Conversations with leaders, practitioners, and advocates who are working to improve competitive, integrated employment and economic outcomes for people with disabilities.
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We talk with Dan Middleton, Senior Director, Clinical Excellence, Planning and Development at the Catalight Research Institute, about job coaching versus career coaching.
In this episode, DETAC Strategic Advisor Dan Middleton shares practical strategies for supporting people with disabilities in their career journeys and how individuals can play an active role in their own career advancement. Drawing on his experience, Dan highlights how tools such as apps, checklists, and planning supports can be introduced in practice and used on the job. The conversation also explores how people and professionals who provide supports can build shared understanding of these tools among job seekers and employers to drive success.
We talk with Samantha Marino, a certified rehabilitation counselor, former Center for Independent Living staff member and an independent consultant on benefits management about some of the myths about employment and loss of benefits. She explains ways people can explore employment on a trial basis without endangering their benefits and programs that can preserve benefits when a person develops additional income.
We talk to DETAC's self-advocate advisor Nicole Leblanc, about her personal perspective on person-centered thinking and best practices for engaging people with disabilities through a person-centered process, particularly related to employment.
About This Episode Sue Babin founded and runs a self-employment business incubator called “Self Employment: the Spirit of Individual Enterprise” in the state of Rhode Island. In this two-part interview, she goes over all aspects of the program: how the idea came to her, how she started the program, how she secured funding and transformed a pilot into a permanent program, how she produced customized training materials for people with disabilities on running your small business, marketing, the markers of success, case studies of people with disabilities who have created successful businesses for
About This Episode Sue Babin founded and runs a self-employment business incubator called “Self Employment: the Spirit of Individual Enterprise” in the state of Rhode Island. In this two-part interview, she goes over all aspects of the program: how the idea came to her, how she started the program, how she secured funding and transformed a pilot into a permanent program, how she produced customized training materials for people with disabilities on running your small business, marketing, the markers of success, case studies of people with disabilities who have created successful businesses for
Sierra Royster, the Director of Innovation with the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living (APRIL), talks with Michael Beers, the Youth Transition Coordinator at Summit Independent Living in Missoula, Montana. Michael is also a standup comedian and runs improv workshops. They discuss a variety of issues in employment, including creativity in employment support, the Centers for Independent Living in rural areas, youth transition to employment and theater as a means of engagement. Presenters Michael Beershas been in an open relationship with Advocacy since 2001 when he was a delega
In The New Normal, we talk with Nicole LeBlanc, DETAC’s Self-Advocate Advisor, about the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for people with disabilities – mostly detrimental in terms of increased risk and unemployment, but also some changes that have benefitted people with disabilities such as remote work and telehealth. Presenters Nicole LeBlanc is the Self Advocate Advisor with DETAC. Nicole has a keen ability and interest in public policy and excels at communicating the needs of people with developmental disabilities to public officials. Nicole worked for over eight years at Green Mounta
In this episode, we talk with Angela Greene. After 21 years in a sheltered workshop, she left in favor of competitive integrated employment as a Dining Room Attendant at the University of South Carolina. She is also a founding member and secretary of I.M.P.A.C.T. South Carolina. This podcast is a continuation of Angela’s presentation during the DETAC webinar, Employment First 2.0: Developing a Foundation for Excelling Systems Change Efforts through Legislative Action. Angela is also a poet. Listen to the end of this podcast to hear her read two of her poems, “Am I Not” and “Everybody Wants to
About This Episode Following last month’s webinar, “Celebrating Olmstead: It’s Time for 14(c) Phase-Out: Lessons Learned from Advancing Legislation & Leaving the Shop”, we go deeper with one of the webinar presenters, Sunny Cefaratti, about her early post-high school experience of going to work in a sheltered workshop, how she asserted her desire to leave the sheltered workshop, and how she built an independent life of music as the co-founder and Autistic Self Advocacy Mentor at the Musical Autist. Presenters Sunny Cefaratti is the Co-Director and Autistic Self Advocate Mentor at The Musical A
