance in terms of the signing of it isn't obligating them to anything, but they kind of some businesses are reluctant to sign anything. And so we've had some resistance that way. Although we've been able to sign over 130 business plans with businesses to offer referrals to the program. So we would probably do that a little bit different. That's been a challenge, I think training. We hired new staff for the grant and then that, of course, learning the VR process and all that goes with it really took a significant amount of time. So we got behind in serving clients and then retaining, of course, with a grant, your staff realize that it's a grant and it will end. And so some staff that worked on the grant have now taken permanent positions with VR. And so we're kind of a work in progress with the keeping the staffing. And then just as I said, building the trust with clients as we reach out to them. And we've adjusted, as I mentioned earlier, but kind of making sure that adjusting our marketing outreach so they realize we're not a scam.   Carol: Well, I know often these projects, you know, you're projecting ahead and you're thinking, okay, I want to do these great things and you create all this in your mind. But typically all of the DIF grants end up evolving in some way a bit from the original plan. And you alluded to this a bit, but I know you guys have had to pivot. And so what have been those ways in which you've pivoted, maybe from what your original intent was in the grant?   Cathy: Yeah, we've pivoted a little bit. The grant, we thought we would get a lot of clients that wanted short term training, and a lot of them want to get advanced degrees or get a degree. And those have been taken much longer time than we thought. So there's been just some different thinking about clients that want the more long term degrees or advancing in degrees. We've had to change our marketing materials. We kind of had just generic flyers, and now we've moved to developing specific marketing materials for the businesses that we're going into, which has really helped with their employees. Instead of just seeing this generic flyer, they can say, oh, the company I'm working for, there's opportunities in these areas and I can advance. And it's been very specific to the business, which I think has created some buy in with the employees. I would say we hired a Career Pathways recruiter specifically to work with individuals with more significant disabilities, specifically developmental disabilities, just because that's a whole different group to work with. And so we've kind of hired an expert in that area, which has helped. And then I would say changing because Nebraska is such a rural state, we had identified originally career pathway recruiters to work with specific areas of the state, and we've had to kind of pivot and say, okay, you can work with anybody across the state given Zoom and Adobe Sign and all those things, because it's allowed us then to serve more clients statewide, rather than limiting it to just areas where we have the career pathways recruiters.   Carol: Yeah, that really has been amazing, especially for states that have more rural sections. You do like we do in Minnesota as well, you know, and the whole ability to serve people remotely is amazing or virtually, you know, you can get at them. I think that's great. I know in your marketing efforts have been super impressive. And like, how are you making that happen? Do you have an in-house person, or are you contracting to make those marketing efforts happen? How are you making that work?   Cathy: We do have an in-house marketing team and they're amazing. They're super flexible. They're willing to work with us, so they work to provide whatever materials we need, as I mentioned, able to work in partnership with businesses to specifically customize those marketing materials for the business. And then the other marketing piece we've really done that's kind of new is what we call lunch and learns. And we go into businesses and we kind of do a presentation over like the lunch hour, or sometimes early in the morning at the beginning of a shift. And we really target the HR managers and the team leaders and the people that can get the word out to their employees about our services and about the grant. So those lunch and learns have been pretty well attended, and we're able to really get the word out to a lot of people in the businesses for them to then refer their employees back to us.   Carol: Yeah, that's excellent. So looking back so far, what accomplishments are you most proud of?   Cathy: I think the number of business partners that we've been able to reach out to and connect with and sign those individualized business plans, we had a goal in the grant of signing 100, and we're at 130 plus with still a year and a half on the grant to go. So just getting that word out. You know, the nice thing about doing that, getting in those businesses is we're not only mentioning the grant, but we're also able to mention Nebraska VR. And if you, you know, can get people just the word out about Nebraska VR, even beyond the grant has really been a benefit. We've had several clients that I say we are really proud to say have gotten advanced degrees. It's not just certifications, but they've been able to go on and get advanced degrees through this program, and then just being able to help contact those clients that we previously served and were able to get a job, and just letting them know you can do more, you can advance and we can help you with that. So I think just all of the clients that we've been able to reach out to and really help them become more economically self-sufficient.   Carol: That's excellent. I know that's a big foundational piece within VR. So it's fun to see it actually happen. So for those folks out there that are thinking about applying for a grant in the future, and hard to say what the future holds, what advice would you give them? Because I know often people are like, oh, I don't know. Or, you know, is it too much of a pain in the butt, you know, to try to do all of this stuff? What kind of advice do you have for them?   Cathy: I would just say, take the plunge and do it. It's given us an opportunity to really think outside the lines, a little bit of what we could do in Nebraska VR, but it's also gives us the opportunity to make those mistakes and adjust and pivot and evolve. So the hope would be, you know, by the time this grant is over, we have created that model that is going to be sustainable under VR, and we have just learned so much more about our dual customer approach, working with the businesses as well as with the clients. So I would suggest if anybody is looking at doing that, to just do it and give yourself the chance to develop things outside of what you think is currently possible.   Carol: I like that. That's great advice. You know, with the dual customer and this focus on business. Are there particular sectors you're seeing that are responding, you know, to this program. Are there certain sectors. You know every state has a different kind of flow to it. So I wondered if there were specifics there in Nebraska.   Cathy: Yeah, we've had a pretty big response in the healthcare industry. We actually just signed a business here. Vetter. And I think they have over 30 locations across the state, so we're going to be working with them. We've had a lot of success with the CDL, the transportation and distribution and logistics area. Those have probably been our two biggest focuses or the ones where we've had the most interest. And then probably we've had some in the manufacturing area as well. But specifically we have a lot of businesses with the CDLs that is popular.   Carol: Interesting. That's very cool. I know Minnesota was doing something and they also were doing it in the transportation area. I guess I hadn't realized how big that is and the need right now.   Cathy: It is, yes.   Carol: So where can our listeners go to learn more about your project? Do you have a project website?   Cathy: We do. It's VR.Nebraska.gov/pathways. And there's contact information on there regarding the Career Pathways Advancement Project. There's some success story videos out there and just a lot of information about our project and our grant.   Carol: Excellent. And then are people able to if they go on the website, are they able to like get at if they had any other questions or something they could get one of you?   Cathy: Yep, there's contact information on there as well for anyone to reach out with. Any questions.   Carol: Yeah, it's been really fun. As of late, I've been hearing from a lot of folks across the country and they said, we sure like hearing these stories because they're trying to plant the seeds and get ideas. And are there things that they could even try in their state right now...   Cathy: Absolutely.   Carol: Different way. Yeah. That's great. So any last parting thoughts for our listeners?   Cathy: No, I just appreciate the opportunity to share information about our project and encourage anyone interested to go to our website and ask any questions, if they have any.   Carol: Well, thanks for coming on today. I really appreciate it. We don't hear much from Nebraska, so I'm like, I have to get at you guys and see what's going on. I look forward to talking to you again when you get kind of in that last year and see where you're standing with all the data and what's happening. So thanks much, Kathy. Appreciate it.   Cathy: Thanks, Carol. Good to see you.   {Music} Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!  

From healthcare to education to employment, this conversation goes beyond policy, it's about people, their futures, and the fight to ensure accessibility remains a fundamental right. Joined by Theo W. Braddy, a lifelong disability advocate and leader, in this episode, we explore the real-life impact of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Theo shares his personal story and lived experience, unpacking the protections 504 provides, the barriers that still exist, and what's at stake if these rights are weakened. Web Transcript PDF Transcript Show Notes: Protect 504: Article 19 episode that explores the legal side of this lawsuit with Alison Barkoff DREDF Protect 504: An informative overview of the lawsuit that could result in Section 504 being overturned, and clear direction on what you can do to protect it DREDF Protect 504 Plain Language: A plain language PDF version of the DREDF Protect 504 page HHS Section 504: The official rule for Section 504, including the 2024 update Texas v. Becerra: The official court document for the Texas v. Becerra case

OA1141 - Are Republican AGs really trying to have some of the most important federal protections for disability rights declared unconstitutional? Attorney Jenessa Seymour joins to explain the history and purpose of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the pending challenge to a Biden-era regulatory update intended to protect trans health care rights.  Texas v. Becerra docket Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

This podcast episode highlights the alarming legal challenge to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a foundational disability rights law in the United States. Kaleigh Brendle, a student advocate, explains that 17 attorneys general have filed a lawsuit arguing that Section 504 is unconstitutional. If repealed, this could strip away protections for millions of disabled Americans, impacting education, employment, healthcare, and accessibility. The conversation emphasizes the lack of media coverage on the issue and urges public action to defend disability rights. The discussion also connects this case to broader civil rights issues, stressing the potential consequences of dismantling federal oversight on disability protections.   Here is a link to the article with Kaleigh Brendle on USA Today.   full Transcript    

20250315 Demand Our Access Originally Broadcasted March 15, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Jonathan discussed how you can let government officials know you support Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.   Sponsored by: Demand Our Access   Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

Yes, there is a lawsuit that could eliminate Section 504khou.com, By Texas And Several Other States Could End It, on February 15, 2025https://www.khou.com/article/news/verify/section-504-lawsuit/285-643af794-fb84-4b84-a3fd-d8060ec5db71 The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit challenging the inclusion of gender dysphoria under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination in federally funded institutions. The lawsuit aims to remove gender identity protections, particularly under the Biden administration's recent changes, arguing that Section 504 itself is unconstitutional. The outcome could affect many individuals across Texas and beyond, impacting access to essential services like education, healthcare, and public accommodations, which rely on these nondiscrimination protections. If Section 504 were struck down, it could remove protections for individuals with various disabilities, not just those affected by gender dysphoria. These protections ensure equal access to services, such as wheelchair ramps, classroom accommodations, medical device use, and more. Beyond the LGBTQ+ community, many people with disabilities, such as diabetes, autism, or visual impairments, rely on these rights for their day-to-day lives. The potential loss of these protections could harm vulnerable populations, particularly in public institutions, like schools, hospitals, and other government-funded services. The broader implication is that removing these protections could set a dangerous precedent for dismantling anti-discrimination laws, affecting millions who benefit from them. The legal and political trends surrounding this lawsuit reflect a growing shift in how disability rights and LGBTQ+ protections are framed. Those opposing gender identity protections often view them as part of a broader "woke" agenda, but the consequences of dismantling these protections could affect many individuals across various communities. With a polarized political climate, where personal interests and ideological lines blur, there's a significant risk that broader legal protections could be weakened, jeopardizing the rights of marginalized groups. The lawsuit is further complicated by the current political and judicial environment, where a more conservative Supreme Court has been inclined to reverse precedents and interpret laws based on tradition rather than established legal frameworks. If this lawsuit succeeds, it could lead to the elimination of vital protections, not just for transgender individuals, but for many others who rely on Section 504 for equality and access to necessary services.The Non-Prophets, Episode 24.9.3 featuring Cynthia McDonald, Infidel64, Aaron Jensen and AJBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-non-prophets--3254964/support.

In Episode 136 of Raising Kellan, Marsh Naidoo sits down with Lindsey Lind from East Tennessee to discuss their shared experiences in the Partners in PolicyMaking program, a leadership initiative by the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities. Lindsey, a dedicated mother of three, shares her journey navigating the complexities of disability advocacy, particularly focusing on her son who has an extra male chromosome, autism, and ADHD. This episode dives deep into the importance of understanding Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination in various settings including education and healthcare.Listeners will learn about Axys, a nonprofit organization supporting families affected by sex chromosome variations, and the implications of the Texas vs Becerra lawsuit that threatens to undermine these critical protections for persons with disabilities. Lindsey emphasizes the need for parents to be informed and proactive in advocating for their children's rights within the educational system, including understanding the differences between IEPs and 504 plans.Join us for this enlightening conversation, which will highlight the urgency of advocacy in the face of proposed federal changes and the vital role of community support in ensuring that all children receive the accommodations they need to thrive. Don't miss the upcoming Disability Day on the Hill on March 12th, 2025, where you can make your voice heard!00:00 Introduction03:53 Lindsey Lind origin story09:53 What is keeping Lindsey up at night?18:23 Lindsey: Advocating for school accommodations for kids with disabilities is crucial21:12 Upcoming events

We're sweating! We're hyperfixating! Because a bunch of conservative attorneys general have filed a lawsuit trying to weaken or eliminate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which served as a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act.This week, Jess and Imani get into the conservative legal movement's attempts to roll back Section 504—and how it could constitute government-sponsored eugenics. And even though conservatives are pretending that they're really just targeting trans folks, why should we believe them?Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

We're sweating! We're hyperfixating! Because a bunch of conservative attorneys general have filed a lawsuit trying to weaken or eliminate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which served as a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act.This week, Jess and Imani get into the conservative legal movement's attempts to roll back Section 504—and how it could constitute government-sponsored eugenics. And even though conservatives are pretending that they're really just targeting trans folks, why should we believe them?Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

20250301 Demand Our Access Originally Broadcasted March 1, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Jonathan discussed the lawsuit attempting to declare Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 unconstitutional.   Sponsored by: Demand Our Access     Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act has been a cornerstone of disability rights for over 50 years—so why is it under attack now? In this special mini-sode, we are joined by Alison Barkoff, former head of HHS' Administration for Community Living and a lifelong disability advocate, to unpack the legal battle, the misinformation fueling it, and the action we need to take right now. This isn't a policy debate, it's a fight for our rights, our healthcare, and our futures. PDF Transcript Web Transcript Show Notes: DREDF Protect 504: An informative overview of the lawsuit which could result in Section 504 being overturned and clear direction on what you can do to protect it DREDF Protect 504 Plain Language: A plain language PDF version of the DREDF Protect 504 page HHS Section 504: The official rule for Section 504 including the 2024 update Texas v. Becerra: The official court document for the Texas v. Becerra case

Hosts: Erin Rider and Leah Murray  For our listeners who've been following the multi-state lawsuit regarding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act -- which protects people with disabilities -- there are new updates on the case. Last week, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown spoke with Inside Sources about the lawsuit and what it hopes to achieve. He joins us again to address a solution to one specific concern.  

Hosts: Erin Rider and Leah Murray  Fallout grows over Pres. Trump’s comments on Ukraine  GOP Senators, foreign policy experts, and world leaders are all coming out against President Trump for his recent comments saying Ukraine is responsible for the Russian invasion of their country. Utah's Senators are also weighing in on those claims, with Senator Curtis saying he supports Ukraine, but doesn’t want to second guess the President. The Inside Sources hosts give their analysis on the situation today.    The effects of federal layoffs here in Utah  One of President Trump's campaign promises was to reduce the size of the federal government. It's a big reason DOGE was created. Layoffs of federal employees are already underway -- probationary employees have already been let go. And more layoffs are coming. The hosts talk about the potential effects here in Utah and the importance of compassion in this discussion.    Updates to the multi-state lawsuit over disability protections  For our listeners who've been following the multi-state lawsuit regarding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act -- which protects people with disabilities -- there are new updates on the case. Last week, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown spoke with Inside Sources about the lawsuit and what it hopes to achieve. He joins us again to address a solution to one specific concern.     The state of Utah’s budget  One of the first action items in the state's legislative session is figuring out the budget -- how much money will there be available to spend on all the legislation lawmakers hope to pass? Appropriations committees have wrapped up now and the state's budget... isn't looking as positive as in previous years. Can lawmakers get their desired tax cuts with the state of the budget? Leah and Erin discuss.    Analysis of the federal government budget proposals  How does the federal budget look under the House GOP’s proposal? It’s the one President Trump appears to like more, so what’s in it? Mike Murphy, Senior Vice President at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget joins Inside Sources in the studio to share his expert analysis of the budget proposals and whether Congress has a chance to actually balance the budget.    The 1st Amendment, freedom of the press, and President Trump  Recently, the Trump Administration barred the Associated Press (AP) from covering the Oval Office. It comes because of how the news organization refers to the Gulf of America: call it Gulf of Mexico while also mentioning that President Trump has decided to call it the Gulf of America. It's brought up some thoughts on how President Trump works with the press, how far the 1st amendment goes, and when a President can sue for libel.   

Send us a textIn this episode, we discuss the current legal challenge to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which could have profound affects on your dyslexic or disabled child!For more detail about Section 504 and your children's rights, see our interview with attorney Laura Heneghan:Part 1: https://youtu.be/rw-cnFPhKdoPart 2: https://youtu.be/PK0iEPyBmZ4Here are the articles we referenced in the episode:https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2025/02/13/17-states-sue-to-end-protections-for-students-with-special-needs/ https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ocr/civilrights/resources/factsheets/504.pdf https://www.nea.org/resource-library/know-your-rights-section-504-rehabilitation-act https://www.copaa.org/page/section-504-facts https://www.ksl.com/article/51253834/i-hear-you-parents-utah-attorney-general-responds-to-concerns-over-section-504-lawsuit https://theeducatorsroom.com/in-a-new-lawsuit-17-states-sue-to-do-away-with-504-protections/ Dyslexia Journey has conversations and explorations to help you support the dyslexic child in your life. Content includes approaches, tips, and interviews with a range of guests from psychologists to educators to people with dyslexia. Increase your understanding and connection with your child as you help them embrace their uniqueness and thrive on this challenging journey!Send us your questions, comments, and guest suggestions to parentingdyslexiajourney@gmail.comAlso check out our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@ParentingDyslexiaJourney

GDP Script/ Top Stories for February 18th Publish Date: February 18th From The BG AD Group Studio, Welcome to the Gwinnett Daily Post Podcast. Today is Tuesday, February 18th and Happy Birthday to John Travolta ***02.18.25 - BIRTHDAY – JOHN TRAVOLTA*** I’m Keith Ippolito and here are your top stories presented by KIA Mall of Georgia Mulberry looking to annex commercial properties on city's outskirts Andrew Young reflects on lessons from a life of service and partnerships Georgia Attorney General under fire over lawsuit targeting federal disability protections statute All of this and more is coming up on the Gwinnett Daily Post podcast, and if you are looking for community news, we encourage you to listen daily and subscribe! Break 1: Kia MOG (07.14.22 KIA MOG) STORY 1: Mulberry looking to annex commercial properties on city's outskirts Mulberry, Gwinnett County's newest city, is pursuing legislation to annex over 100 mostly commercial land parcels, aiming for zoning control over key corridors like Hamilton Mill and Braselton Highway. Unlike Lawrenceville's residential-focused annexation plan, Mulberry's proposal, led by Mayor Michael Coker and State Sen. Clint Dixon, targets commercial centers like the Walmart at Hamilton Mill and Sardis Church Roads. The annexation, outlined in Senate Bill 139, won’t significantly impact Mulberry’s population and doesn’t require a referendum, focusing instead on managing future development and zoning. STORY 2: Andrew Young reflects on lessons from a life of service and partnerships Andrew Young, at 92, continues to inspire as a Civil Rights leader, former Atlanta mayor, and U.N. ambassador. His life and Atlanta’s growth are celebrated in an exhibit at the Lawrenceville Arts Center through March 31. During a fireside chat, Young shared stories of regional cooperation, advice from his father—“Don’t get mad, get smart”—and his resilience during a 1964 Civil Rights march attack. Reflecting on today’s polarized politics, he emphasized patience, collaboration, and focusing on helping others as keys to progress and democracy. STORY 3: Georgia Attorney General under fire over lawsuit targeting federal disability protections statute Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr faces criticism from lawmakers and disability advocates over a lawsuit targeting Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination. Carr’s office claims the lawsuit only challenges a Biden-era rule adding "gender dysphoria" as a protected disability, but critics argue it seeks to declare Section 504 unconstitutional, jeopardizing broader protections. Families fear this could lead to attacks on other laws like IDEA, which supports students with disabilities. Advocates stress the importance of accommodations for education and independence, urging Carr to withdraw from the lawsuit to protect these vital protections. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info. We’ll be right back Break 2: RINGLING BROS_FINAL STORY 4: Monkey Wrench Brewing raising money on GoFundMe to keep doors open Monkey Wrench Brewing in Suwanee is seeking to raise $40,000–$45,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to address financial challenges caused by equipment repairs, expansion costs, and inflation. Despite struggles, the brewery has thrived in event hosting and community support, celebrating its 5th anniversary and securing a new distributor. Co-owner Wayne Baxter remains optimistic, citing recent successes and plans to expand into distilled spirits once equipment is repaired. Alongside fundraising, Baxter is seeking new investors to help cover back debt and ensure the brewery’s future. STORY 5: Gwinnett's Overstory Rooftop Bar To Host Exclusive Código Tequila Dinner Overstory Rooftop Bar at the Westin Atlanta Gwinnett will host a special four-course dinner paired with Código 1530 Tequila on Thursday, Feb. 27, at 6 p.m. The event features Amazonian-inspired dishes like Fosforera seafood soup, Chica Morada Short Ribs, and Chocolate Dreams Cake, designed to complement the tequila’s flavors. With panoramic views of the Gas South District, tickets are $210 per person and available on Eventbrite. Overstory promises an unforgettable evening blending fine dining and premium tequila. Break: ***Guide Weekly Health Minute*** 08.20.24 GUIDE HEALTH MINUTE_FINAL*** Break 4: Ingles Markets 10 Signoff – Thanks again for hanging out with us on today’s Gwinnett Daily Post Podcast. If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast, the Marietta Daily Journal, or the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties. Read more about all our stories and get other great content at www.gwinnettdailypost.com Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Giving you important news about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the BG Podcast Network Show Sponsors: www.ingles-markets.com  www.kiamallofga.com Ringling Bros #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversations See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosts: Leah Murray and Greg Skordas  17 states – including Utah – are involved in a lawsuit against the federal government over Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. This section defines what constitutes a disability. It was updated during the Biden Administration, changing the definition of a disability to include gender dysphoria. The lawsuit’s been confusing some people because it says the gender dysphoria part is unconstitutional, but also that the whole section is unconstitutional. Utah Attorney General Derek Brown joins Inside Sources to explain more about the lawsuit and how he sees it. He also talks about protecting Section 504 as a whole. 

Hosts: Leah Murray and Greg Skordas  Utah’s involvement in a lawsuit over disability protections  17 states – including Utah – are involved in a lawsuit against the federal government over Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. This section defines what constitutes a disability. It was updated during the Biden Administration, changing the definition of a disability to include gender dysphoria. The lawsuit’s been confusing some people because it says the gender dysphoria part is unconstitutional, but also that the whole section is unconstitutional. Utah Attorney General Derek Brown joins Inside Sources to explain more about the lawsuit and how he sees it. He also talks about protecting Section 504 as a whole.    On the Hill 2025: Transparency vs. privacy with signatures gathered in an election  During the primary and general elections last year, there was quite a bit of controversy and discussion over the privacy of signatures gathered for candidates to get on the ballot. Some folks wanted them to be public – in the name of transparency – while others wanted them to stay hidden in the name of privacy. The Inside Sources give their analysis on House Bill 374.    On the Hill 2025: Banning political flags from government, educational spaces  The importance of political neutrality in government spaces versus the importance of free speech from people who work in those government spaces – it's part of the basis of a bill working its way through the state legislature. House Bill 77 would ban several kinds of flags from classrooms and other government facilities. Hosts Leah Murray and Greg Skordas discuss the balance between neutrality and free speech.    How reciprocal tariffs could affect you and your personal finances  President Donald Trump says there are trade imbalances between the United States and its foreign trade partners, and that he will institute reciprocal tariffs to try and balance the relationships. It's a fine line the President is trying to straddle between a good economy and fairness. Senior Economist at Zions Bank Robert Spendlove joins Inside Sources to talk about the potential effects of these “payback tariffs.”    Ukrainian President and U.S. Vice President meet to discuss peace with Russia  Ukrainian President Zelensky urged the United States to "not ... make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine." His warning came prior to his meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference today. It's prompted some additional questions about the United States' role in promoting and ensuring peace among other countries. Leah and Greg discuss the country’s changing foreign policy stances.    Continuing identity crises among Democrats  The identity crisis among Democrats continues as more moderate Dems in Congress voice concerns about the number of liberal progressives joining the "New Democrat Coalition." Would Democrats do better if they shifted their policies more to the left? The Inside Sources give their thoughts.    Valentine’s Day trends  Inside Sources ends the show with a special discussion on their favorite Valentine’s Day traditions.   

Episode 98 – Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) This month on Calendar Call, Paul Bourdoulous talks with Sandra Lugo-Gines, Program Manager for the Superior Court Operations Division about the Americans with Disabilities Act with a specific focus on Title II and public services offered by the Connecticut Judicial Branch. Paul and Sandra discuss what the ADA is, the scope of disability, and the requirements of the Judicial Branch to comply with Title II. Additional topics include common services provided, requests for accommodation, service animals, and more. Title II ADA.gov Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Centralized ADA Office Email: ADAprogram@jud.ct.gov or Call: 860-706-5310

Welcome back to the TruVue Podcast, where we bring the barbershop talk straight to the box office! Today, we're diving into Sing Sing, a flick that flips the script on your typical prison drama. This ain't just about bars and guards; it's about the transformative power of art and the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at New York's Sing Sing Correctional Facility.  Alright, picture this: Divine G (Colman Domingo) is locked up at Sing Sing for a crime he didn't commit. Instead of just sittin' around feelin' sorry for himself, he finds purpose by joinin' a theater group with other incarcerated men. Together, they put on a play that ain't just about killin' time—it's about reclaimin' their humanity and showin' the world they ain't just their convictions. We keep it real on the reels, and this film ain't shy about showin' the gritty realities of prison life. But it also highlights how the arts can be a game-changer for folks behind bars. Spoiler alert: This ain't your typical "prison break" story. It's deeper, it's realer, and it's somethin' you gotta see to believe. Alright, folks, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more barbershop-style breakdowns. It's not about the review, it's the conversation with the crew, and we bring it every damn time! Let's get to it, ‘cause this ain't your grandma's Sunday matinee. Catch Us Here YouTube: TruVue Podcast Instagram: @truvuepodcast Facebook: TruVue Podcast X (Formerly Twitter): @TruVuePodcast Email: TruVueSocial@gmail.com Website: www.TruVuePodcast.com LinkedIn: TruVue Podcast Fanbase: TruVue Podcast

This Day in Legal History: Harlan F. Stone Appears Before Senate Judiciary CommitteeOn January 28, 1925, Harlan Fiske Stone became the first U.S. Supreme Court nominee to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This marked a significant turning point in the judicial confirmation process, as prior nominees were not required to appear in person. Stone, a former Attorney General and respected legal scholar, was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The decision to have him testify was unprecedented and came in response to concerns raised about his political independence and potential ties to Wall Street interests.  During his appearance, Stone assured the committee of his commitment to judicial impartiality and independence. He addressed questions about his legal philosophy, his past work, and the role of the judiciary in upholding the Constitution. His calm demeanor and straightforward responses helped to dispel doubts and earned him bipartisan support. The hearing was also held publicly, setting a new standard of transparency in the confirmation process.  Stone's testimony contributed to his swift confirmation as an Associate Justice by the Senate, where he served with distinction. Later, in 1941, he became the Chief Justice of the United States, further cementing his legacy as one of the nation's most respected jurists. This event set a precedent that has since become a critical part of the Supreme Court nomination process, allowing the Senate and the public to scrutinize nominees more thoroughly.  The decision to include nominee testimony is seen as a key development in ensuring accountability and public trust in the judiciary. Stone's appearance before the committee reflected a shift toward greater transparency in government, a principle that continues to shape the confirmation process today.A transgender inmate, identified as "Maria Moe," has filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's executive order mandating federal recognition of only two unchangeable biological sexes. The order requires transgender women to be housed in men's prisons and ends funding for gender-affirming medical care for incarcerated individuals. The lawsuit, filed in Boston federal court, argues that the order violates the Fifth Amendment's due process clause by discriminating based on sex and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. It also alleges a violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 by denying medically necessary care. Following the executive order, Moe was informed of her impending transfer from a women's prison to a men's facility, and her official prison records were altered to reflect a male designation. The lawsuit claims that such a transfer would expose Moe to heightened risks of violence and sexual assault. Additionally, Moe's access to hormone therapy, which she has used since adolescence to treat gender dysphoria, is at risk of being discontinued. Moe's legal team is seeking to block her transfer, maintain her medical treatment, and have the executive order declared unconstitutional. Both the U.S. Justice Department and Moe's attorney declined to comment.Transgender inmate sues over Trump's order curtailing LGBT rights | ReutersNovo Nordisk has agreed to cap insulin prices as part of a settlement with Minnesota's attorney general, who accused the company and two other major insulin manufacturers, Eli Lilly and Sanofi, of inflating insulin prices to unaffordable levels. Under the settlement, Novo Nordisk will limit out-of-pocket insulin costs to $35 per monthly prescription for cash-paying patients, regardless of insurance status, and will provide free insulin to low-income Minnesotans earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level (about $128,600 for a family of four). This agreement mirrors earlier settlements Minnesota reached with Eli Lilly and Sanofi in 2024. Together, the settlements are expected to cut insulin costs for patients by over 90%. While Novo Nordisk denied any wrongdoing, the settlement will remain in effect for five years pending court approval. Minnesota's attorney general, Keith Ellison, criticized insulin makers for prioritizing profits over patients' lives, accusing them of artificially inflating list prices while negotiating rebates with pharmacy benefit managers. Insulin is a life-saving drug for individuals with diabetes, particularly type 1. Minnesota's legal battle began in 2018 under Ellison's predecessor, Lori Swanson.Novo Nordisk to cap insulin prices in Minnesota settlement; joins Lilly, Sanofi | ReutersPresident Donald Trump's recent federal hiring freeze has disrupted career plans for thousands of law students seeking government jobs or internships. Federal agencies, including the Department of Justice (DOJ), the IRS, and the Environmental Protection Agency, have revoked permanent job offers to third-year law students accepted into prestigious honors programs. Additionally, hundreds of summer internships, both paid and volunteer, have been canceled, impacting over 2,000 positions in total. The DOJ, the largest legal employer among federal agencies, has rescinded job offers and canceled its summer programs, which typically place around 1,800 students annually. The hiring freeze has also led agencies to withdraw from law school recruiting events and remove job postings. Career services officials warn that these cancellations harm both federal agencies, which lose a critical pipeline of future talent, and students, who miss out on essential work experience often leading to full-time positions or judicial clerkships. Judicial clerkships, funded separately, are unaffected by the freeze. Law schools nationwide report significant disruptions, with many students left scrambling for alternative opportunities. Legal professionals and career advisors express concern over the long-term impact on government hiring and students' career trajectories. The White House has not commented on the issue.Trump's hiring freeze leaves thousands of law students out in the cold | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

In this episode, Rachel Morrison from the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Gregory Baylor from Alliance Defending Freedom discuss recent court and agency decisions. These experts discuss whether “gender dysphoria” is a “disability” under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Featuring: Gregory S. Baylor, Senior Counsel & Director of the Center for Religious Schools, Alliance Defending Freedom Rachel Morrison (Moderator), Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center

This year, we commemorated National Disabilities Employment Awareness Month by exploring how employers can work toward providing access to good jobs for persons with disabilities in the legal profession; the tangible benefits of employing persons with disabilities; the feasibility of providing accommodations; and the use of assistive technology. Our speakers provided their thoughts on best practices, shared personal journeys and insights, and reflected on how far employers have come and where we need to focus to increase future employment opportunities for persons with disabilities in the legal profession and beyond. Our guests included Kevin Hara: Counsel, Reed Smith; Ronza Othman: President, National Association of Blind Government Employees – a division of the National Federation of the Blind; Nicholas Carden: Associate General Counsel, Coinbase, and former Board Member of Disability:IN; and Laurie Allen: Microsoft, Senior Accessibility Technology Evangelist. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith Podcast, Inclusivity Included, Powerful Personal Stories. In each episode of this podcast, our guests will share their personal stories, passions, and challenges, past and present, all with a goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, Inclusivity Included.  Kevin: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to an episode of Inclusivity Included. Thank you, everyone, for joining. My name is Kevin Hara. I'm counsel at Reed Smith in the Life Sciences and Health Industries Group, and I'm proud to commemorate National Disabilities Employment Awareness Month, which is in October of every year. And this year's theme is access to good jobs for all. We have a number of distinguished panelists today joining us, including Ronza Othman, who is president of the National Association of Blind Government Employees, a division of the National Federation of the Blind. Nick Carden, associate general counsel from Coinbase, a former board member of Disability:IN. And Laurie Allen from Microsoft, a senior accessibility technology evangelist. So thank you, Ronza, Nick, and Laurie for joining us. We're thrilled to have you here as part of our podcast. And without further ado, I would like to ask Ronza to talk a little bit about your journey, how you have arrived where you are, and some of the important steps you took that led you to where you are today.  Ronza: Great. Thank you so much. I'm really delighted to be here. I am a blind attorney and my training was initially as a high school STEM teacher. And that's what I did to get myself through law school. And ultimately I've had a number of different legal jobs, but in state and local government and private sector, ultimately ended up in the federal government where now I manage civil rights programs for a large federal agency. And so my journey has been one of exploration and learning, not only because, you know, being a lawyer, an attorney is always difficult for any person, but also when you add the complications of inaccessible technology and perceptions about people with disabilities and what they can and cannot do, and the obstacles that those negative attitudes create, there's definitely been some really interesting experiences along the way, but I think that I'm optimistic in terms of where we are now. So my paid job, of course, is with the government. And as a volunteer, I serve as the president of the National Association of Blind Government Employees, where we have a number of blind and low vision employees of state, local, federal, and pseudo-government agencies that are members that are experiencing life as public servants, supporting this country at the local and state and national level. It is an honor to represent them and us in a variety of different circumstances, and I've gotten to do a lot of really cool things as a result.  Kevin: That's great. Thank you so much, Ronza. And Nick, if you'd like to share a little bit about your path that led you to where you are today.  Nicholas: Thanks, Kevin. And thanks to Reed Smith for having us. This is a great opportunity to speak about an important issue that impacts all of us on this call. I, like Ronza, I am a lawyer with a disability. I started my career right out of law school in-house, which is somewhat unusual, but it sort of led me to where I am today in the sense that early in my career, I was a true corporate generalist, and through various personnel changes and responsibility changes, I was at a consumer products manufacturing company and had the opportunity to pick up some, advertising and marketing and entertainment legal work. And I really enjoyed that type of work. It's a lot of fun. It's fast paced and it's highly creative and interesting work. So I've stayed in that sort of practice area as an in-house lawyer through my career to today where at Coinbase, I lead a global marketing legal team.  Kevin: Great. Thank you, Nick. And Laurie, we'd love to hear a little bit about the path you took to where you are today.  Laurie: Thanks, Kevin. And thank you again for inviting us to join you to talk about this great topic. So I am not an attorney. I work at Microsoft, as you mentioned. And I've been in tech for about 30 years. I've only been at Microsoft for a little over two. But my journey actually into accessibility started about nine and a half years ago when I had a spinal cord injury. and became quadriplegic. The only thing that didn't dramatically change about my life in that moment was my ability to do my job. And that's because of accessible technology that was available to me. And frankly, my job was quite literally a lifeline for me. So I'm so grateful that people came before me to create this technology. And about three years ago, I had this epiphany. How did this technology get created? And who built it? And why am I not part of the solution. So that's when I started pivoting my career into accessibility. So I feel quite fortunate to be in a role where I can combine my background in technology with my lived experience as a person with disability to help empower others like me, find meaningful employment, and succeed and thrive.  Kevin: Thank you so much. All of you have had such unique experiences and out to the successful careers that you are now engaged in today, but it hasn't always been easy for persons with disabilities in the legal profession and other professions to succeed. So I'd like to stay with you, Laurie, and to ask you, what do you believe are some of the barriers or challenges for persons with disabilities to find access to good jobs?  Laurie: And I think Ronza had mentioned it earlier, it's access to technology. It's discoverability, I find, that can be a barrier. People just don't know what technologies are available to support them in their work environments. And beyond that, it's finding companies who've built inclusive work environments for employees with disabilities, so that when they go through the interview process, they feel included, they feel supported, and as they're onboarded and as they can continue through their career. And then understanding that there are platforms that are available, like Mentra, for example, is a Microsoft partner. It's an amazing neurodiversity hiring platform. But I think just knowing what's available is sometimes quite difficult. And, you know, when people incur a disability like I did, they're starting from scratch, and they don't know what to ask for because it's a new environment for them.  Kevin: Thank you. That's a really good point. Having the access to the proper tools is key for anybody with a disability to succeed in any career path. Ronza, how about your perspective? How would you characterize some of the challenges people are facing and ways to overcome them?  Ronza: I think that the biggest challenge that the people with disabilities are really facing in terms of employment and just moving about society and contributing meaningfully in employment settings, but also in every setting, is the negative attitudes that people at large have about disability. Negative stereotypes. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities in the United States is over 50%. The unemployment rate for people who are blind and low vision in the United States is half again that almost at 75%. It's currently at 73%. That's mind boggling. These are people who want to work for the most part, but can't because nobody will hire them or because they don't have the proper training to be able to perform the jobs where there is a need. But all that really comes down to society's low expectations for people with disabilities and the barriers, artificial, usually, that society creates and puts in our way. One of the things that I really like to do as a hiring manager is I love meeting with and interviewing people with disabilities because they're so creative in their problem-solving. Their solutioning is out of the box thinking. And just to get to work in the morning, to get to the job, they have to have solved a whole bunch of problems in an environment, in a situation, in a society, not necessarily built for them. Whether it's the broken elevator, or whether it's the bus that didn't roll up to the bus stop where it was supposed to, or whether it's the technology that didn't work because somebody pushed a security update, so it broke its ability to communicate with assistive technology, or whether it's somebody, a well-meaning, you know, abled person who decided that they know where this person is trying to go and they're going to force them to go there as opposed to where the person is actually trying to go. All of those things, people with disabilities problem solve before they, you know, really start their day or as they're starting their day. And so I think we don't give enough credit to the workforce of folks with disabilities in terms of what they can do, what they have done, frankly, and then society just has negative expectations. The biggest aspect of disability isn't the disability itself. It's people without disabilities or people who don't understand disabilities who get in our way.  Nicholas: I'd love to add to that because I agree with a lot of that. And I think thinking about access to jobs, the question that comes to mind to me is, do employers want to hire persons with disabilities. And I think there's no clear answer to that. And obviously, companies themselves are just made up of other human beings. And so there's, to Ronza's point, the stigma attached to hiring persons with disabilities is ever present. But I'll share specifically in the legal industry, I think this industry does a particularly poor job of being intentional about hiring a truly diverse workforce. And this is, I'm calling out the legal industry as somebody who's in it, but I don't think it's unique to the legal industry in the sense that I still don't think when law firms are hiring for diverse candidates that they make a particular effort to recruit persons with disabilities. I think it can be as simple as asking for a voluntary disclosure on an application. And I still don't think as an industry we're doing those types of things. So there seem to be opportunities if the answer to the question of do you want to hire persons with disabilities is yes.  Ronza: I'll just add to that, if I may. When you look at the United States census data on people with disabilities, somewhere between 20% and 25% of the population of this country has a disability. When you look at the census in the legal profession, when you look at the numbers in the legal profession, and the American Bar Association has done extensive research trying to sort this out, figure it out, as some other entities, it's less than 1%. Less than 1% of attorneys in the United States are willing to disclose that they have a disability. And those who are, it's usually an obvious or very visible disability, as opposed to some of these hidden disabilities that there's still so much stigma in the legal profession around. In the regular generic work industry generally, not specifically the legal profession, but everywhere, there's this misconception that it's going to be really expensive to hire somebody with a disability because you have to accommodate them or you have to adjust schedules or policies and so forth and so on. The Job Accommodation Network, which is a free resource to employers and employees about what's available in terms of reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities, did a study and they determined that the average cost of a reasonable accommodation is less than $100. So talking about negative attitudes and negative perceptions, one of them for employers, It's that it's going to cost me a lot of money or somehow the work I'm going to receive from this person is going to be less in terms of quality or quantity than other non-disabled employees and so forth and so on. And all of that is just not accurate. It's not supported by research and it's certainly not supported by those of us in the community with lived experience in the workforce.  Kevin: That's an excellent point, Ronza, and Nick as well. You both have captured the problem that we're facing in providing good jobs to persons with disabilities. I think dispelling the myths and misconceptions is one of the important steps. And I also think technology can play an important role. We alluded to this a little bit more, but Laurie, if you would like to speak a little bit more about how technology can really help people with disabilities succeed.  Laurie: Thanks, Kevin. So the way we approach it at Microsoft is we build with the community, not for the community. We mentioned it in the last question. We bring people with lived experience into our company. We want that diverse lived experience in our product making. I have a spinal cord injury. I know what it's like to have a mobility disability. I don't know what it's like to be blind and rely on a screen reader. And I can't assume what someone who uses a screen reader needs. So we take an approach of building in early. We build in accessibility into the design phase of our product development life cycle. We bring testers in who have different types of disabilities to test our products before we release them. And what we find, and Ron's mentioned it earlier, is that we get really creative solutions because, as she mentioned, we have to be creative to get out the door every morning. And when we do this, we find that everyone benefits. When we call it Built for One, Extend to Many. When we build with the disability community, everyone benefits. And I'll give you an example. For example, live captions were built for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but 50% of Americans watch videos with live captions on, and if you narrow that down to Gen Z, it goes up to about 80%. So when we build for people with disabilities, everyone benefits.  Kevin: I think that's a really astute observation. It's not just about helping one particular segment, but including people with disabilities when you're building the technology is really important. And, you know, I couldn't thank you more for that approach, Laurie, because, you know, I also have a mobility disability, a spinal cord injury. So I understand from my perspective. But as you said, I wouldn't be able to talk about or understand what the needs of a person with a visual or other disability might be. So that's really good. And Ronza or Nick, would you like to weigh in on technology, how it has helped you, or how do you think it can help others?  Ronza: So technology really is, it leveled the playing field for many populations within the disability community. And so, for example, for the blind community, so much of the information that we receive is visual. So much as paper had historically been paper-based but you know street signs billboards all of the things that happen visually and on the computer though now we can have access to that same information or I can go to an ATM machine and I can plug in my headphones and I can pull out my money I can go to a voting booth in most states and I can privately and independently but vote my ballot. You know there's still places where of course there's work to do but in general the proliferation of technology solutions over the last 20 or 30 years has really made a huge impact on our ability to access information engage in the world and especially with our jobs, so whether it's a screen reader or whether it's a software that's used that is speech to text for those with manual dexterity challenges or whether it's a foot pedal instead of a mouse or whatever the case may be. There's just been such advances in technology that have made it more possible for an individual with a disability to work in so many different fields. Think about all the technology that exists now. Surgeons are doing surgery with robots some of the time. Technology is super cool. It's super advanced and it's only going to get more and more advanced. And so hopefully that means that participation of the disability community at work and in other places is also going to increase. Now, the drawback is, the more innovated the technology, the more risk of potential opportunities to make it inaccessible. And so we have to be really careful when we embrace technology because that's really important, but that it also is accessible. It is compatible with that assistive technology that I mentioned, but also that we're not so focused on creativity and innovation that we're cutting people out that we've recently gave access to these platforms and applications. And we're seeing that. We are seeing technology become less inclusive in lots of different spaces. And then, you know, so build it accessibly, you know, talking to our friends at Microsoft and everywhere else who are thinking about this every day. But also, whether we're building technology or whether we're building buildings or physical spaces or virtual spaces, you know, thinking about what does it mean for us to be inclusive? Who are we building for? And not related to technology, but when we started putting in curb cuts when the ADA was passed, that was primarily done for people who were using wheelchairs and other kinds of mobility devices. And now the population that is the most vocal, the biggest fans, are parents and caregivers of small children that are pushing strollers. And so, you know, again, that sort of universal effort, the Ray-Ban Metaglasses is another example. It wasn't built for people with disabilities, but people with disabilities are using it because it had inclusive universal design built into it. We're using it to read menus and help with navigation indoor and outdoor and wayfinding and all sorts of amazing things happening with technology and beyond. So the key is it's fabulous, but we also have to make sure that it stays fabulous by being inclusive and accessible.  Laurie: You make such a good point there, Ronza, and I think with this wave of generative AI and everyone racing to get products to market, it's more important than ever to be rigorous and disciplined in continuing to build accessibility in from the beginning and test it thoroughly all the way through before it's released.  Ronza: 100%.  Kevin: Ronza and Laurie, those are excellent points that you made. And I really think technology will go a long way to helping people with disabilities of all types become part of the workforce, become part of the legal profession. And I think we have all lived through recently the pandemic that, you know, was affected everyone, not just persons with disabilities. But I think one of the things that came out of that was the importance of remote work and how that can really change the landscape. And Nick, I believe Coinbase is, you said, almost all remote. So can you comment on how that has impacted you and how you think that affects people with disabilities in terms of having access to jobs?  Nicholas: Yeah, Coinbase is a remote first company. So everyone in the company has the option to be remote first. We do have some office locations in some major cities if some people feel like they want to go into an office, but there's no requirement to do that. And in my view, I don't know that remote work benefits just persons with disabilities. I think we can all agree that it benefits a lot more groups than just persons with disabilities. To me, the bottom line of the benefit of remote work is it levels the playing field for everyone. So if we're all remote, we don't. There's no small group or other group or specific individual or groups of individuals that have to worry about what's happening in an office. Are some people getting ahead by having lunches or just getting that face time that they otherwise aren't able to do to be into the office? Whether that's because they live somewhere else where the office isn't, or they're a person with a disability and it's not easy to get into the office, or for any other reason of why it doesn't make sense. I think specifically for parents with children who are working. Remote work is a great benefit. So I love what remote work does for everyone. And it's been a real benefit. I think Coinbase deserves a lot of credit. For being one of the first companies in I think it was may of 2020 to decide that is how we're going to operate our company we think we can do it effectively and so far now you know four plus years later they're doing really well and um i don't have any knowledge that that Coinbase is changing their practices but it works very well for Coinbase and I'm sort of discouraged to see some of these companies deciding to go to a hybrid or fully return to office status. But obviously, that's their decision. And the people that are making that are thinking that it's in their best interest. I just don't know how much input they're getting from a voice of someone with a person with a disability.  Laurie: One other point is it expands the talent pool that employers can recruit from. They're not limited to just their area or just the people who can come into the office, but it really broadens that talent pool and once again, enables them to bring a more diverse workforce into their organization.  Ronza: So I'll say that, you know, in the government workforce, we have seen this switch, right? So prior to the pandemic, there were some people that were working remotely, but not very many because the perception was, no, no, no, we can't do this work remote in a remote way. We need to serve the people, the public, etc. And then the pandemic happened and bam, we have to work remotely in order to serve the people. And then everything was moving along. And I think that was really the renaissance for the disability community and government. And then government started shifting back to more in-person presence and more and more in-person presence. And the thought was, well, if you need to work from home, you can request a reasonable accommodation. And while that's true, it can be very isolating. If we're not building work, community. In a way that's hybrid or in a way that is inclusive of those that are working from home for whatever reason, then we are excluding those people. And so giving them the ability to work from home as a reasonable accommodation, if that's the solution, it can't be the only solution because what it does is it creates a different expectation and standard and isolation. And all these people with a disability are over here and everyone else is over here. And so I think employers need to really be thinking mindfully about what a hybrid work environment looks like and how to ensure inclusion for those who, for whatever reason, are working from home all or much of the time. And we can do it. We have done it. We've been very creative in the last five years. But I think we're just not thinking about it. We're letting the economic and other considerations and, you know, the ease. My favorite phrase that people give me was, well, we need people in the building because of line of sight supervision. And I always say, well, I'm a manager and I'm blind. So line of sight supervision doesn't do anything for me. Are you saying I'm not as good of a manager as you? And then, you know, they don't mean it that way, but that's how it comes off. And that's really how they're thinking. They're thinking they have to be in my space for me to effectively manage them, which we have proven doesn't have to be the case. In fact, we can be very effective as if not more productive with people in their own comfortable environment.  Kevin: Ronza, you expressed that better than I could ever have done. I think that's a really important aspect of remote work. It could not put anyone at a disadvantage or be isolating. With the last couple minutes we have left, I'd just like to hear from everyone about where we have come from and what you'd like to see in the future, some progress we've made, and where you think we still need to improve. So Nick, if you'd like to talk a little bit about that.  Nicholas: Yeah, I'll say I can recall an instance about 12, 13 years ago, maybe, where I was interested in a summer internship with a law firm. And I noticed they had a diversity recruitment event, something like that. And they were looking for women and ethnically diverse or persons of color to attend. And I recall thinking to myself, well, I am a white male, but if they're looking for diverse candidates, I would assume that they would be interested in a person with a disability. So I emailed the firm's event organizer and I sort of posed the question of, can I attend? And of course the answer was yes, but it really goes to show where we were 12 to 14 years ago. And we may still be there in terms of what diversity is and or how law firms specifically view diversity. It may just be that they focus on these two categories. And that is a fine thing. It's just not an inclusive thing. I sort of commend the efforts. And I think we've gone farther than that over the past 12 to 14 years. But if we want to create an inclusive industry, doing so in an exclusive manner is not going to get us there. And I would encourage firms in their recruitment efforts to think about all of the minority groups or underrepresented groups in this industry and make intentional efforts to be inclusive for all of them.  Kevin: Thank you, Nick. Ronza, would you like to add?  Ronza: Sure, I 100% agree. I think that it's not just in the legal profession, it's in a lot of professions that the focus on diversity has been on race and gender and, you know, the SOGI areas. And there hasn't been as much advancement with disability, but this is certainly an opportunity. The American Bar Association currently has a campaign called the Be Counted Campaign for lawyers specifically and those in the legal profession who do have disabilities who can, you know, confidentially essentially be counted as a member of the disability community so that we can get a better number of who in fact is in this profession because we know it's not half a percent. You know, we know it's more than that. And we need to eliminate the stigma in this and every profession for those that are comfortable, psychologically safe, identifying as people with disabilities, even if it's anonymized, to be able to do so. I am optimistic in terms of where we're headed. I think the effort that we've put forward as a disability community and nothing about us without us has really tremendously borne some fruit. And I think though there's work to do, I think we've come a long way. I think that the ADA regulations on Title II that were the Department of Justice released are going to be a game changer. I think that when the Title III regulations are released, whenever that is, it's going to be another huge game changer. I think that Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is very, very much in need of a refresh and some updates. And when that happens, and I know there's some effort in Congress already, that's going to help. And I think some of the fundamental civil rights laws and protections in states and in the federal sector are going to continue this progress. But those are just the underpinning. It's the attitudes of people. It's listening to a podcast like this and learning about people you didn't think about before or aspects you didn't think about before, and then becoming a good ally to those communities. If you are in the community and feel comfortable speaking up with your lived experience, that's going to be a game changer too. 25% of this country. That's who we are. And so everybody knows somebody. Everybody has a family member who is a person with a disability who've experienced some of these challenges. Listen to their stories. Ask about their stories. Educate yourself and become a good ally so that the next generation has an easier time. That's what I'm excited about because I see it happening much more often. And I think it will continue to happen in this generation and the ones to come.  Kevin: Thank you so much. Laurie, how about you? what do you see in the future?  Laurie: Well, I think these are all such great points. And I'm going to go back to Nick's example. You know, I think historically DE&I has included, you know, a lot of minority groups except the disability community. And more and more, as I'm speaking with, you know, our enterprise customers, they're starting to add accessibility into that equation and really target disability hiring and bringing disabled talent into their pipelines. A lot of organizations are creating neurodiversity centers of excellence and neurodiversity hiring programs to specifically target that part of the population. So like Ronza said, I'm encouraged and I'm seeing this become a much higher priority for our enterprise customers. And again, to echo what she just said, I think the more we talk about it, the more we have podcasts and people listen to podcasts, the more comfortable and confident we get. I think we don't talk about accessibility because we're uncomfortable talking about disability, because people are afraid they're going to say the wrong thing. And at some point, we are all going to say the wrong thing, and that's okay. It's a learning opportunity for all of us. So again, thank you for the opportunity for us to come together today and talk about this really, really important topic.  Kevin: Well, I just want to say very heartfelt thanks to all of you, Laurie, Ronza, and Nick for all of your insights today, for your time, and for the lessons you've shared with us. I think people will really get a lot out of this. And for our listeners, thank you for joining us for Inclusivity Included, and please stay tuned for future episodes. Thanks, everyone.  Outro: Inclusivity Included is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts.  Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers.   All rights reserved.  Transcript is auto-generated.

Tony Coelho has spent his entire adult life helping advance the lives of people with disabilities. He calls this his “ministry”.  Congressman Steny Hoyer, former House Majority Leader, says that the disability community call him their “voice” and “champion.”Diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 22 years old, Tony's ministry is marked by significant milestones: primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the last 40 years; advocating for the ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and convincing President Bill Clinton to establish the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor.  Tony continued to advocate for civil rights for individuals with disabilities by convincing President Barack Obama to issue an executive order enforcing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to hire people with disabilities as they have been doing since 1973 for women and minorities.  He went on to work with the Biden White House to improve access to the internet for individuals who are blind, deaf, and physically impaired.Tony is a former six-term United States Congressman from California, elected in 1978 and serving until 1989. He served on the Agriculture, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Administration Committees during his tenure, specializing in disability rights. In 1986, Tony was elected House Majority Whip, the third most powerful position in the House of Representatives.After leaving Congress, Tony joined Wertheim Schroder & Company, Inc., an investment-banking firm in New York, where he served as a Managing Director and then as President and CEO of Wertheim Schroder Investment Services, a firm that he grew from $400 million to $4 billion in managed investments. He formed ETC w/TCI, an education and training technology company in Washington, D.C., where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Currently, he serves on a number of corporate boards of directors and i  the founding partner of a national public affairs firm.© 2024 Building Abundant Success!!2024 All Rights ReservedJoin Me on ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASSpot Me on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yxuy23bAmazon Music ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

After a series of webinars conducted by Syracuse University on digital accessibility, we decided to bring this to our podcast audience. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and its moving parts have real ramifications come April 2026. Local, county, city, and state agencies must be aware that their web pages, documents and applications must all be compliant to digital accessibility. Our Ability will create an accessible pathway for agencies, universities, and businesses looking beyond compliance and into the future of accessibility.

 CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's Nightline, CBS's Sunday Morning, NBC's Today Show, PBS,, CNN,, Fox; National Public Radio;Washington Post, NewYork Times, are just some of the places you have read or seen him!Civil & Disability Rights are the topics of this show. With Civl Rights History being Preserved for Generations to learn about, What about Disability Rights with it's Multiracial History of Leadership & Activists?? I am concerned.Ralph was an author of the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973&  the American with Disabilities Act along with many others in many Drafts it took to get through a Bi-Partisian Congress as the national law. His work in Civill Rights is amazing as he was trained by many icons including Dorothy Height, Senator Edward Brooke (R, MA), Benjamin Hooks, Roy Wilkins, Wade Henderson. Senator Edward Kennedy, Bayard RustinYou hear very little of  Black Disability Leaders & Activists that are so pivitol to helping in this fight. Brad Lomax, The Black Panters, Dr. Sylvia Walker, (my mentor), Don Galloway or The Honorable Rep. Major Owens ( D, NY). & the Honorable Justin Dart, Tony Coehlo, Ed Roberts, Senator Lowell P. Weicker(R.CT) & others to advance Disability Rights & ADA History.Ralph Neas was both active duty and reserve in the United States Army (1968–1976). In late 1971, he joined the Congressional Research Service's American Law Division at the Library of Congress as a legislative attorney on civil rights. In January 1973, he was hired as a legislative assistant to Republican Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, eventually becoming the Senator's chief legislative assistant.From 1981 through 1995, Neas served as Executive Director of the nonpartisan Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the legislative arm of the civil rights movement. Neas coordinated successful national campaigns that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1991; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Civil Rights Restoration Act; the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988; the Japanese American Civil Liberties Act; the preservation of the Executive Order on Affirmative Action (1985–1986 and 1995–1996);and the 1982 Voting Right Act Extension.Final passage on all these laws averaged 85% in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; in addition, another 15 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights legislative priorities were enacted into law in the 1981–1995 period"The Americans with Disabilities Act Award" from the Task Force on the Rights of the Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities for "historic leadership regarding the enactment of the world's first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities" October 12, 1990;Benjamin Hooks "Keeper of the Flame" award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the 91st Annual Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, July 10, 2000"President's Award for Outstanding Service", Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, September, 2007.© 2024 Building Abundant Success!!2024 All Rights ReservedJoin Me ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASAmazon ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

20241019 Demand Our Access Originally Broadcasted October 19, 2024, on ACB Media 5   Jonathan covered Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.   Sponsored by: Demand Our Access     Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Some people view social media as a source for finding inspiring and uplifting messages. Sometimes, those messages aren't what they seem.Support the showJoin the Mailing List: Subscribe NowApply to be a guest: Guest ApplicationBad Attitudes Shop: badattitudesshop.etsy.comBecome a Member: ko-fi.com/badattitudespod Email badattitudespod@gmail.comFollow @badattitudespod on Instagram, Facebook, and TwitterAll available platforms hereWatch my TEDx talkBe sure to leave a rating or review wherever you listen!FairyNerdy: https://linktr.ee/fairynerdy

Linda J. Silver, M.S., Ed.S. discusses Section 504 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and her career ensuring appropriate accommodations for students. Linda J. Silver, M.S., Ed.S. is the Executive Director and Founder of Silver & Associates Educational Consulting Solutions. She is an expert in the field of Section 504, an award winning certified school counselor, a nationally recognized speaker and published author advocating for students with disabilities. Linda's training and work experiences have given her a unique perspective on children, schools and school district dynamics. Linda has been a Teacher, Guidance Director, Educational Leader, District Guidance Coordinator. She was selected to work at the school district level in administrative positions serving grades Pre-K to 12 for Broward County Schools, Ft. Lauderdale, FL the 6th largest school district in the United States. In her roles as the School District Section 504/ADA Specialist and as the School District Guidance Coordinator for the School Board of Broward County, Florida she oversaw over 340 schools with over 265,000 students. Silver & Associates Educational Consulting Solutions provides expert educational consultation services to parents and schools districts; ensuring equal access to education for all students and helping transform students' lives. For more information about Linda's work: https://www.504advocacy.com/ Follow Different Brains on social media: https://twitter.com/diffbrains https://www.facebook.com/different.brains/ https://www.instagram.com/diffbrains/ Check out more episodes of Exploring Different Brains! http://differentbrains.org/category/edb/

Welcome to Season 4 of The Special Ed Strategist Podcast! In this episode, Wendy Taylor, your host and Special Ed Strategist, dives deep into an important but often under-discussed topic: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. This solo episode breaks down everything you need to know about how 504 Plans differ from IEPs, how they work, and how you can effectively advocate for your child's rights in the public school system. Key Takeaways: What is Section 504? Section 504 is a federal civil rights law that ensures students with disabilities receive accommodations in the general education environment, removing barriers to learning. It's designed to prevent discrimination and allow students to have equal access to education. 504 vs. IEP: What's the Difference? While an IEP provides specialized instruction, a 504 Plan focuses solely on accommodations to support students in the general education classroom without modifying the curriculum. Eligibility for a 504 Plan Learn about the thorough evaluation process schools use to determine eligibility, which involves gathering input from multiple sources to assess if a student's disability impacts their ability to succeed in the classroom. How to Request a 504 Plan Wendy emphasizes the importance of starting the process with a formal written request and staying actively involved as a parent to ensure the accommodations are implemented properly. Your Rights Under Section 504 Parents have legal rights, including participating in meetings, accessing educational records, and appealing decisions if necessary. Resources Mentioned: Dr. Jane McGuire – Expert on Section 504 and accommodations. Dr. Michael Harris – Specialist in educational law and student rights, offering guidance on navigating the complexities of 504 plans. Stay Connected: Follow Wendy and Learning Essentials on social media to stay up-to-date with tips, strategies, and new episodes! Instagram: @LearningEssentials LinkedIn: Wendy Taylor Facebook: Learning Essentials Website: Learning Essentials EDU Listen & Subscribe: Catch new episodes of The Special Ed Strategist wherever you listen to podcasts! Podcast Link Apple Podcasts: Review the podcast Stay informed, stay engaged, and keep advocating for your child's educational needs. Until next time!

Go behind the curtain at the National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials (NCRTM) with Heather Servais, Project Manager. Join us as we delve into the vast resources available to vocational rehabilitation counselors, supervisors, and VR professionals. From employment navigation to disability-specific resources and cutting-edge training, Heather reveals how the revamped NCRTM website is a treasure trove of information and tools to enhance your practices and improve services. Tune in to explore these new features and see how the NCRTM can support you in your vital work. Don't miss this opportunity to unlock the full potential of this dynamic platform!   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music}   Heather: This is made by people that have done the work, like it's just so relevant and timely to what's happening in the field. We have resources on a Microsoft Word and PDF, PowerPoints. There's a whole bunch of information on the NCRTM page, which is a great starting point for when you're thinking about how can I make this information accessible for everyone? If you have a customer who's thinking about work, or you want to have some reputable job-seeking tools, it's a great tool for those counselors to be able to give to their customers. If you want help locating some resources, just email us NCRTM at New Editions dot Net.   Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Welcome to the manager minute, Heather Servais project manager with the National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials, or the NCRTM, will join me in the studio today. So, Heather, how are things going?   Heather: It's so good to be here. I'm great. I'm so excited to be on Manager Minute.   Carol: I love it, I love it. We've been doing lots of fun stuff lately, so it's kind of fun to do this collaboration. I want to give our listeners a little bit of a background. So the NCRTM is a central clearinghouse for vocational rehabilitation information for individuals with disabilities, and it offers VR and education communities an opportunity to contribute new knowledge to their specific fields and gain visibility for their work. Now, I remember Heather, when I was still with Minnesota Blind, and I stumbled across this website and it was full of information, I was like, what is this? I had no idea it existed. And back then we had this internal like a little intranet. And I remember linking up staff to different materials because back in the day, and I know you went through a big refresh of the website back in the day, it was a little complicated to get through. I was linking folks to some really specific things that existed out there, and I thought that was so cool. Now, I know since you've been on, you've been working really hard on promoting the website and everything that NCRTM does, and we wanted to just take our listeners behind the curtain at the NCRTM. I also wanted our listeners to know, too, that Heather and I have been collaborating for the past few years on a lot of different items, and she has been fabulous in promoting our podcasts and all our materials for the VRTAC for Quality Management. So with that, let's dig in. So, Heather, would you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your journey into VR? You didn't just like land at the NCRTM out of nowhere. You came through kind of a fun journey.   Heather: Yeah. I'd love to tell you a little bit about my journey in VR. Well, if you would have asked me when I was growing up if I would be a VR counselor or know what the field of rehabilitation counseling was, I would have told you no. I actually landed in this field by happy accident when I went to college. I was majoring in history and was considering being a teacher, or maybe pre-law, and I was looking for ways to get involved on campus. And I came across a club called Best Buddies that pairs college students into 1 to 1 friendships with individuals with disabilities. And I just loved being a part of the club. I loved my buddy that I was able to be paired with. And then while I was volunteering, I got asked by one of my co volunteers to consider working with this new company in town that worked with individuals with disabilities on independent living skills and non-residential support services. So I started doing that when I was in college, absolutely fell in love with it. And then when I graduated, I moved on to work for a community rehabilitation provider, where I started as a job coach, moved up to an employment specialist. I dabbled in vocational evaluation and then eventually became the employment services manager. And while I was there and working in the field, I absolutely just fell in love and I knew that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So I actually went back to school for my master's while I was working full time.   I was really lucky to be the recipient of an RSA scholarship. That helped me be able to go back to school to get my master's in rehabilitation counseling, and I was able to do that, which I really felt like helped my career and was really able to be beneficial to me. When I made the jump from community rehabilitation provider to the state VR side, it was like there was all these names and terms and theories behind the work that I was actually doing. So it really kind of tied it all together in a nice little bow. I worked for that community rehabilitation provider for about seven years, and then I decided to make the jump to state VR to be a counselor. And for a long time I had a general caseload. I also worked in a rural county, and then towards the end of my time in the field, I worked with youth. And then I made the jump over to VR headquarters, where I took a supervisory job as the supervisor of at the time was a new unit called the Field and Provider Relations Unit, and this unit did training and technical assistance with both VR staff and with the community rehabilitation providers that were providing those employment services. So I really enjoyed it because it got to pull together the field experience that I had and then also the provider experience. And then my last stop at Florida VR was as the assistant chief of Field Services, where I oversaw a lot of the programming. So I oversaw learning and development, Ticket to Work, the employment programs team and the deaf hard of hearing deaf blind team and business relations team. I worked there and I loved building programs and loved being part of state VR. Towards 2020, I started to study for my Project Management Professional, or PMP certification. We were managing a lot of projects and building a lot of programs, and I felt like the PMP kind of helped me have a better understanding of some different methodologies to be able to do that. So it really helped pull the programmatic experience with the project management experience. And that's what really landed me here at NTM. So in my role, I get to work with a lot of technical assistance centers and training centers, and I'm able to have both the VR program knowledge and then also the project management knowledge to be able to understand the terms of the project and the contracts and the business aspect of this too. So it's been a long journey, but I'm so happy to be here because this role I get to work with so many different stakeholders. I love working with the VR agencies, the counselors, the rehabilitation counseling students, the parents, the families. I get to see it all, and not just from a local perspective. I'm getting to work with state and nationwide programs, and I think that's just a really big joy.   Carol: And it's so cool. What a great fit for you. This explains a lot. You crack me up, though, because I was considering being in pre-law like back in my undergrad as well. I feel like we have kind of similar journeys. I was a job coach. I'm like, we both come from those humble beginnings, kind of fall into VR, and we find a lot of our guests on the show have been from different backgrounds and sort of stumbled into VR different ways. So that is so cool to know about you. Thanks for sharing that. Now, I know sometimes people are maybe confused a little bit about the NCRTM can you ground us in like how all this works, how you're connected with RSA? Like who do you actually work for? Because people are like, is this an RSA thing? What is this thing? So give us the skinny.   Heather: Yeah, sure. So the NCRTM has actually been around for more than 40 years. When I found that out, you know, I was a little history nerd. So I did some digging and I was shocked. I was like 40 years. I mean, I think I've, you know, been around in the field for a long time and I didn't even know about the NCRTM until I was working at headquarters as a manager. So I think about the first basically half of my career, I didn't even know about it. And that's one of the things about this job is like, I want people to know. And so when NCRTM originated, it was a paper based repository that was basically where RSA grantees would submit their products at the end, and they would be stored and used and to what it is today, which is this really dynamic and engaging platform that has a website and a YouTube and social media and lots of connections. And so it's kind of continuing to grow and evolve. And the driver of NCRTM, where it actually originates is section 15 of the Rehabilitation Act. We are in there. And what section 15 says is that it creates a clearinghouse, and it says that we have to deliver three things. One is information about the location, provision and availability of services and programs for individuals with disabilities. We also need to have information and research related to recent medical and scientific developments bearing on disabilities. And we have to have information about the current numbers of individuals with disabilities and their needs. And so when we look at NCRTM, that's our driver. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to share that information, the NCRTM itself and how it relates to RSA. Right now, NCRTM is funded by a contract through RSA and is operated by New Editions Consulting. So technically I work for New Editions Consulting, which is a fantastic company to work for. We just won one of the top places to work for the Washington Post, so they take wonderful care of us. It's been one of my favorite teams I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of. It's just been a really fun place to work. So we work very, very closely with RSA. We have a coordination team, so there are a big group of folks from RSA and the different units there that add and contribute to the content and the planning and the strategic direction for NCRTM. And then we also work really, really closely with the Technical Assistance Centers with other RSA grantees and federal partners to build out the content to deliver to our users through the NCRTM website and our platforms.   Carol: I had no clue that that had been around for 40 years. Holy cow. I had no idea. That is amazing. And I can imagine, you know, when you think about the paper based, you know, products in the day.   Heather: How do you get that out into the hands of the field? So we live in a great time,  you know, we have this technology and we can use it because the products that are coming out of the technical assistance centers and some other RSA grantees, you know, this is made by people that have done the work. Like that's one of the things that I love so much about the clearinghouse is it's just so relevant and timely to what's happening in the field.   Carol: Yeah, I love it. That advent of social media, too, has helped so much with us all being able to kind of cross plug and promote each other's tools and activities and things that are going on that has been so great. Now, I know since you arrived there, I feel like, no, I'm not disparaging anybody from the past, but I feel like you've brought this just fresh, different look at things and you've been really doing a lot of cool stuff. So would you  talk about some of that cool stuff that you've been doing and kind of where are you getting your ideas from? Because it's been really fun to watch.   Heather: Yeah, I came onto the scene with NTM in late 2021, and there was a lot of this stuff that was already in progress, and we launched a new version of the website in 2022. So not only do we have, you know, pretty robust content, NCRTM has mostly been known for the library. When you say NCRTM, people think library, library, library, and that is a big part of what we do. We have more than 3600 items in our library. When you think of a library, it can be anything from podcast episodes, research papers, blogs, toolkits, guides, trainings. There's such a diverse array of materials in that library. So that's one of the things we were most known for. We started with some of those library enhancements, so we had an enhanced filtering. So now our users are able to locate by topic area, disability type, audience type. There's a ton of filters that you can select to really zero in on materials of interest. We also added some recently viewed features. So if you go to the NCRTM and you're poking around looking for some things and you look at it, you can go back and you'll see some of the items that you recently viewed. We now have the ability to share the information from the website so you can email it to yourself. You can share it directly on social media. Also, as part of that big website launch, we updated our training and events page. This is one of those plugs that if you are new to the website, I love directing people to the training and events page because I know time is of the essence and there's so much training and information available, and NCRTM collects training and events and post them from the Technical Assistance Center. So if there's something happening from those, those are going to be on our site, from federal partners, from grantees. So a grantee could be a university, could be a nonprofit. There's lots of different types of events that are out there on our site. You can sort by live, which means these are like live upcoming events. So you're going to want to log into those or on demand. So that could be either a training module that was made to be an asynchronous learning experience, or it could be a recorded event from one of the previously featured live and upcoming events that we had hosted prior. You can also sort on that training events page by CRC Credit Availability. So for those of you that are counselors or administrators or managers that are looking to get those CRC credits, this is a great way where you can zero in on finding those trainings that are of interest to you, that offer that CRC credit for free. It's a great resource. We also added some new pages to the platform so that we're really the result of user feedback. I think that's one of the things that I'm most proud of with NCRTM team that we do is we are serious about user feedback. So we are collecting feedback from surveys. We run user advisory groups a few times a year. We also are really out in the community talking to VR counselors, talking to rehabilitation counseling students. We're talking to grantees about their needs and what they're doing, really wanting to get the feedback so that we can curate content or we can build content that's meaningful for folks. So in the spirit of section 15, one of the new items that we launched on NCRTM was a programs and services page. And this page focuses on job seeking resources. So for individuals with disabilities. So all processes from when you're considering employment. So maybe you need to do some assessments. Or maybe you're just thinking about going to work all the way through the hiring and retention and career advancement phases of your career. So this is a really great starting point. If you have a customer who's thinking about work or you want to have some reputable job seeking tools right at your fingertips, you can use it there. It's a great tool for those counselors to be able to give to their customers as a starting point. And we do update that page regularly. So if you would like to see like a national level resource on there that you found, that's not, email us. We're here. We want to add things to that page. We are constantly growing the page. We are adding new information to the library and to the website regularly.   Carol: I actually have your site up right now. I love it really did change with that refresh that you guys did in 22 I remember having. Well, I'll say it, I tried to search in the library before and it would bring up like either 50,000 things or no things. When you put in word search or something, it just seems like your capabilities on here are so much more robust than they used to be.   Heather: Yeah, we've definitely added a lot of enhancements to make it a lot more user friendly. We were trying to make it more streamlined. We wanted things to be easier to find, easier to get to material. And then we're also trying to be a little bit plainer in our language. Some of our users felt the language was way too academic, and we wanted this site to be something that's useful for all. So we're trying to do better with using plainer language and getting straight to the point of what the document is or what that material is, so that it's easy for people to digest when they're reading it. We also added a business engagement page. So for those counselors or even those folks who work for VR agencies that are on the business relations or business consulting team, this is a great resource to kind of help you understand the business needs and how to work with employers. When you're thinking about things like job placement and job retention and accommodations and the process for hiring, that's another great tool that you can use and share in your work. But you can use it as a counselor to educate yourself. It's also helpful when you're engaging with businesses so that you're using their business language.   Carol: Excellent   Heather:  One other thing for counselors to consider. I know sometimes when we're VR counselors, I always say it was the hardest job I ever had. There's so much that you have to balance. There's so much to learn, and it always feels like there's things on your plate that you need to do. And sometimes we're so focused on our individual customers, our individual caseload, that we can forget that we're part of something so much bigger. It's not just our caseload or our office or even our state. We're part of a national VR program. Every state has a VR program. There's programs and the territories. There are so many others that are in this field along with you. And I think that's one of the great things about NCTRM is it can kind of help connect the dots so that you get to see the bigger picture. You can find materials that are created by other folks that are doing this work. You're able to see what innovative practices are working on caseloads that may be similar to yours. It may give you strategies that you can better know how to work with your customers. So I think that's one takeaway for NCRTM is just it's a different perspective. You can find things from your peers to help improve your work, and it just connects you better to the VR community around the country.   Carol: Do you guys agree with that page at all with like CSAVR and the NET?   Heather: We did. We were very happy that CSAVR and Kathy West Evans was helpful with us when formulating that content and reviewing that content. So yes, absolutely. We partnered with them to help put that together.   Carol: Excellent.   Heather: We also have I know you mentioned the Disability Innovation Fund and I'm a Manager Minute podcast listener. So I know, I know you've done some episodes with some DIF grantees, and we have a whole page that's dedicated to the Disability Innovation Fund grants. And so this is one of those pages that we're working on. It's definitely still a work in progress. So if you're interested in learning more about those Disability Innovation fund programs, we have each iteration of the grants there so that you can see kind of a little bit about what the purpose is and what those grants are doing. And then as those grantees are submitting products, we're going to be linking those products in the library right to that page. So you can kind of start to see some of the outcomes from those grant programs. So that's a really exciting page that we added. We're looking forward to being able to continue to update that pretty regularly, as we're starting to get some of those products in from those grantees.   Carol: I love that. Those Disability Innovation fund, let me tell you, since we started doing podcasts, you know, featuring the different years and the States and what they're doing, I had no clue, you know, you'd hear about them. But unless you're really, like, talking to the people and finding out what's going on, man, there's some awesome stuff happening across the country that is going to be so helpful to the rest of the VR. People put out their products. It's good to know you're going to have a page dedicated to all of that, because I just envision these really amazing things coming from that, that are going to be so useful to VR as a whole for years to come.   Heather: Absolutely. And there really is a lot of innovation coming out of the agencies that have these grants. And that's exactly what we want. We want others to be able to access those materials so they can think about how that could work in their state, and how that could work in their program, and be able to connect to resources that can help them on their journey to implementing and improving and streamlining their services.   Carol: For sure. 100%.   Heather: And then lastly, I have to plug here for the Accessibility Resources page. So accessibility is such a huge part of what we do. And coming from the field of VR and coming from a provider background, I knew about accessibility in theory, but it really wasn't until I got to working at the clearinghouse when I realized all I didn't know about accessibility. And this is definitely an area where I've had a lot of personal growth and a lot of personal learning to do since I came on board here. But the NCRTM has a page for accessibility resources. So if you are with a VR program or you're a VR counselor, or if you're an RSA grantee and you're looking to make your products accessible. So if you're thinking about having a PowerPoint, how can you make that accessible so that the information is accessible to all users? We have resources on a Microsoft word and PDF and PowerPoints. We have guides, we have video tutorials. There's a whole bunch of information on the NCRTM page, which is a great starting point for when you're thinking about how can I make this information accessible for everyone? And so we encourage folks to check that out too, because it's a really great starting point.   Carol: Yeah, I think that's been an area that maybe VR has not done as well with. You would think we'd know better and do better and be better with that. But I've been amazed over time, different places I've gone or, you know, folks I've talked to and people still struggling with accessibility. So your having those resources out there is super timely and really important.   Heather: Yeah, absolutely. And it really is one of those you don't know what you don't know until you kind of get into the thick of it. And I'm thankful now that I know better and I'm starting to do better. But it's definitely a journey and there's a lot to learn. And I would encourage folks not to be intimidated because you can start small and just learn a little at a time. And over time, that makes a really, really big difference in what you can do with your materials.   Carol: Absolutely. Now, I know we have a lot of counselors that listen in, and you and I had talked about this a little bit. What advice would you have for counselors who may be exploring your website for the first time? I know you and I talked about you felt like you'd be a whole different counselor had you known about the cool materials that are out there for them.   Heather: Yeah, man, I do. I feel like I would have been totally a much better counselor than what I was. When I think about going back to being a VR counselor, it can be overwhelming. I always say the hardest job I ever had was a VR counselor. Just because there's so much to learn. You have a lot of cases. I had to travel a lot for mine because I was in a rural county. You have a lot on your plate and it can be kind of overwhelming and you kind of start spinning your wheels sometimes because you're like, well, I don't even know if I have time to find out this information to help me do better. And I think, you know, what I would tell counselors is NCRTM is here and you can plug in. And so whether you're a new counselor and you're coming into VR kind of cold, maybe your background is in something different. You know, maybe you came with a social work background or a business background, and you may be kind of struggling to learn the VR part of counseling. Or if you're a seasoned counselor, you know, you may feel like you've been doing this a long time and you know a lot. But if you're not learning, you're not growing, and there's really always something more you can learn. And so we have resources for you in every stage of your career. And even as you continue to grow and transition, we have a lot of resources for those who move into management or supervision and program administration. So it's a really great resource to be able to support you when you are out there in the field looking to do, I think about like motivational interviewing and how much I really wanted to do that and use that technique. And I went through some trainings and it was like, okay, But the trainings, I always felt like they were just kind of never really got to the nuts and bolts like it was overviews. And one of my favorite resources in the NCRTM was actually this motivational training series that was created by Oregon VR and it's, you know, several years old now, but it's nuts and bolts. It's how to do motivational interviewing in a VR setting. Like it's amazing. And I wish I would have had that when I was a counselor. And there's also all kinds of different toolkits and guides. There's so much available. There's also another place on the NCRTM team where you can kind of as a starting point. We produce these things, which is a fancy word. We call it a curated list, but basically we have more than 20 curated lists on various topics, and most of the topics that we have selected these curated lists on were user driven. These were given to us. Ideas came from the field, came from our users. And these curated lists usually have, you know, 10 to 25 different resources on them about various topics. So for instance, we did one on VR 101. So for those folks, it can be counselors, it could be parents. All of the curated lists are segmented by audience. So if you're a counselor and you're looking for resources for yourself, you can check out these lists and it'll say for VR professionals. Or if you're looking for resources that you can share with your customers, you'll see for individuals with disabilities and families for general audiences, some of them are for specific disability types, like we have a list on autism and employment. We have a list on mental health. We have curated lists on work incentives, financial incentives, labor market information. So there's more than 20 of them out there. We add new lists pretty regularly. Right now we're in the process of updating some existing lists. So these lists change and they grow. But that's a really great starting point. If you're not really sure where to go or what to look at, I'd also highly recommend plugging into those training and events pages. So I know with the variety of information and training topics that are available, sometimes you really don't want to sit down and do a training, but you can look and a lot of the trainings are available on demand, so you can do it at a time that's convenient for you. As nerdy as it sounds, I like to listen to trainings in the background sometimes, so most of the trainings that are on the site I've listened to, I've taken myself and there's some really good stuff out there. So I'd encourage you to not be intimidated. But I'd also like to offer is just support. There's a team behind the team behind this curtain that's there to help you. So if you want to get acquainted with the site or you want help locating some resources, just email us. Our email address is NRTM@NewEditions.net, and one of our team members will be able to help you right away. So don't feel like you're in this alone. Like we can help you navigate and help you learn how to explore and show you what's available on the site and how it can benefit your work.   Carol: All excellent advice that you've given that is super cool. I know that curated list. When I found that, I'm like, oh my gosh, that literally is what I felt like I did back in the day when I was at Minnesota, was create a curated list from your website. It was like linking counselors to these different really awesome materials on particular topics. So it's so awesome that you guys have done that. I feel like this is advanced so much and I know your team can do other cool stuff for VR agencies. So I heard you say, you know, obviously people can email you and you can do some support, but what are kind of trainings you could do for a VR agency on supporting using the website and such?   Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So we are happy to do in-service trainings and system demonstrations for VR agencies. In the past we've had agencies where we've done executive leadership, where we've shown the executive leadership how to use the site. Not only do we show you how to use it, we talk to you about it. We tell you about it, and then we show you it. So you get to see a live system demo and then, you know, we can take requests. So if it is of interest or particular parts of the website where you want to learn a little bit more information, we can focus on those areas. We've also done it with teams or units. So we can do any type of training like a 1 to 1 setting or like small group setting for your teams. If you're interested in learning more about NCRTM and how you can use it in your work, we also help agencies with locating materials. Well, not just VR agencies. We help individuals so we get emails all the time about people. I just had one last week from a parent who has a child that's transitioning into the workforce, and they're really interested in learning more information about customized employment. And so the parent reached out to us because they really weren't sure where to go. And we were able to pull together a list, kind of walk the parent through what was on the list and was able to share that with them. So if you've got a topic that you're interested in, or maybe you're looking to compile a curriculum of trainings that are available to support you, there's a ton of great resources out there for the training. So those on demand training modules are very common. So if you're an agency and you're looking to build out a training curriculum without like basically rebuilding and restarting and rebuilding the wheel, let's take a look and see what's already out there. You know, this stuff that's coming out of the Technical Assistance Centers and RSA grantees. It's really relevant to what's happening and what's needed in the field right now. And we really want folks to be able to connect to that so we can help you locate those. I had an agency that was asking about financial literacy training, and I was able to send them, Carol, to the financial literacy training from QM, you know, so it was really great. So we have these kind of resources and these requests coming in all the time, and we welcome that. We want to be able to help you navigate resources that's out there. It's up to us to know where to point you and we're happy to do that. And then another thing that we do. So for those agencies that want to submit products to NCRTM, or maybe they're a DIF grantee or another RSA program grantee, we do accessibility technical assistance. So the team behind the team is we have a 508 team here at New Additions, and they help us a lot with accessibility work and making sure that the products that go onto the NCRTM are accessible so we can help provide technical assistance. We do accessibility reviews on materials, especially if they're the result of an RSA grant. And then we can offer if it's like remediations or complex accessibility work, we can provide technical assistance on that. So for instance, we had an RSA grantee who was really interested in doing some new video work, but they really weren't sure how to do audio descriptions. And so our 508 team was able to provide that technical assistance, to be able to kind of show them and walk them through how to do audio descriptions in work. We often do a lot of document remediation, so we're able to kind of review your PDF and word documents. If you're submitting it to the NCRTM, to let you know if it's accessible or not, and then what kind of steps need to be taken to make sure that it's accessible. So that's another service that we offer.   Carol: I had no clue about that. That is fabulous. I hope people take you up on that for sure. Oh my gosh. You've talked about the website and the materials posted there. So I know that the RSA grantees can put information out there. Are there other people that can put information on your website?   Heather: Yeah, technically anybody can submit materials to the NCRTM. It's a public website. So anybody can what we recommend if you're interested in submitting, we have an online library submission form. So when you go to the NCRTM website home page, if you navigate to the library using that top navigation bar on the far left hand side, it says library. When you go into the library, then you will come across a link on the right hand side of the page. And what that link says is submit materials to the NCRTM library. You can go ahead and click on that link. And there's a form that you can fill out. And you'll just have to put some very basic information about the material that you're submitting. So maybe this is something that your agency created, that you're very proud of and would like to be on the NCRTM website. Or maybe it's something from a federal partner that's publicly available, that's not in our library that you think should be. That's another thing you can do is you can submit it to NCRTM. Every material that's submitted is reviewed by our team to make sure that it's accessible, and then also that it's appropriate to be on the NCRTM, and then we can go ahead and publish it and make it available on the website. So anybody can yeah, anybody can submit, which I think is pretty cool. And we really encourage folks. So if you're a VR agency and you have tools and you have success stories or you have trainings you want to share and you want them to get the word out about it, send it our way, we will help you figure out a way to put it on the site and help you amplify that material. Like, we really want these products and these materials that you're working on that are really meaningful for the VR community. We want to get them out there.   Carol: Well, we're definitely better together. You know, everybody's creating all of this great stuff. We don't have to all reinvent the wheel. Like, let's use this so each other can get like all that great stuff. Everybody's producing. I think that's wonderful.   Heather:  Yeah. If you're afraid to use that form, you can always email us like we are small team, but we're very responsive. We take a lot of pride in making sure that we're responding to folks quickly. So if you have questions about submitting materials or you want to walk it through, you can email us at NCRTM@NewEditions.Net, and we'll walk you through that. For those RSA grantees we have a whole guide that's out there, the guide for product submission and websites about submitting products to the NCRTM. But that's more for RSA grantees. If you're an individual or you're a VR agency, definitely email us or use that library submission form and we're going to be happy to help you.   Carol: Very cool. So I know you have a lovely newsletter you guys put out. And then I saw recently kind of a little different format. You were doing like a news blast or something. Sort of groovy. How can folks, because we do have a lot of counselors that listen into and they don't always have access, you know, maybe the directors on your mailing list or something. But how do folks subscribe so they can get it quickly?   Heather: Yeah, we have a lot of ways that you can connect with us. Carol, you mentioned the newsletter. We do put out a monthly newsletter. We are trying some new things. So we are starting to do some news blasts. So if there's some really important announcement or might be an event reminder or something that NCRTM is doing, we're going to start sending some more regular communications to our subscribers. The best way to do that is to sign up for the NCRTM newsletter. And you can do that by using the web page. You use the top navigation bar and click on join the NTM network tab. That's going to take you to our page, where you can start to subscribe so you can subscribe for our newsletter. Like I said, it goes out once a month. We also have another subscription where if you're really interested in keeping up to date on what's new, what's happening with the library materials, you can subscribe for library updates. So once a month, you'll get a list of all of the new items that were added to the NCRTM library. And it really varies month to month. Sometimes we have a lot of folks that submit products, other times it's just our team out there looking and finding what's new and putting it onto the site. So some months you'll see a lot, some months you might not see as much. It just really depends if you're really interested in staying up to date, we encourage you to do that. We also have social media. You can find us on X which is formerly Twitter. Our handle is at RSA_NCRTM. So we encourage you to follow us on Twitter. We do a lot of amplifying new products. We talk about some of the events and trainings that are going on. And then we also have a YouTube. So whenever NCRTM hosts a training because we do host trainings ourselves too. Right now we're doing a series of lunch and learns. Carol, you were a big help with moderating what our first Lunch and Learn event last November with Doctor Herbert. We had a panel discussion about recruitment and retention. We also just did a really wonderful lunch and learn session that we did alive. And then we just released the publication earlier this month on managing counselor workload guilt. So for those of you counselors who are out there maybe struggling, feeling a little guilty because your workload is high, and this really looks at strategies to kind of find balance and prioritize wellbeing. It was a really fantastic event. And so that video is available on our YouTube channel. And then earlier this month we hosted a lunch and learn where we partnered with NRIC, the National Rehabilitation Information Centre, and really kind of zeroed in on research. And how can you navigate with NRIC and use research in your work. And so the video of that will be coming out very soon too. So if you're interested in looking at some of the trainings that NCRTM has done, definitely check out our YouTube channel.   Carol: Yeah, folks, definitely need to sign up because then you get everything. I love it because I must be signed up like three different ways. I get it, you know, from RSA, Joe Doney. And then I get from you guys, I get it all the time. So I make sure I have all the current information and the lunch and learns are fabulous. They're really fast paced. It's nice. There's just great guests that have been on there. I think they're really a good product that you've developed.   Heather: Yeah, so definitely the newsletter. I think you hit it. That's the best way. So if you're looking to connect, we have a lot of ways. But the newsletter you're going to see a lot of the new stuff that's coming out. You're going to be able to see any of the lunch and learns that we're hosting. You're going to get to see NCRTM materials. You'll also get to see all of our new library materials. We usually feature 3 to 4 new library materials on that newsletter, too, so you don't sign up for library updates. You can still see that in the newsletter. So yeah, the newsletter is really a great source to get the most information about what's happening at NCRTM.   Carol: Very cool. So is there any way our listeners can help you? I don't know if you had any particular ask for them. Or are there ways that our listeners can help you guys?   Heather: Yeah, absolutely. Like I mentioned, we are very serious about user feedback. So we want to hear from you. We want to be able to curate content that's meaningful and helpful for you. So we want you to share your ideas with us. So if there's library materials, if there's a webinar or training topic that would be helpful for you or idea for a new curated list, we want to hear from you. That's how we continue to build and grow the NCRTM to make sure that it's meaningful to our users. So really reach out to us, email us, NCRTM@NewEditions.Net. We also have a customer feedback survey so you can connect with us. That way you can fill it out if you have ideas for content or things that you would find helpful, and then also just connecting with the NCRTM team by signing up for the newsletter would be a really big help. It also helps keep you up to date on what's happening. Those are some of the bigger ways that your listeners could help us is really those connections. Tell us what you need, how we can help you, and then connect with us and stay up to date. Connect with us so that you know what's going on, because I guarantee you your work will benefit.   Carol: Awesome. Thanks for joining me today, Heather, I really appreciate you being on. This was great.   Heather: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was awesome I appreciate it.   {Music}   Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

As a leading cause of disability, arthritis has major impacts on employees. In this episode, we discuss the rights of workers with disabilities, and how they can get the help they need to succeed at work. *Visit the Live Yes! With Arthritis Podcast episode page to get show notes, additional resources and read the full transcript: https://arthr.org/LiveYes_Ep109 (https://arthr.org/LiveYes_Ep109) * We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the Live Yes! With Arthritis Podcast. Get started by emailing podcast@arthritis.org (podcast@arthritis.org). Special Guest: Laura Bouslaugh.

Welcome to another episode of the IDD Health Matters Podcast, hosted by Dr. Craig Escude. In this episode, Dr. Escude talks with Eric Pines, Esq., a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. Eric discusses his work in advocating for reasonable accommodations for federal employees, particularly veterans, and those with disabilities. Eric Pines provides insights into his legal practice, emphasizing the importance of understanding and asserting one's rights under laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act. He shares real-world examples, including helping veterans with PTSD secure work-from-home arrangements and assisting a federal employee with epilepsy by having the government build a special workspace. Eric's credentials are impressive. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A former federal employee himself, Eric began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923, located at the Social Security Administration's headquarters and known as the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923's Chief Counsel, as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions. The conversation highlights the critical role of accommodations in the workplace and the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities in securing these accommodations. Eric underscores the significance of being well-informed about one's legal rights and the resources available to assist in obtaining necessary accommodations. For those seeking more information, Eric recommends the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) at askjan.org, which offers creative solutions and comprehensive guides on accommodations. He also points to his website, Pines Federal (pinesfederal.com), which features a wealth of resources, blogs, and case studies on disability accommodations. Eric's passion extends to his own podcast, "Disability Inclusion and Accommodation in the Workplace," where he discusses innovative accommodation solutions and shares stories of individuals who have thrived despite their disabilities. This podcast is available on major platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. As the episode concludes, Eric encourages listeners to assert their rights and pursue accommodations confidently, reminding them that the law is often on their side when it comes to ensuring equitable treatment in the workplace. This episode is a valuable resource for anyone interested in disability rights and workplace accommodations, offering practical advice and inspiring stories of advocacy and resilience.

Welcome to another episode of the IDD Health Matters Podcast, hosted by Dr. Craig Escude. In this episode, Dr. Escude talks with Eric Pines, Esq., a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. Eric discusses his work in advocating for reasonable accommodations for federal employees, particularly veterans, and those with disabilities. Eric Pines provides insights into his legal practice, emphasizing the importance of understanding and asserting one's rights under laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act. He shares real-world examples, including helping veterans with PTSD secure work-from-home arrangements and assisting a federal employee with epilepsy by having the government build a special workspace. Eric's credentials are impressive. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A former federal employee himself, Eric began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923, located at the Social Security Administration's headquarters and known as the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923's Chief Counsel, as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions. The conversation highlights the critical role of accommodations in the workplace and the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities in securing these accommodations. Eric underscores the significance of being well-informed about one's legal rights and the resources available to assist in obtaining necessary accommodations. For those seeking more information, Eric recommends the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) at askjan.org, which offers creative solutions and comprehensive guides on accommodations. He also points to his website, Pines Federal (pinesfederal.com), which features a wealth of resources, blogs, and case studies on disability accommodations. Eric's passion extends to his own podcast, "Disability Inclusion and Accommodation in the Workplace," where he discusses innovative accommodation solutions and shares stories of individuals who have thrived despite their disabilities. This podcast is available on major platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. As the episode concludes, Eric encourages listeners to assert their rights and pursue accommodations confidently, reminding them that the law is often on their side when it comes to ensuring equitable treatment in the workplace. This episode is a valuable resource for anyone interested in disability rights and workplace accommodations, offering practical advice and inspiring stories of advocacy and resilience.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update, Swatha speaks with Dania Douglas, Senior Attorney at the National Health Law Program, about the new rule from the US Department of Health and Human Services covering non-discrimination on the basis of disability under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. We discuss new prohibitions on disability discrimination in crisis standards of care, access to medical equipment, and accessibility standards for websites, mobile apps, and kiosks. To learn more about the new rule, visit HHS Finalizes Rule Strengthening Protections Against Disability Discrimination | HHS.gov To access the recording and slide deck for the webinar from NHLP, visit https://healthlaw.org/resource/webinar-section-504-final-rule/ Access comments on the proposed rule from NHLP at https://healthlaw.org/resource/comments-on-section-504-proposed-rules-discrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-in-health-and-human-services/ To access the blog from the Administration for Community Living, visit Final Rule Implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 | ACL Administration for Community Living

Join hosts Tony and Paul on the Friends for Life Podcast, where they delve into the vibrant lives and pressing issues facing individuals with developmental disabilities. This episode not only entertains but also educates listeners on the significant history and evolution of disability care in the United States. The discussion traces the journey from early informal family care through the dark period of the Eugenics movement, to the transformative post-World War II era, and the civil rights activism of the 1960s and 70s. The narrative continues through the legislative advancements that shaped today's disability care, highlighting the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Today's approach to disability care in the U.S. emphasizes principles of inclusion, accessibility, and equal opportunity, showcasing a significant transformation from past practices. Whether you're a professional in the field, someone looking for services, or just interested in learning more about the historical context of disability rights, this episode offers comprehensive insights and a reflection on how far we have come in recognizing and respecting the dignity and rights of people with disabilities. Tune in to be informed and inspired.

Bills expected on the Floor of the House this week:H.R. 4389: Migratory Birds of the Americas Conservation Enhancements Act of 2023 – SUPPORTThis bill reauthorizes through FY2028 and revises the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, which provides financial assistance for projects to promote the conservation of neotropical migratory birds.Call Your Representative: tell them to vote YES on HR 4389Bipartisan SupportRead more hereH.R. 2560: Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act of 2023 – SUPPORTThis bill requires the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish a Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance Grant Program to encourage and facilitate coordinated rapid response and rescue of stranded marine turtles.Call Your Representative: tell them to vote YES on HR 2560Bipartisan SupportRead more hereH.R. 4639: Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act – SUPPORTTo amend section 2702 of title 18, United States Code, to prevent law enforcement and intelligence agencies from obtaining subscriber or customer records in exchange for anything of value, to address communications and records in the possession of intermediary internet service providers, and for other purposes.Call Your Representative: tell them to vote YES on HR 4639Bipartisan supportRead more hereSenate Hearings Scheduled:BudgetHearings to examine offshore tax evasion by the wealthy and corporations.Tune in at 10:00am ET, Wednesday, April 10, 2024 (or watch after!)Joint Economic CommitteeHearings to examine investing in early childhood education.Tune in at 2:30pm ET, Wednesday, April 10, 2024 (or watch after!)Where to find other Senate hearings!https://www.senate.gov/committees/hearings_meetings.htm

Last December, the Office of Management and Budget released a memorandum with new guidance on Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires agencies to offer equal access to electronic information and data for individuals with disabilities. Per the new memorandum, all agencies must deliver an accessible digital experience, establish programs and policies for digital accessibility, procure products and services that are fully accessible, monitor and remediate issues that arise with creating an accessible customer experience and cultivate a “positive culture” of online accessibility. Federal CIO Clare Martorana and her office's head of digital experience, Jonathan Finch, join the Daily Scoop to discuss the purpose of the new guidance, how federal digital experience leaders are taking charge to make changes, and what role AI can play in improving citizens' experiences with the federal government.

On today's show, I welcome Steve Oross and Lorrie McKinley to the show. Steve Oross is an Associate Professor of psychology at Kutztown University and as listeners of this show will recall, in Fall 2021 Steve Oross was denied ADA accommodations by Kutztown University's administration. Oross had a heart transplant in February 2021. Following months of physical therapy and treatment, his doctors cleared him to return to work in Fall 2021 provided that he taught his classes online given that COVID was still rampant and would pose a significant risk to his life. Rather than providing Oross with accommodations, the administration said the only way they would allow him to return to work would be if he taught in-person. Rather than risk his life or being forced to go on unpaid leave pr losing his job, Oross decided to fight. Thanks to his determination and the amazing advocacy of his attorney, Lorrie McKinley, Oross won his case. Steve's experience has led him to wider spheres of advocacy as well. Steve is a Team Member with the World Health Network focusing on Legal Action for Policy Change. He has also become involved in the Organ Donation Awareness Corporation which is a student-led organ donation advocacy group with chapters in NYC and Nashville, Tennessee, involving other students from around the country. He will be participating in a series of webinars with this group focused on promoting organ donation among young adults. Lorrie McKinley, is one of the few lawyers in the Philadelphia area with undisputed expertise in both employment law and special education advocacy and litigation. She is a passionate, bold and creative advocate with a long track record of protecting the civil rights of employees and students under the nation's civil rights law at every level of the state and federal courts. Lorrie is widely recognized for her contributions in the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as well as her advocacy on behalf of children with special needs. Prior to entering private practice in 1997, Lorrie served as Project Head for the Employment Law Project at Community Legal Services, Inc. in Philadelphia. In 1997 she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving constitutional due process issues for people receiving medical benefits pursuant to the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act. Her work in that case is highlighted in an exhibit in the Supreme Court Section of the United States Constitution Center in Philadelphia. For over a decade, Lorrie has been selected by her peers as one of the “Best Lawyers in America.” Since 2008, she has also been listed as a “Super Lawyer” by Thompsons Reuters based on peer recognition and professional achievement. LINKS: Oross v. Kutztown University | https://casetext.com/case/oross-v-kutztown-univ McKinley & Ryan, LLC | https://www.mckinleyryan.com/ "Kutztown professor with heart transplant should have been able to teach from home, judge says," Susan Snyder, The Phildadelphia Inquirer | https://bit.ly/49PcBNL Out d'Coup LIVE | Steve Oross - Kutztown U Demands Faculty Member to Choose Between Life and Livelihood, Sept. 6, 2021 | https://bit.ly/3h9EuqZ Disability Rights PA | https://www.disabilityrightspa.org/ If we want a progressive future, we need progressive media. Support pull-no-punches, homegrown progressive media today by becoming a patron of Raging Chicken for as little as $5/month. Simply go to https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Help keep the media in the movement and the movement in the media. Become a patron for as little as $5/month by going to https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Join our Discord to continue the conversation all week long: https://discord.gg/BnjRNz3u