For DSP Recognition Week, we asked Fatimah Howard and Nicholas Smith, DSPs who serve on the DCW Strategies Center advisory board, to share some of their insights and experiences — and why they are committed to their profession.

The ARRT grants are intended to increase the number of high-quality disability and rehabilitation researchers. Grants are made to institutions of higher education to provide research training to individuals with doctorates or similar advanced degrees. The disability and rehabilitation researchers trained by these grants will improve community living and participation, employment, and health and function outcomes among people with disabilities.

ACL invites you to join us for "Nutrition Services Under Title III," the fifth webinar in our Back-to-Basics webinar series, which is designed to advance the policy goals of the Older Americans Act (OAA). These goals include equity in service delivery, advocacy on behalf of older adults and family caregivers, appropriate accountability of funds, and efficient administration and oversight of these public programs.

This webinar will highlight key lessons learned and promising practices from the Living Well grants and a new resource, the Developmental Disabilities Systems Change Toolkit: Lessons from the Living Well Grants Evaluation. Presenters from three Living Well grants in Idaho, Virginia, and Wisconsin will also highlight examples from their systems change efforts, with strategies relevant for stakeholders across the developmental disabilities network.

ACL has awarded a nearly $1.2 million Elder Justice Innovation Grant (EJIG) to the RISE Collaborative, Inc. for the first year of a three-year project. The EJIG program supports the continued development of evidence-based practices on elder abuse intervention and response. The project seeks to further validate the RISE model as an evidenced-based intervention embedded in Adult Protective Services (APS) programs.

Each year, more than 53 million Americans provide a broad range of assistance to support the health, quality of life, and independence of an older adult or person with a disability. Another 2.1 million grandparents ¬— and an unknown number of other kinship caregivers — open their arms and homes each year to children who cannot remain with their parents. While each family is different, one characteristic they all share is the presence of a kin or grandparent caregiver who is providing support, love, and stability to vulnerable children—often outside the child welfare system.

The conference will provide opportunities to create the space, inspiration, and momentum needed to prepare respite organizations to take flight in the mission to support the nation’s family caregivers.

The Elder Justice Coordinating Council (EJCC) was established by the 2010 Elder Justice Act to coordinate federal activities related to elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation across the federal government.

The purpose of the RERC program is to improve the effectiveness of services authorized under the Rehabilitation Act by conducting advanced engineering research on and development of innovative technologies that are designed to solve particular rehabilitation problems or to remove environmental barriers.

This webinar will feature a 40-minute presentation from Dr. Jenna Gorlewicz on improving accessibility for the blind or visually impaired in STEM. Following the presentation, there will be a 15-minute question-and-answer session with the audience. The audience will include a wide range of ICDR stakeholders, federal interagency partners, researchers, practitioners, disability organizations, and ICDR Committee members.