Committee Notes: Dec 9 2005

WHAT WENT DOWN ...

Committee meeting December 9, 2005; 9:00 am at the new CTEP office on Univeristy and Raymond. Ken, Lauree, Jesse, Lindsey and Linda present.

First, we reviewed our Dec 2 corps training, and discussed how our exit survey results will inform our our next steps.

NEXT STEPS

After looking through the exit survey it was clear that most corps members want to know more about the legal rights of people with disabilities and more about economic assistance available to them.

Each of us will research an area and report our findings next time our committtee meets (Jan 6 if we have time on corps day, or Jan 13).

Assignments:

Ken: individualized evaluation plans (IEP)
Lauree: economic assistence through local social services, step by step process of how to get it
Linda: basic facts about disabilities and the Minnesota Human Rights Act (expand on existing fact sheet)
Lindsey: disabilities and employment
Jesse: local resources, the big picture (what agencies, where they are, what they offer, languages)


OTHER IDEAS DISCUSSED

Webadapt:
We talked about how we could promote Webadapt at CTCs.
One idea was to develop outreach plans to pilot at the Lexington Library and Waite House. In doing this, we would demonstrate to our corps some specific methods for reaching target groups and how effective those methods were. This is something Ken has lots of experience with, here are some ways he has engaged seniors:

• search for recipes online,
• online Newspapers + Webadapt,
• seniors + AARP web site,
  
• online shopping (catalogues like Sears)

Committee idea: create an idea/resource handout for the corps with some of Ken's tried and true methods, along with any new ones we come up with.

Mini Corps Day Trainings:
These 30 minute mini-trainings could occur monthly on a corps days; one committee member would take the lead to present a topic of their choosing (with committee approval--and help). Our next corps day is January 6.

We also talked about how to safely introduce disabilities in general -- are there resources out there that have been used successfully? (Video, audio, puppets as we saw at PACER, etc. ). What words are appropriate, for example, "mental retarded" or "developmentally disabled"
Our observations and any resouces about this could be added to our toolkit.