LEGACY training

We will be attending the LEGACY training in Los Angeles on April 7th. The complete training is composed of a set of online and in-person modules. We'll be looking at implementing this training in San Francisco for all of the One Stops to improve their ability to help people with disabilities find employment. Sue Quigley, Workforce Development Analyst for the City of Los Angeles, Community Development Department, has spoken of the wonderful impact this training has had on One Stop staff and their ability to serve all clients at their centers, both people with disabilities and people without.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 2009 update

Effective as of January 1 of 2009, the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been amended to include some important changes. At a recent webinar, The ADA Amendments: What They Mean for the One-Stop System and Job Corps, I learned about the scope of this amendment and the fact that these changes were instated to broaden the interpretation of the 1990 ADA. Essentially, more people will be protected under this revised act.

According to the webinar, "Amendments will make it much easier for an individual to:

• meet the definition of disability
• be protected from discrimination
• be entitled to reasonable accommodations"
  

If you would like to see the complete list of changes that make up the current ADA (1990 ADA with 2009 amendments in bold), go to:
http://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08mark.htm

CVE (and your DPN) in the news

On March, 3, 2008, Lorna Jones, the CEO of Community Vocational Enterprises (CVE) and the Vice-President of Community Relations, Patrick Regan, speak with Sue Kwon about CVE, the social enterprise that provides employment opportunities to people with disabilities.

Patrick is also the Disability Program Navigator (DPN) for the six San Francisco one stops. See the CVE interview conducted by CBS5.

You can also see Patrick in a group forum discussion through SF Live. 

To see the rest of this interview, simply let your mouse hover over the bottom of the You Tube screen and find SF Live with Patrick Regan, CVE Part 2 and Part 3

Serving People with Disabilities at One Stops Survey

Please take our survey if you work at One Stop Centers and would like to share your experience assisting people with disabilities.

Disabled Veterans Webinar

Yesterday, Patrick and Lauren attended the Serving Disabled Veteran in the One-Stop Career Center System webinar presented by Gordon Graff, Disability Program Navigator (DPN) Lead for the Idaho Department of Labor, along with DPNs throughout Idaho.

Did you know there are 475 DPN's in the United States? This image comes from the national DPN Initiative web page:

This may not be a surprise to many of the One Stop Centers in San Francisco, however, Idaho One Stops experienced an increase of veterans utilizing their services by 57%. Some of the program referrals and resources that were mentioned in the webinar include:

• Workforce Investment Act (WIA)
• Employment Services
• Unemployment Insurance
• Transition Assistance Program (TAP)
• Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP)
• Supplementary Security Income (SSI)
  
• Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)
  
• Work Incentive Planning and Assistance (WIPA)

For those of us that want to be more familiar with disability accommodations in the workplace but don't have the time, there was a great training resource mentioned at both the DPN Quarterly Meeting and the webinar. The best part is... it only takes 30 seconds to complete! Julia Sherry and Gary Hannah created 30-Second DPN training. The sixteen-part series of trainings includes topics such as vision loss, speech disability, WIA Section 188 Disability Checklist, and MORE!

One Stop Updates

If you want to know about developments in the San Francisco Disability Program Navigator (DPN) world, this blog will provide periodic updates. Please visit our San Francisco Six Stops blog and add comments or suggestions.

Patrick, Lorna, and Lauren recently attended the DPN Quarterly Meeting on March 3rd and 4th, 2009 in Sacramento California. This meeting provided us with the opportunity to meet with other DPN's throughout the state of California. We were able to form collaborative working groups to initiate the production of a disability in the workplace resource guide.