Take five minutes to check out what's happening on the Self-Determination Network:

• Call for Presenters: The 2027 Circles of Life Conference is looking for presentation proposals on topics like community building, IEPs, and self-care for its May event in the Wisconsin Dells, which connects families of children with disabilities with healthcare and education professionals. Learn more and consider submitting a proposal.
  
  
• Transportation Report: This report explains how transportation remains a major hurdle for disabled individuals and older adults, and it proposes a new coordinated framework to ensure they can access reliable transportation regardless of where they live. Find out what it suggests.
• Immigrant Workers Key: Immigrant workers make up about one-third of the U.S. homecare workforce, but recent policy changes ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians threaten to worsen the severe caregiver shortage and disrupt patient care. Learn how this is damaging the already depleted caregiver workforce.
• Defining Home-and-Community Based Services:  To help measure program success and hold them accountable, two organizations reviewed over 200 definitions to create a single, shared definition of home- and community-based services that focuses on choice and independence for older adults and people with disabilities. Find out what the definitions are.
• New Movie: The upcoming movie Being Heumann marks a major milestone for disability representation in Hollywood by casting disabled actress Ruth Madeley to play activist Judith Heumann and having disabled writer Rebekah Taussig co-write the screenplay. Learn what this film is going to be about.
• Watch: In this interview, a disability rights advocate shares their experience of losing their sight and explains how they created an educational cartoon series to use humor to fight daily accessibility barriers, build empathy, and show that disability is a normal part of life. Watch to find out more.
• Letter to DOJ: A bipartisan group of 18 state governors sent a letter urging the U.S. Department of Justice to protect community-based services for people with disabilities and stop actions that could make it easier to force them into institution. Read about why this is so important.
• Waitlist for Employment Services: A severe funding shortage between late 2025 and mid-2026 forced Wisconsin's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation to put over 7,600 disabled job seekers on a months-long waitlist, causing many to miss out on employment opportunities and highlighting the risks of underfunding state programs. Learn why this should have never happened.
• Mental Health Training for Caregivers: A new, free online training course is available to help direct care workers learn how to better support adults with both intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental health needs. Find out more about this course.
• Caregiver Report: Although the U.S. direct care workforce has grown to nearly 5.4 million jobs to meet the needs of an aging population, workers—who are mostly women, people of color, and immigrants—still face severe financial hardships and low wages that are now threatened by upcoming federal policy changes. Find out why advocates are concerned.
• Caregiving Compendium: The Family Caregiving Compendium is an interactive online tool that tracks and compares unpassed federal policy proposals from the last ten years designed to support America's 63 million family caregivers across areas like financial aid, training, and paid leave. Check out this great resource.
• New Resource: The Home Modification Information Network is a free, newly updated online tool that connects individuals, caregivers, and professionals with local, state, and national resources to help make homes safer and more accessible Learn how to explore it.
• Disability Fellowship Program: Funded by Common Good Philanthropies, the Wisconsin Disability Policy Fellowship and Internship Program gives individuals with developmental disabilities and their families hands-on experience in advocacy, policy analysis, and community engagement to help them build careers in disability rights. Applications due October 28th.
• National Self-Direction Inventory: As of 2026, over two million older adults, people with disabilities, and veterans are using self-directed care to choose their own caregivers, an expanding model that state agencies find is 20 to 30 percent cheaper than traditional agencies and helps fix caregiver shortages by letting participants hire family and friends. Learn what else you can find in the National Self-Direction Inventory.
• Concerns over Availability of Services: A severe shortage of caregivers and upcoming Medicaid funding cuts are forcing disability service providers to turn away new clients and reduce programs, leaving vulnerable people at risk of losing essential care. Read about why advocates are deeply concerned.