Maine Roads to Quality (MRTQ) Early Care and Education Professional Development Network is hosting Symposium 2016: Creative Strategies for Promoting Social and Emotional Development on Saturday, October 22, 2016 at Sunday River Conference Center in Newry, Maine. Registration opens Friday, July 29, 2016. The keynote, “Foundations for Life: Emotionally Responsive for Young Children,” will be […]

The Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies, with funding from Maine EPSCoR/SEANET, is partnering with the Community Environmental Health Laboratory (CEHL) at MDI Biological Laboratory to train and engage middle/high school students with disabilities from coastal Hancock County school districts in intertidal census work. (Photo above shows a student intern identifying a crab species with Anna Farrell.) CEHL works […]

Two national associations, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD), have published a joint statement on community living and participation for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). (The photo above shows a man with a disability participating in a cycling class at a […]

On June 22, 1999, the United States Supreme Court held in Olmstead v. L.C. that unjustified segregation of persons with disabilities constitutes discrimination in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (The photo above shows two people who have been positively impacted by the Olmstead decision.) The Court held that people with […]

Julie Flynn, Maine’s Deputy Secretary of State, recently demonstrated ExpressVote, the state’s new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant ballot marking system, during a quarterly meeting of Maine CITE Coordinating Center’s Assistive Technology (AT) Consortia. (Eric Dibner, State ADA/Section 504 Accessibility Coordinator and Julie Flynn are pictured above.) After a voter’s selections are made, a […]

Approximately 160 people from seven countries and multiple faith traditions recently attended all or part of the 2016 Summer Institute on Theology and Disability hosted by Hope College and Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI. (Photo above: Participant Zach Holler, plenary panelist Rabbi Darby Leigh, and female interpreter.) Under the leadership of Rev. Bill Gaventa, the vision […]

Self-advocates and developmental disabilities network allies from the federally funded North East Advocates Together (NEAT) Peer-to-Peer Connections Technical Assistance Project gathered on May 16-18, 2016 for their final three-day technical assistance retreat in Concord, NH. Katherine Cargill-Willis, Program Officer from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ​Administration for Community Living, also attended the event. A h​ighlight of the three-day […]

Twenty-three University of Maine undergraduates were honored May 3, 2016 for completing the 24-credit Minor in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies during a celebration at Wells Conference Center. Students completing the Minor represented six academic disciplines: Child Development and Family Relations; Communication Sciences and Disorders; Elementary Education; Mathematics; Psychology; and Social Work. Alan Cobo-Lewis, Ph.D., Director of […]

University of Maine students from Interdisciplinary Disability Studies and Social Work presented their research posters during the 2016 University of Maine Student Research Symposium #USRS16 held on April 27, 2016 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, ME. Angie Bechard (Social Work and Interdisciplinary Disability Studies) with her poster, “Usability of AFARI, An Aesthetically Designed Outdoor Fitness […]

The Administration for Children & Families (ACF) highlighted the development of  Maine’s Inclusion Credential in a new profile of federal investment in Maine Early Childhood Development (PDF). The credential, developed by Maine Roads to Quality (MRTQ) in partnership with the University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (CCIDS), is designed to help early childhood practitioners build skills to promote quality […]