Harvesting Capabilities

Innovative technology has lead to the partnering of GettingHired.com and the U.S. Business Leadership Network to promote employment of qualified job seekers with disabilities. This is a free service for job seekers.

GettingHired.com is a social networking community established to connect people with disabilities with potential employers and mentors. GettingHired.com contains accessible tools that will aid in connecting the nation’s reported 22.3 million working age people with disabilities with peers, employers, advocacy organizations as well as service providers.

According to GettingHired.com, no person is ever asked to disclose their disability either.

Again while there are many online job boards for those seeking employment, this is the first one that I’ve run across that is specifically geared towards those people with disabilities. Thumbs up to GettingHired.com!

The Federal Highway Administration has produced a publication entitled “Evacuating Populations with Special Needs“.

This was developed to help transportation agencies, emergency managers, first responders, and special needs service organizations understand related legislation and to plan, develop, and implement evacuations of special needs populations. People with disabilities may be especially vulnerable to natural disasters and other emergency situations.

You can download the entire publication from The Federal Highway Administration here. (You will need Adobe Acrobat to view the document. Please be advised that this publication is approximately 136 pages.)

The May 2009 Board Meeting Minutes have been updated and placed on our website.

For our blog followers, we are very excited about future plans for Miami County and how we will better able serve our community! There are many changes in the very near future, including a name change. Yay!

Stay tuned….

On Thursday, May 28, the AgrAbility Project will present a free online seminar about self-employment for people with disabilities. The seminar will cover topics like the pros and cons of self-employment, how to determine if self-employment is right for you, how to explore self-employment through the Vocational Rehabilitation system, and much more.

The seminar will be presented by Steve Swain, the National AgrAbility Project’s Assistive Technology Specialist. The seminar will be followed by a Q&A period.

AgrAbility Self-Employment Seminar Thursday, May 28 Starting 3:00 pm EDT The event is free, but registration is required.

To take part in the seminar, send an email to agrability@agrability.org with the word “Webinar” in the subject line, and you will be sent instructions by May 27.

The deadline for registration is May 22. For more information, contact AgrAbility at 1-800-825-4264.

The Indiana Family to Family  (F2F) Initiative is a project linking Indiana families to people, information and resources within their own communities. They bring together parents of children with disabilities, development delays or special health care needs so that they can share their knowledge, concerns, and experiences with one another.

F2F is currently looking for families to serve as Parent Mentors. A Parent Mentor is a trained volunteer parent of a child with special needs who has gone through the First Steps system and who is willing to give peer support to another parent whose child is currently in the system.

If you are interested in being considered as a Parent Mentor, go to www.aboutspecialkids.org and click on parent Mentor to access the online training. If your family is currently receiving First Steps services and you would like to be matched with a Parent Mentor, to to www.inf2f.org and click on Services to find the contact information for your area.

If you have any questions, please call Jane Scott at About Special Kids at 317.257.8683 or 1.800.964.4746.