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Community
Services
We provide the following services:
Disability awareness training
Through a grant from AmeriCorps to DHS and ORS, CDR was
contracted to provide DATS to other nonprofit agencies that use AmeriCorps
volunteers. The long term goal of the grant is to help the nonprofit staff
become more knowledgeable about the assets and capabilities of people with
disabilities so that they will hire them or use them as volunteers. Since
1990 CDR staff has provided DATS at nonprofit and government agencies as
well as to a variety of other groups, including medical and other
professional trainees, transit employees, etc.
Education advocacy
Although we
lost Maiya Lueptow JD to divinity school in May 2001, Aaron Lew has
remained to carry on the informational aspects of EAS. He has done an
excellent job, listening to parents' complaints and assisting them in
developing satisfactory solutions while maintaining reasonable
relationships with their schools.
In addition to his help, Aaron
has referred them to appropriate agencies for help in solving other
problems as varied as respite care or special education legal services. He
also mails copies of the State Board of Education's Regulations for
Special Education services.
Information technology educational outreach
The Federal government believes that information
technology (IT) has become an excellent career path for people with
disabilities. As part of a Federal grant to DHS/ ORS, the Council provided
outreach services to people with disabilities in the Chicago area to
inform them of the free tuition at Chicago City Colleges for courses in
IT.
Through our membership in CAN TV, Chicago's community cable
television, information was provided about the availability of courses and
certifications in IT, the free tuition and books, the ADA accommodations
available at City Colleges, etc.
Although the TV exposure produced
a lot of phone calls, many of the individuals seeking information about
the courses were not qualified to enter the courses.
A brochure
was produced and mailed to our Chicago members (over 2, 000) and
distributed to others by hand. Jo Holzer worked with Nancy Bellew,
Director of Special Projects at City Colleges, to develop more creative
ways to market the project as well as to explore the lack of actual
enrollees. Larry Labiak of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities
was also contacted to provide information at his youth gatherings,
Swiggy's, etc.
Having generated a great deal of interest through
television, it was difficult to understand why more people were not
enrolling. The students who did enroll, however, have been successful.
Financial education classes
With an Economic
Independence Fund grant from the American Express Foundation, CDR will
provide three rounds of ten-week classes using an established curriculum
for people with limited financial resources. Three members of our staff
will be trained utilizing these materials.
Employment services
Providing Real Inclusive and Desirable Employment
(PRIDE) is our employment placement and career
planning project for people with disabilities who are job-ready.
As an Employment Network in the Social Security Ticket To Work
program, as well as a service provider for DHS' Office of Rehabilitation
Services, CDR has worked hard to develop a consumer-oriented project.
Staff is strongly motivated to work with clients to develop an Individual
Plan for Employment (IPE), to place them in an internship, and to find
appropriate, inclusive and desirable employment for them.
Denny
Breitholtz, an experienced placement counselor previously with Little City
and Over the Rainbow, and Barbara Hundley Lacour, an experienced Human
Relations professional, have recently joined our PRIDE staff. MaryBeth
Gahan is continuing with PRIDE; Luisa Ajuria, who has contributed her
talents to PRIDE for almost a year, has left our staff.
PRIDE is
building a staff of eager professionals who want to serve as many people
with disabilities as possible. CDR foresees a bright future for placing
people with disabilities who are job-ready in good competitive jobs.
The Ticket To Work referral system brings about 125 people per month to CDR. We want to provide services that will help
them become as financially secure and independent as possible, as well as
help them to be included in the life of their community.
Information and referrals
In the late
1970s the unfulfilled need of consumers for peer-reviewed information
services was the strongest motivating factor in establishing this agency.
Reliable information resources were not available to people with
disabilities and their families.
CDR Reports, our monthly
newsletter, is now in its twentieth year of providing information about
issues of interest and concern to our community. The newsletter is sent to
over 5,100 people and agencies every month in every state of the Union, and e-mailed to dozens more.
Without endangering the privacy of our members, we
occasionally allow selected agencies to send materials to our membership.
However, the list is never given to other agencies. The other agencies
provide their materials with postage to our staff who then put on the
mailing labels.
This year the Center for Neighborhood Technology,
with whom we have collaborated for over five years, has held a series of
community forums about transit needs in order to develop a report from the
grassroots of each community. Many readers have received their
information. We hope you have attended the forums, found them interesting
and worthwhile while you helped develop this important report.
The
Clerk of Cook County, David Orr, has provided letters to Cook County
residents on our mailing list on several occasions. We hope this
information has been helpful and welcome.
Our web site is due for new features, including our long-promised key word index of
links to other web sites. Lisa Holzer, who has volunteered her expertise and
time to run the site since she designed and launched it in January 1996, has been hard at work planning these changes with her expert team of
volunteers. They are interested in hearing your reactions to the changes —
when they are made. We welcome comments, suggestions, or complaints about
the site at any time.
When we stopped counting the hits on our web
site several years ago, we were receiving 11,000 pageviews a day. The e-mail it generates is amazingly varied — and
personal — in the requests for assistance and information. This year staff
has responded to several hundred e-mails requesting information and
referral.
Our referral staff has worked harder than ever this year
to provide assistance to people with inquiries — by phone, by e-mail, or
in person — to more than a thousand formal intakes. The most frequent requests
are regarding the educational rights of children and information about CDR;
employment rights of adults (In 2000-01, it was most frequent.); housing
rights and availability; and job placement. Other requests were for legal
referrals, transportation rights, and information about disability
benefits.
Referral staff has also developed new resource
information sheets for the most frequent areas of inquiry, e.g., special
education and youth issues, and employment issues. The sheets have been
passed out at information fairs, e.g., the DHS ADA Celebration and MOPD's
Access Chicago and Employment Fair. Others are currently being developed
on housing issues and benefits issues.
Home modification
CDR is pleased to
announce the Home Modification Resource Collaboration Project funded
through the U.S. Department of Labor. The project will serve people with
disabilities in the Chicagoland area to modify their residences so they
can remain working outside of their home or join the workforce. To be
eligible for the program, you must be between the ages of 16 and 59, be a
person with a disability (mobility or sensory), and be employed or
actively seeking employment. A limited number of individuals will be
selected. For more information or to see if you qualify for this exciting
new program, contact Marie Walsh or MaryBeth Gahan.
More about CDR's Home Modification Resource Coalition Project
Videos
CDR is currently developing
a video project with Mirko Popadic, videographer. Three videos will be
made to be used to educate our community and others about the major issues
confronting people with disabilities and their families — education,
employment, and housing. Anyone interested in participating in this
project is invited to call Jo Holzer to discuss this undertaking and its
timetable.
More about CDR's video, "Inclusion: A Special Education Dilemma"
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