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The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is pleased to announce the application for the 2022 AAPD Summer Internship Program is now open! We aim to build a diverse cohort of students and recent graduates with disabilities who are interested in a 10-week paid summer internship program that focuses on building their careers, developing their leadership and advocacy skills, and engaging with the broader disability community.
What the program entails:
  • Week-long orientation with AAPD staff, partners, and guest speakers
  • Prestigious internship placement in Congressional offices, federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, or private companies
  • 1:1 Mentorship based on intern’s personal and career interests
  • Weekly leadership and advocacy classes in the Disability Advocacy Certificate Program 
  • Professional development and community events 
  • Being a part of a supportive cohort community  
Eligible applicants are people who self-identify as having a disability and are a:
  • Current undergraduate, graduate, law students, participants in skills-based or apprenticeship program OR
  • Recent graduate (within the last 5 years)
What we cover:
  • Housing (if in person) OR Technology stipend (if remote)
  • Transportation to and from Washington, DC
  • Internship stipend equivalent to $15 an hour
The 2022 Summer Internship program will provide both in-person internships in Washington, DC as well as fully remote internships from across the country options based on the intern’s preference. 
Apply Now
Apply for the 2022 AAPD Summer Internship Program by Wednesday, October 20, 2021, at 5 PM ET!
Check out the application and learn more details on our website.
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People with disabilities often face more challenges with the effects of climate change. Some advocates feel that people are new risks from mitigation efforts. As more and more extreme weather events happen due to climate change, the risk becomes greater. However, effects to combat climate change are often inaccessible or counterproductive for people with disabilities. 

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The Applied Self-Direction website recently released a great short video explaining what self-direction is. It uses plain language and great visuals. 

Watch video

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Each year, the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (BPDD) does an annual survey for self-advocates and family members who have participated in a BPDD project.  They want to know what you think of our projects! 

If you participated in a project this year, please take a couple of minutes to complete this short survey.  Your feedback helps us understand how their projects impact people’s lives, and they share this information directly with their funders. 

Below is a list of projects, trainings, events and grants that you could have participated in over the last year. Please also fill out the survey if you participated in grassroots state or federal advocacy that was brought to your attention by BPDD, if you follow them on social media and have shared content or connected with other people around the state virtually through Living Well Wednesdays or the Self-Determination YouTube Channel. 

  • People First activities
  • COVID-19 activities 
  • Living Well activities
  • Partners in Policy Making
  • Youth Leadership Forum
  • Sparks Grants
  • Employment First Partner Grants
  • Building Full Lives
  • Partners with Business
  • Take Your Legislator to Work
  • Supported Decision Making
  • Family-Led or Family Navigator Project
  • Self-Determination Conference
  • Employment First Conference
  • Voting Trainings
  • Disability Advocacy Day

Take survey

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 In May, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule requiring vaccination education, access and reporting for the residents and staff of nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ICF/IID). Last week, CMS sent a memo to the agencies in each state that are responsible for inspecting and accrediting ICFs/IID to provide detailed implementation guidelines for the new rule. This guidance provides information about the responsibilities of ICFS/IID under the new rule and may be helpful if as you counsel and educate residents of ICFs/IID, their families and caregivers and advocate for them with facilities..

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The National Quality Forum (NQF) is seeking input on 14 quality measures for home- and community-based services (HCBS). These measures are a subset of the National Core Indicators for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities HCBS Measures.

The measures, and the assessment of them by the NQF’s Patient Experience and Function Standing Committee, can be reviewed in the committee’s draft report. Comments may be submitted through the NQF website (requires registration) until Friday, September 17 at 6:00 PM ET. Any aspect of the report can be commented on including the scope of the measures, the quality of the measure development process, the importance of the measures, their utility in HCBS programs, etc. 

Why this is important: Development of standardized measures of quality for HCBS has lagged behind development of similar measures for health care. That has hamstrung efforts to assess and improve the quality (and consistency of quality across states) of the services that make community living possible.

NQF endorsement is an independent validation of a measure of quality. It reflects scientific and evidence-based review, input from consumers and their families, and the perspectives of people throughout the health care and HCBS industries. That’s why input from the aging and disability networks, and of older adults and people with disabilities is so important.

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The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a toolkit to help people with disabilities understand more about COVID. The material explain how to protect yourself in plain language. 

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For the first time in decades, Supplemental Security Income could get a much needed overhaul. This could mean growing the program benefits and increasing the asset limits. Earlier this month, the Senate approved a broad plan outlining priorities for the reconciliation bill, but advocates say details are still sketchy. 

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