PCPID Quarterly Meeting: November 19–20, 2008

Action Items November 19, 2008 Quarterly Meeting

Ms. Kodie Ruzicka will check Mr. Richard Balkus’ statement on page 13 of the minute. The statement needs further clarification as to what Mr. Balkus was discussing. It should include the possibility that they cannot have it done until October. Unless this is changed, Mr. Balkus will consider the statement to be incorrect.

Ms. Laverdia Roach will email Mr. Eric Cole’s suggestion that another bullet be added to recommendation ten. This bullet would develop dissemination strategies to remind the public sector of the information, communication, and physical access standards in Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Mr. Eric Cole will email information to Ms. Roach as soon as possible about the “Reach Beyond Greatness” program used in Wisconsin. Ms. Roach will make sure that Dr. David Mank gets this information in writing.

Ms. Roach will forward a copy of Dr. Sambhu Banik’s paper on Assessment of People with Intellectual Disabilities for Vocational, Rehabilitative, and Employment Purposes to Dr. Mank. In the Executive Summary, the self-pity discussed by the president needs to be added to the sentence that says "when people cannot work, they receive personal indignity, poverty and isolation." Chairman Rhatigan will handle the rewrite on this issue.

The staff of disabilittinfo.gov will work to simplify the website and make it more user- friendly. As soon as the Report to the President for 2009 comes out, PCPID will inform Mr. Robert Goldstraw so that he can add it to the site.

Mr. Goldstraw will immediately add a link to the DisabilityInfo.gov website covering people with intellectual disabilities that have successfully been self-employed. He will accomplish this by making a sub-folder under Self-Employment.

The staff of disabilittinfo.gov will redesign the site soon with the intention of making it more interactive and consistent with big interactive sites and social networking sites.

Mr. Eric Cole volunteered to help Mr. Goldstraw setup a connection to other search engines and pull from those search engines as well.

Ms. Sue Picerno will check whether the ODEP publication is available online. As soon as that becomes available, Ms. Diana Zeitzer will put it up on disabilityinfo.gov, and Mr. Cole will disseminate it to their constituencies.

Any member who has the chance to speak in public should spread the word about DisabilityInfo.gov and what a great resource the website can be. During the redesign, the staff of DisabilittyInfo.gov will remove irrelevant text, add a quick link section to the home page, and feature stories the achievements of individuals with disabilities.

Mr. Goldstraw agreed to talk to the information technology team about adding a product like Work World (workworld.org) to DisabilityInfo.gov.

Ms. Zeitzer will check online to for a publication which explains how to write accessibly for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities.

Mr. Ollie Cantos will email the link for the guide he discussed which explains how to write accessibly for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities.

Members of the Committee will continue to give feedback to improve DisabilityInfo.gov.

Ms. Mary Ellen Zeppuhar will email the following corrections to Dr. David Mank immediately:

• They discovered a problem with redundancy between the first paragraph on page 5 and the first paragraph at the top of page 7.
• On page 9, Recommendation 3, sub-bullet 2 when it talks about developing a unified statement for employment for people with intellectual disabilities, it should probably be the Department of Education versus the Department of Energy.
• The stress needs to be on Reports of public awareness in general, going beyond the issue of employment.
• They would like to look into cross-referencing the recent NCD Report on transition with recommendation 11
• Another correction needs to be made on page 22, in the last sentence of the last paragraph, under the section heading “Coming Into the Mainstream.” The report talked about technology solutions and assistive technology. This needs to include a sentence that says something about services provided by programs, such as the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). This organization helps employers to determine practical, low-cost, and sometimes no cost accommodations to help support workers with intellectual and other disabilities. A toll-free number and a website should also be included. Accommodations do not necessarily have to be technology-based or expensive.

Each of the Focus Group Chairs will email their Reports to Ms. Laverdia Roach, so that she could be sure that all suggestions are received and communicated to the writer as soon as possible.

Ms. Roach will send the comments as soon as she receives them from members no later than Monday.

Ms. Roach will get Dr. Mank the information in the area of Employment Support the next morning.

Ms. Roach will have the information on Preparation to Dr. Mank as soon as Ms. Linda Starnes gets in front of a computer, which should happen that day.

Mr. Cole thought he would be able to get his report to Ms. Roach by that evening.

Ms. Roach thought she would be able to get the information out to Dr. Mank by no later than noon the next day.

Ms. Roach will look into whether “through” should be capitalized in the title of the Report and get that information to Dr. Mank the next day.

Ms. Roach will email the 2008 Report to Dr. Mank so that he can copy the disclaimer and inserted it into the current draft of the report.

Ms. Roach and Dr. Mank will be in touch regarding the rewrite of the last sentence of the first paragraph that discusses the readiness of those with intellectual disabilities to work.

Titles and organizations were listed for the presenters in some of the draft, but were excluded in the latest draft. Since not all the presenters were mentioned in the reference section, they should list the name, title, organization, and city/state of the presenters. This information is available on the Open Forum Agenda. Ms. Roach will email the information to Dr. Mank the next day.

Ms. Starnes will send a written report of the following comments:

• The References at the top of page 39 had a few lowercase “I”s that did not belong. This might be garbage data that got thrown in, a printing issue, or a messed up italics code. No problem existed in the electronic version. The same thing happened with question marks and URL listings.
• On page 7, under the definition of intellectual disability, in the fourth paragraph, near the middle of the paragraph, it refers to a list of syndromes as cited above when the citation is actually below.

Ms. Roach will consult her style manual to see if a preposition should be capitalized in the title. She will report her findings to Mr. Mank.

Mr. Will Tienken thought they should add a brief statement in order for the reference to make sense. He will send a few sentences to Ms. Roach early the next morning.

Ms. Roach will get Judy O’Halloran’s write-up of Casey O’Halloran’s story which should be available shortly and pass it on to Dr. Mank.

Ms. Roach will send the names of the ex officio representatives to Dr. Mank for inclusion.

Everyone will have their information to Dr. Mank in a timely manner.

Mr. Tienken will email Ms. Roach the basics of how the letter to the new administration should be worded and set up.

Mr. Cole will setup a simple association using a tool like Linked In. He will work with the staff of disabilityinfo.gov to link the association to the disabilityinfo.gov website.