Teach Practice Learn

Michael Lapaglia, MA, BCBA of Elite Behavior Analysis, LLC discusses the topic "What Is An Intellectual Disability?"

Loretta Claiborne, FEARLESS, Special Olympian, Speaker and Advocate for people with intellectual disabilities. 

Spirit (“Social Physical Interactive Respectful Inclusive Teamwork”) offers encouragement and empathy.

http://rwjms.rutgers.edu/departments_institutes/boggscenter/projects/documents/SEManual2009.pdf

After I enjoy a little victory dance for all the great connections made and lessons learned at the ProjectSearch 2014 conference, it's grind time! We're about a month until Take Off with twelve 17 year olds coming for their first day

Our Top 5 (pre-launch)

1) Design and compile our parents packets and set a date for a parents meeting ASAP (we'll need Marketing dept. from my agency, from hospital, and from D.O.E to sign off on our literature before we can distribute). Packets and meeting need to pack a punch, because the SN instructor on board is telling me that as the school year goes on, parents stop paying as much attention and stop looking in backpacks for forms etc. (family involvement)

2) Set a date for following meetings- Kickoff meeting w/ parents, managers and hospital personnel to let everyone involved know what to expect out of the PS year, provide a timeline, and expectations for different roles (student, parent, business liaison, dept.  head, hospital staff). Also, make ourselves available and describe how we can work to support and guide all of our vested members. Show Project Search videos and rally up interest. (get host site engaged, student and parent involvement, and stakeholders agree on roles) 

3) Set date for a meeting at hospital with Managers and invite anybody from hospital who is interested ... identify and build allies within the hospital, "what are your unmet needs, how can we add value to your department". (business engagement)

4) Get friendly with dept. heads, come in and study operations. Come up with a department list - code for types of work and skills involved, i.e. "TYPE patient transport, SKILLS communication, memory and hospital layout".  (business engagement and dept. analysis) 

My first ProjectSearch International Conference ... was ...