by Bill Gaventa, PFTW Project Consultant, and Erik Carter, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center UCEDD How do most of us get our jobs, at least somewhere along our work lives? It is often through personal relationships and networking that we find out about openings. Or, in other words, social capital is often the pathway to work. Congregations are [click to continue...]
If you had asked the Leah Ilana of 2020 where she would be career wise, she likely wouldn’t have guessed learning about grant writing for nonprofits in a hands-on environment. My educational background is in history and my undergraduate internships and employment experiences are in libraries, archives, and museums. After graduating with my bachelor’s, I [click to continue...]
Throughout my research of faith-based organizations that provide services for disability and mental health, a lot of organizations impressed me. I am going to focus on two in particular below. The first organization that stood out to me was the Collaborative on Faith and Disability. Their homepage shares some fascinating statistics, including that 84% of [click to continue...]
“I’ve been working hard to integrate accessibility into St. Luke’s idea of what a Beloved Community looks like—what is a community, after all, without disabled people in its midst?” Ten years ago this fall, on what my therapist at the time pointed out was also Yom Kippur, I stepped foot into St. Luke’s Episcopal Church [click to continue...]
Tzedek DC is an independent public interest center headquartered at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law that helps people with problems stemming from debt. Tzedek DC’s official mission is “to safeguard the legal rights and financial health of DC residents with low incomes dealing with the often-devastating consequences of abusive [click to continue...]
What page are we on? How much longer does the service last? Just as my body signaled for urgent rest, the Shofar blasted. “Truah!” Those first notes remind me that I want to be heard by my Jewish community. Not just as someone who’s disabled, but as a Holy Fool who has the knowledge you [click to continue...]
1) Before you brainstorm solutions, STOP & ask a load of questions! Remember, behavior is always communication. It is a way for kids, teens, and even adults to communicate an unmet need. For those with disabilities that impair their ability to communicate, this may be even more prevalent. Sometimes it’s unconscious and sometimes it’s conscious [click to continue...]
There are people in our lives who radiate the warmth and vitality of the sun when we’re in their presence. They are curious about everyone they meet, and they thrive on spreading their wisdom for the good of the world. When you meet one of these treasures, you feel blessed. And when they become your [click to continue...]
As we enter the end of summer (I know–it’s here!), those of us who work in education are turning our attention towards our classroom communities. How do we create inclusive Jewish education communities? At Jewish Learning Venture, our Whole Community Inclusion initiative approaches inclusion holistically, engaging all stakeholders including the educators, the families, clergy and [click to continue...]
Being mentored as a student with a disability and mentoring students with disabilities has changed my life. I have always been the student with the learning disabilities and the one being helped when I struggled with various schoolwork and activities. I always wanted to have the same experiences as my classmates and mentors helped me [click to continue...]
