Assistant Sectary of Education, Judy Huemann visits with Monique Harris
Dick Stein, Alice Wong and Monique Harris recently returned from the Pittsburgh Employment Conference for persons who use electronic devices with which to communicate. Here are two brief reports from Dick and Monique about the conference.
From Dick
What a great experience it was for Alice, Monique and I to participate in a conference with over 200 active, outspoken, advocating, involved, policy-directing augmented communicators. Many of the attendees were movers and shakers in the areas of employment for persons with disabilities and in augmentative and alternative communication.
The keynote speaker, Assistant Secretary of Education (Office of Special Ed & Rehab Services), Judy Heumann set the tone for the conference when she talked about the importance of involvement by persons with disabilities in systems change. She felt strongly that everyone should be involved at every level, from making personal choices to directing research and policy. Monique had the opportunity to talk with her and she was very encouraging.
The theme of the conference was, Employment and Adult Life: "Influencing the Future". That boiled down to how to get jobs, how to become involved in research that influences persons with disabilities and how to affect policy change. After every speaker, many of whom were AAC users, there was an AAC moderator for Q & A. It was the first conference I have attended where the audience/participants were actively involved. It was a great model to witness. There were many round table discussions by AAC users and other professionals as well as a town hall style of meeting. There were people from many states and quite a few countries were represented.
From Monique
When I walked into the conference I was amazed to see so many augmented communicators. As the conference continues, I realize that some of the participants have Masters degrees, Ph.D. and or jobs. I thought to myself:
"How did all these AAC users obtain these goals?" I was amazed and impressed because it took me so long to get an AA degree and it seemed forever to get a part-time job.
Assistant Sectary of Education, Judy Huemann visits with Monique Harris
I saw an old acquaintance of mine, Judith Heumann. I met her at the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley before she became the Assistant Secretary of Education, Dept. of Special Education and Rehabilitation.
She really got on my case for not going to a university or state college. She asked me what I was doing and I told her that I worked doing data entry and making overlays for communication boards. She also asked me if I thought data entry was boring. I told her, "yes it is boring." She asked me, "What do you want to do?" I answered that I wanted to use my degree in accounting. Judith emphatically told me to go back to school and look for a mentor to achieve my goals.
Then I met a lady called, Karen Duncanwood, and her son Ryan. I really liked them because she supported her son. I wish my mom were like that.
Ryan is the first person that was accepted to "ACETS" (Augmented Communicators Employment Training and Support). ACETS is sponsored by the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. He has to do a lot of things like make a resume and answer the questionnaire to get himself there. He will be at the camp in Philadelphia for a week and then come back to California. I want to do that. I was really encouraged to go to other conferences like the one in Washington.