News and Notes 482 October 6
In observance of Mental Illness Awareness Week and National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), NARIC explores resources from the NIDILRR community and elsewhere to help connect people with mental illness to meaningful work in its Spotlight blog; NIDILRR to host webinar series, Maternal Health and Disability: The Accessibility of Motherhood - A Workshop on Disability and Pregnancy; This Just In... presents a systematic review examining the effectiveness of employment interventions in improving employment outcomes for persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); Research in Focus examines how organizational partnerships may improve access to independent living services for people with disabilities; the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Person-Centered Outcomes and Measurements releases Kenny's World: Person-Centered Planning, the inaugural episode of the Inside HCBS podcast; Associate Director for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC): Develop and Evaluate Rehabilitation Technology and Methods for Individuals with Low Vision, Blindness, and Multiple Disabilities receives "Genius Grant" MacArthur Fellowship for developing devices to enable blind and visually impaired people to access everyday technologies; the Great Lakes ADA Regional Center in collaboration with the ADA National Network launches quarterly webinar series, Ask an ADA Professional; the project Promoting Entrepreneurship Among Low Income Youth with Disabilities hosts webinar, Supports and Barriers that Entrepreneurs with Disabilities Encounter When Starting Their Businesses; the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Promoting Healthy Aging for People with Long-Term Physical Disabilities hosts webinar, Make No Bones About It: There Is More to Skeletal Health Than Bone Density, and We Have Much to Learn; the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Employment of Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities hosts webcast, Effective Vocational Rehabilitation: Services for Transition Age Youth with Disabilities; the project Developing a Career Services Toolkit for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) Pursuing Post-Secondary and Technical Education seeks recent graduates of career and technical education (CTE) programs as well as workers in CTE fields with mental health conditions to develop the CTE toolkit; the Office of Disability Employment Policy's Job Accommodation Network (JAN) publishes article, A Practical Approach to Telework as a Reasonable Accommodation During the Pandemic.
This week is Mental Illness Awareness Week and, in the spirit of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), we're looking at research and resources to support employees with mental illness. Research shows that people with mental health concerns, even those with serious mental illness, report that work is important - it has personal meaning and it promotes recovery. Work promotes pride and self-esteem, offers financial benefits, and provides coping strategies. Yet people with serious mental illness have very high unemployment rates for many reasons, including stigma and barriers to services. Programs and services like supported employment, peer counseling, and entrepreneurship can help. Employers can also do more to support an inclusive and welcoming workplace for their employees with mental illness. We explored some resources from the NIDILRR community and elsewhere to help connect people with mental illness to meaningful work in our Spotlight blog.
