eSight Community News

THE ISSUE: People with disabilities who wish to become employed must consider working in terms of their eligibility for essential benefits. The question to be considered is not so much, "Can I work?" as "Should I work?"

People assisting consumers in making such decisions must understand the various legal definitions of disability and their implications for the lifestyle of a person with a disability.

Without sound assistance, misunderstandings will likely occur, resulting in poor decisions, particularly among people who are members of traditionally underserved populations. Especially at risk are consumers for whom English is not their primary language.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM THE WEB CAST: While the Web cast will address concerns of vocational rehabilitation counselors, the principles it presents are applicable to people working at CILs. It will be especially useful to centers wishing to increase their effectiveness in assisting people in becoming employed as well as increasing services to people who are traditionally underserved.

NOTE: ACCESSIBILITY For people with severe hearing impairment, real-time captioning will be provided. For people with severe vision impairment, materials of the Web cast, including bios of the presenters and their handout material, if any, will be posted in advance to allow for downloading to speech synthesizers, printing in large type, etc.

THE WEB CAST IS A PROJECT OF: The Rehabilitation Research Institute for Underrepresented Populations at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Schiro-Geist and Broadbent are with The University of Memphis Institute on Disability.

Support is received from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The opinions and views expressed are those of the presenters, and no endorsement by the funding agency should be inferred.

To link to this Web cast and download accompanying materials visit: http://www.ilru.org/html/training/webcasts/calendar.html

FOR INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO ACCESS A WEB CAST VISIT: http://www.ilru.org/html/training/webcasts/instructions.html If this is your first Web cast, you may wish to visit this site ahead of time to make sure your computer is configured to receive the Web cast.

FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE See our FAQs (frequently asked questions) at: http://www.ilru.org/html/training/webcasts/FAQ.html or contact an ILRU Web cast team member at webcast@ilru.org or 713.520.0232 (V & TTY)