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Welcome
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From the Desk of Kathleen Egan:  Greetings! It's hard to believe summer is winding down and many national service programs are gearing up for a new program year. I know many of you are busy recruiting and prepping for new members and volunteers for another great year of service. My Cross-Stream/Inclusion VISTA responsibilities have been keeping me very busy here at the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC). One of the key projects I've been focused on is the NextSTEP (Service To Employment Project) pilot. The goal of the pilot is to engage more individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities in service. The hope is that participation in service will help these individuals obtain skills that will lead to employment. Michigan is one of only two states selected to participate in this pilot initiative, which will track service experiences and the related outcomes for pilot participants. Assistance and support will be provided to these individuals so they may competitively serve through collaborative efforts between national service programs, the MCSC, and other state agencies and organizations. The MCSC is working in conjunction with the National Service Inclusion Project, the Institute for Community Inclusion, and the Michigan Department of Community Health. We're off to a great start and I will be sure to share updates with you as the pilot progresses. I look forward to meeting more of you and getting to know your programs better in the upcoming year, and am happy to assist with any inclusion questions or accommodations related to your program. If you have great stories related to inclusion and service, or plan to do an inclusion event or service project, be sure to let me know! Enjoy the last few weeks of summer and sunshine! In Service,
Kathleen Egan
Cross-Stream/Inclusion AmeriCorps*VISTA Michigan Community Service Commission To see past editions of IN Touch you can access the archived versions by visiting the Resources section of the Disability/Inclusion section of the MCSC website.
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Save The Date!
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Mark your calendars and join us for our second annual Disability and Inclusion Week! This year will be celebrating from October 17 to the 21, 2011! Be sure to stay tuned to the MCSC's emails, Twitter, and Facebook accounts for resources, webinar opportunities, stories of service, and inclusion facts. Back to top |
The ADA Turns 21!
This month's topic was originally featured as part of the National Service Inclusion Project's NSIP Weekly. If you would like to receive the NSIP weekly, sign up for the listserv here: http://www.serviceandinclusion.org/index.php?page=iw
July 26, 2011 marked the twenty-first anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a piece of civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation and telecommunications. For more information about the ADA visit: www.ada.gov
The ADA was preceded by legislation such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1970 that prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability in federally funded programs. For Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) grantees, both the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act apply, but the higher standards of the Rehabilitation Act govern national service programs. For more information on disability laws for grantees, visit the Quick Primer on Disability Law for Grantees published by CNCS here:
http://www.americorps.gov/pdf/disab_law_grte.pdf
Since its inception, CNCS has been committed to the active participation of Americans with disabilities in all of its programs and initiatives. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009 reauthorizes and expands national service programs and emphasizes the commitment of national service programs to the inclusion of people with disabilities as active participants in national service.
Through efforts to conduct inclusive outreach and recruitment, apply universal design principles to make programs more accessible to everyone and foster inclusive service environments, national service programs are upholding the commitment established in the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA to protect the rights of people with disabilities.
For information on how to celebrate the ADA anniversary, the ADA National Network has created a toolkit that can be accessed here: http://adaanniversary.org/
Erin Gannon, the writer of this month's Topic, is a Training Associate with the National Service Inclusion Project in Boston, MA. She can be contacted at Erin.Gannon@umb.edu.
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How One Inclusive Project Can Lead to More: Our April edition of the IN Touch featured a story about a Lansing AmeriCorps program's Global Youth Service Day project. The Power of We Consortium, in cooperation with several community partners, built two "Really Raised" garden beds and laid pavers to make Allen Neighborhood Center's Hunter Park Garden House a more inclusive community gathering place. Volunteers built two garden beds, one that was raised to waist level and one that allowed wheelchair users to wheel under the bed. This project was a great success and has now inspired a new, larger-scale project. The Garden Project has been awarded the Including Our Neighbors grant from the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition. The grant will provide funding for 12 additional raised garden beds to be built throughout Lansing. These new garden beds will allow significantly more community members to access the health, social, economic, and other benefits of community gardening close to their neighborhoods. The projects will also further The Power of We's goal of creating a healthier, more sustainable Lansing. This grant isn't the only honor the Power of We has garnered in the past few months. They were also honored in July by the Lansing City Council for their continued outstanding devotion to bettering the lives of all Lansing residents. Councilwoman Jessica Yorko declared the day Power of We AmeriCorps Day in the City of Lansing. Congratulations to The Garden Project on receiving the Including Our Neighbors grant and to the Power of We Consortium AmeriCorps program for your continued commitment to inclusive service!
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Inclusion Mini-Grants: The MCSC is pleased to offer supplemental inclusion funds for Michigan's AmeriCorps*State and National, Senior Corps (RSVP, Senior Companions, Foster Grandparents), and Learn and Serve programs to engage people with disabilities in service. Funds will be granted through an application process and will support service projects and "service shadow" opportunities that include people with disabilities. Inclusion mini-grant requests may range from $100-$500. Programs will also be required to submit a final report detailing the project/event outcomes. The application is available on the MCSC website at www.michigan.gov/mcsc.
Reasonable Accommodation Funds: For cases where a reasonable accommodation would prove to be an undue hardship for a program, limited funding is available through the MCSC to provide accommodations for service applicants, AmeriCorps*State and National Direct members, Senior Corps volunteers, and Learn and Serve program participants. Programs should seek alternative funding or cost-sharing resources whenever possible. All national service programs must provide reasonable accommodations where required by law regardless of their eligibility for MCSC or outside funding.
NSIP: The National Service Inclusion Project's website has always been an excellent source of information and resources related to inclusion and service. They recently expanded their offerings to include new resources focused on veterans and service-learning. All of the NSIP resources can be found at www.serviceandinclusion.org. White House Town Hall: On Thursday, July 14, 2011, members of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Office of Public Engagement, and Office of Presidential Personnel participated in a live streamed Virtual Town Hall that was hosted on Disability.gov. An archived video and transcript of this event is available at: https://www.disability.gov/home/how_to_use_this_site/watching_the_white_house_town_hall_video Conference on the ADA Updates-September 7th and 8th in Lansing: The Michigan ADA Steering Committee in collaboration with the DBTAC-Great Lake ADA Center and Michigan Protection and Advocacy Services will be holding a two day conference focused on the intricacies of the new ADA legislation and regulations. For more information on the conference held in Lansing, follow the link: https://s07.123signup.com/servlet/SignUpMember?PG=1533826182300&P=15338261911423154800&Info Back to top |
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About the MCSC:
 The Michigan Community Service Commission is firmly committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation in its programs, activities, and materials. Please call (517) 335-4295 to request accommodation or to obtain materials in an alternate format.
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