Press Releases
NCCDD Releases Mini Grants for COVID-19 Relief
April 9, 2020 (North Carolina) – The NC Council on Developmental Disabilities (NCCDD) has voted to invest $75,000 to a relief fund for one-time, time-limited projects to assist in filling gaps in services or activities that people with intellectual or other developmental disabilities (I/DD) are experiencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Funds are open to NC non-profit agencies and other NC community-based organizations that provide supports to people with I/DD and their families who are affected by the statewide Coronavirus response. Funds must be used to meet the needs of people with I/DD and their families and promote engagement with peers, alleviate anxiety due to social distancing, and/or increase positive shared experiences.
- What do people need now due to social distancing, quarantine, or self-imposed isolation?
- How will people remain engaged with their friends and family? What will be funded?
- Activities to remain engaged during social distancing;
- Items that alleviate anxiety due to social distancing; and,
- Other items needed for people experiencing social isolation
For more information on the grant, its requirements and the application, visit NCCDD's website.
About North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities:
The North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities (NCCDD) works to assure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and their families participate in the design of and have access to needed community services, individualized supports and other forms of assistance that promote self-determination, independence, productivity and inclusion in all areas of community life. The Council identifies problems facing its community through its five-year planning process and funds innovative projects and initiatives that promote the goals of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act (DD Act) for all North Carolinians.
APRIL 15 - Why Employment First Must Be A Priority In North Carolina
During this webinar the audience learned an overview of federal laws and regulations setting competitive integrated employment as a national priority with and outcome for all federal funding streams, including Medicaid; the most recent national outcomes data for persons living with developmental disabilities - in special education transition, SSI and earned income, receiving employment services from both state VR and DDD, labor/workforce participation and living in poverty – and data from leading states and North Carolina’s relative standing.
Speaker: Allan I. Bergman, Subject Matter Expert for the U.S. Office of Disability Employment Policy, nationally recognized policy and systems change advocate, and parent of two adult daughters living with developmental disabilities.
APRIL 29 - Charting the Life Course and Person-Centered Thinking
This webinar will introduce the process, materials and tools from Charting the Life Course and the fundamentals of Person-Centered Thinking to facilitate the achievement of self-determination, interdependence, productivity, integration, and inclusion in all facets of community life.
Speaker: Barbara Brent, NASDDDS, and Molly Cole, Connecticut, UCED
Documents: Large Print • Course Star Worksheet • Trajectory Worksheet
MAY 20 - The Basics of Supported Decision Making: It’s Your Choice
MAY 27 - Transition from School to Adult Life of Post-Secondary Education, Competitive Integrated Employment, and Integrated Community Living
During this webinar, you will learn about research findings and evidence-based best practices to assure the law’s outcomes, including practices that have been developed during the Pandemic to meet the legal requirements of Transition and its outcomes that do not include day programs, sheltered workshops, ICF/DD, or group homes, which often are predefined outcomes based on current systems, a diagnostic label, I.Q. score, low expectations, and traditional programs rather than individualized plans.
Presenters: Erik Carter, Ph.D., Chair and Professor of Special Education, Vanderbilt University and Co-Director, VKC University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, Nashville, TN.
JUNE 10 - The Role of Assistive Technology and Devices in School, Employment and Community Living
The Role of Assistive Technology and Devices in School, Employment and Community Living
Presenters: Marsha Threlkeld, Pivotal Consulting, Cowiche, Washington, and,
Allen Ray, Simply Home, Arden, N.C.
Download the documents:
JUNE 24 - Building Meaningful Lives with an Integrated, Meaningful Day
In 2020, the pandemic flipped our world upside down, disrupting our entire lives, and affecting our families, jobs, schools and community services. While this DISRUPTION has been devastating, it can also be seen as an opportunity for self-advocates, families, state agencies, teachers, and service providers to rethink and restructure how we support and serve people with disabilities in other than facility-based day programs and sheltered workshops.
Please join nationally recognized leader and subject matter expert Sara Murphy, from TransCen, Inc. in San Francisco, for a 3-hour training session to learn about Building Meaningful Lives, a community integrated service approach that addresses social barriers, encourages community inclusion and belonging, and creates pathways to competitive integrated employment. The Building Meaningful Lives model combines HCBS waiver services with VR-funded Supported Employment, enabling individual service plans to be “built to order”. It provides wrap-around services that can be tailored to meet each individual’s needs and circumstances. During this session, Ms. Murphy will provide tools and strategies for identifying service and support needs, building critical skills and encouraging “social self-sufficiency” and the idea of Community Integrated Employment. Let us “seize the day” and work together to create an interagency, collaborative service system for all people with developmental disabilities in North Carolina that encourages and financially incentivizes inclusion and creates pathways to competitive integrated employment!JULY 8 - Think College and Post-Secondary Education
- UP Program Overview
- UP Program Flyer
- UP Program Brochure
- Think College Presentation
- Think College Presentation Two
JULY 22 - Customized Employment with Fidelity
AUGUST 19 - Benefits Planning and Creating an ABLE Account
The first half of the webinar will be provided by James R. Sheldon, Esq. Mr. Sheldon worked at Neighborhood Legal Services in Buffalo, NY for more than 30 years and is now a disability policy consultant. He first focused on Social Security work incentives as a Protection and Advocacy attorney during the mid-1980s. Between 1998 and 2018, he supervised a regional work incentive counseling project, overseeing federal and state grants, including the WIPA (Work Incentives and Planning Assistance) grants, created by Congress in 1999. He has worked extensively with special education, Medicaid, Medicare, vocational rehabilitation, employment discrimination, and rights of persons with disabilities. Attorney Sheldon wrote or co-authored more than thirty policy briefs and a similar number of newsletter articles to support work incentive counselors nationally, primarily through Cornell’s Yang-Tan Institute.
The second half of today’s webinar will be provided by Cheryl Walfall-Flagg. Ms. Flagg, a resident of Raleigh, is representing the ABLE National Resource Center (located in D.C.) in her role as a BIPOC Ambassador, a program of which she was founding member in 2018. As a mother, she understands the positive impact an ABLE account can have on her children’s future lives, especially as young black men with autism. She has been raising awareness about ABLE accounts through her work for Families & Communities Rising, which oversees Head Start and Early Head Start programs in addition to other family and community services for early childhood social-emotional health, prevention of child abuse and neglect and respite care. Among her many advocacy roles, Ms. Walfall-Flagg also is a parent member of Rethinking Guardianship, a Parent Mentor for FSN-NC and serves on the Advisory Board of Access Family Support Health Information Network.