School to Adulthood: Transition Planning Toolkit for High School, Life, and Work

Looking to the future can feel exciting, hopeful, confusing, overwhelming—or all emotions at once. For families supporting a young person with a disability, it’s never too soon to begin planning to ensure a smooth process from the teen years toward whatever happens next. This toolkit supports families as they organize this multiyear project. For a Read More

Supporting literacy: Text-to-Speech and IEP goal setting for students with learning disabilities

A child who struggles to read can quickly fall behind in school. Nearly every academic area includes some reading, and children might become confused or frustrated when they don’t get help to make sense of their schoolwork. Behavior challenges can result, and sometimes schools and parents struggle to understand why the student is having a Read More

Sample Letter to Request a Functional Behavioral Assessment

When a student’s behavior gets in the way of their learning and/or the learning of others, the school is responsible to figure out how to support behavioral expectations. One way to do that is to assess why the student might be acting out and use that information to consider how positive behavioral interventions might teach Read More

Supported Decision Making is an Option for Adults with Disabilities

A Brief Overview Full Article When a young person turns 18, most decisions are now up to them. In Washington State, age 18 is the “age of majority,” which means a person 18 or older has the right to make their own decisions about education, work, money matters, voting and more. Note: In Washington the Read More

Stay Stubborn! One Girl’s Self-Determination while Navigating Healthcare

By Kyann Flint Being stubborn is the right approach when it means self-determination. Having the drive to learn what you want and need and then speak up for yourself gives you control over your life.  I learned that lesson young. By age 6, I was advocating in my own healthcare. My doctor wanted to stick Read More

COVID-19 and Disability: Access to Work has Changed

By Kyann Flint The world of work is generally not built for the disability community. Federal laws guarantee the right to work and the right to accommodations, but modern-day jobs do not always give each person an opportunity to succeed. Many workers with disabilities must try harder to make the job fit, and some employers Read More

How to Testify in a Committee Hearing during the 2021 Washington Legislative Session

Learn about the new ways in which you can testify in a committee hearing of the Washington State Legislature. Due to COVID, advocacy or testimony with the Washington State Legislature this year will have to be done remotely, through zoom, which means there are new rules. When testifying over zoom, there are some special things Read More

ABLE: An Account to Overcome the SSI Resource Limit for Adults with Disabilities

Living with a disability can be difficult and costly. Adults who receive benefits from the Social Security Administration because of disability often are challenged to improve their life circumstances because of a $2,000 resource limit. This limit means that a person receiving payments from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Read More

My story: The Benefits of Working with Agencies like the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind

Getting a job right after I graduated was a very exciting and scary experience. Luckily, I had Washington State Department of Services for the Blind (DSB) staff to help me along the way because without their help, experiencing new things would have been difficult. At first, I was nervous. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do Read More

Self-Advocacy: Becoming an Active Member in Your Community

If you have ever stood up and defended the rights of yourself or others you were acting as an advocate. Self-advocacy means taking the responsibility for telling others what you need and want in a respectful and direct way.   Anyone can be a self-advocate and while speaking up for you or someone else can make you feel Read More