MAKE YOUR OWN INSTITUTE!!!

Tailor Your Professional Development Workshop
to Fill YOUR Professional Development Needs!

There are lots of great workshops and seminars available for disability service providers today, from teleconferences or audio conferences of a few hours, to state/regional/national conferences lasting a few days. They all have something valuable to offer, and you learn from every one of them. But these offerings are sometimes too basic, sometimes too advanced for your needs. A range of concurrent sessions at a conference means there is always something of interest, but the time frame doesn't always assure that the session will provide the depth you need for that topic. Now, you have a chance to talk only about the things you want/need, for as long as you want to talk about them, at a time that is convenient for you – for a bargain price!

DAIS is planning exactly the professional development experience you are looking for, because you get to do the planning! After more than 25 years in the field, DAIS President Jane Jarrow has both the information and the resources to help you explore the topic(s) of your choice. Interested in revamping your policies and procedures? Want to talk about the organization of your adaptive testing program? Trying to figure out how to justify adding a new staff position? Are you new to the field (or have a newly hired staff person!) and desperately need a crash course in DSS to make sure you are up to speed as quickly as possible with the role and responsibilities you have assumed? Any or all of this – and a whole lot more – is available to you through DAIS.

Throughout the 2007-2008 school year, you are invited to identify the issues you want/need to explore, and design your own curriculum in consultation with Jane. When you are ready to being your training, you will come in to Columbus, OH, and spend the time one-on-one with Jane while you listen, discuss, question, and learn about the topic(s) you have chosen. You pay a flat fee for each day of Jane's time that you want to use, and it is a fee that is less than half what it would cost to have Jane come out to your campus for the day – and then you'd have to share her with everyone else! This is a chance to spend a whole day – or more! – talking about the things YOU want to talk/learn about. Members of AHEAD, WAPED, and TX-AHEAD are eligible for a 10% discount.

Your personalized "professional development institute" can be about one thing, or a number of things, depending on your interests. Want to bring along a second person from your campus (or more?). Sure, why not. Maybe this learning experience can double as a kind of staff retreat, giving you a chance to re-charge your batteries and learn something new together. Listed below are some ideas to get you started thinking about possibilities. When you are ready to talk about your needs in detail, or to discuss possible dates for training, call Jane directly at (614)481-9450, and let's get started.
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From Legal Principles to Practice:

Applying What You Know to What You Do

Disability service providers are always anxious to find support in the statute/regulations/case law to confirm their discussions and judgment to administrators (and themselves!). From deciding on an appropriate level of specificity in documentation to deciding who gets a private room in the residence hall, from how to deal with helicopter parents to how to deal with recalcitrant colleagues, from tutoring requests to paratransit systems, there is direction available if you are comfortable reading the signposts of our legal landscape. At the end of two days (suggested time for this scope of information), you will not only understand these guiding principles and precedents, but you will be prepared to go home and explain them to others (PowerPoints included!).

Establishing Appropriate (and Legally Defensible) Technical Standards

Institutions of higher education have become better, in the recent past, at detailing the specific skills and abilities necessary for safe and effective practice, as well as assuring quality of care, in everything from nursing to automotive repair. For "hands-on" activities, establishing technical standards and eligibility criteria for such programs that is both comprehensive and yet legally defensible under the ADA is no small task, especially when working with faculty who know *what* they want to include but haven't consider *WHY* it should be included for a long time.

This is your chance to focus on the most common issues, concerns, and solutions in developing appropriate standards/criteria for selection, inclusion, and successful completion of technical and professional programs. The ADA requires that eligibility criteria (and, by extension, technical standards) not be implemented that screen out, or tend to screen out, persons with disabilities on the basis of that disability. The law does not say that technical standards cannot be applied to persons with disabilities, even if those standards involve physical requirements that may be impossible for someone with certain disabilities to meet. It simply says that the criteria/standards applied must not focus on disability, or on being/not being disabled. Developing standards/criteria that are based on appropriate evaluation of necessary skills, rather than historical precedent, is not always easy — but is very necessary.

Are you ready to gain a better understanding of the legal (ADA) mandates/restrictions governing the implementation of such standards/criteria? Are you ready to consider a framework to use in creating criteria/standards that are not inappropriate exclusionary but still assure the academic integrity of programs, while protecting the safety/quality/effectiveness of services provided by students/graduates? Do you know when -- and how -- to draw the line? You can get all those answers, and head back to campus ready to share the "do's and don'ts" of developing such criteria/standards with the departmental faculties at home.

(Re)Developing Policies and Procedures to Guide your DS Function

It is time to combine shared experience/expertise with thoughtful questions to be explored. The basic policies that every institution of higher education should have in place will be formally reviewed, and others that deal with the internal management of your Disability Services function will be explored. You will not be given samples of these policies to retype on your letterhead. There is no "boilerplate language" that is appropriate to the philosophical and practical implementation of these important principles across institutions. Rather, the Institute can help you to explore the areas for which policy/procedure should be developed and suggest elements for inclusion within those policies/procedures. The final outcome of this training should be the development or redesign — BY YOU — of a set of policies and procedures for your institution and the studied input of facilitator Jane Jarrow regarding those guidelines. This may be the most cost-efficient (i.e., CHEAPEST!) consulting you can get!!!

The responsibility for the development and approval of written policies and procedures to guide the Disability Services component of your institution is a shared responsibility. The stakeholders in the process will be different depending upon the size of the institution, the institutional organization, and the establishment and history of the disability services program. No one outside the institution can dictate what your policies should be; they can only suggest the policies you need to establish and then leave the task of development/implementation to the responsible individuals within. This Institute is designed to help you develop those policies and prepare you to guide the process of mustering support and approval from key stakeholders upon your return home.

Accommodating Students with Disabilities in Online Learning:
Everything Old is New Again

As more students with disabilities begin to access coursework through online systems, disability service providers are realizing the need to re-think why they have traditionally done what they have done for students – and whether doing it the same way will work for the online learner. While everyone agrees that online learners with disabilities should have the same level of support (and, thus, access) as their counterparts in more traditional learning settings, thinking through how to make that happen seems mind-boggling. For example:

• We have traditionally stressed the importance of getting to know our students individually through direct interaction, thus preparing us to determine how best to accommodate. What to do, then, for the online learner whom you will never meet face-to-face?

• We have spent years cultivating working relationships with other units on campus (from residence and dining, to admissions, to physical plant) so that we could rely on those colleagues to help us make things happen in a timely and effective manner. How will that help us in serving a student who never sets foot on campus? Who are our new allies, and how do we reach them?

• We have strong feelings about the importance of students taking responsibility for their own learning/accommodations. How will our traditional notification and negotiation process play out in a virtual world where the student never meets the professor face-to-face, and all communication is electronic?

• How accessible is the learning management system being used? Who has the authority and responsibility to make changes in the system/usage if we find problems?

If you find all these questions (and the others you are envisioning!) a little overwhelming… you are in good company! This would be a good institute to consider bringing along one or more additional staff members. There are decisions that need to be made (and you know you are already behind!). Time to roll up your sleeves and get to work – and Jane can guide you in this endeavor.

Adaptive Testing Programs from A-Z

There is more to your adaptive testing program than quiet proctored settings and extra time. Much more! How will you get tests to/from your office? What forms will you use to track tests under your control. How do you establish security for tests given my your office, given the constraints of space and resources? For that matter, how do you figure out – and fight for – the space/resources needed to fulfill your institutional charge regarding testing? How do you assure that readers and scribes provide the appropriate level of support/resource – and no more?!? What kinds of forms and notification letters will make the process efficient, effective, and credible in the eyes of the institutional community? What do you do if someone is caught cheating? Spend two days reviewing and revamping your adaptive testing program from start to finish and return home ready to institute changes.

Documentation Guidelines

In the early days of DSS in higher education, the numbers were small, the decisions to be made seemed, somehow, more straightforward, and the population of students with disabilities to be served was less diverse. As all of those things changed (sometimes, seemingly, overnight!), our DSS programs had to change as well. Suddenly, service providers were faced with MANY students with non-visible disabilities, and there was some urgency in our need to determine what documentation was necessary/appropriate to establish eligibility and need. As the population grew faster than the institutional resources provided to support them, we began to crave for organization that would allow us to do just as much for more students, recognizing that it somehow meant giving up a little of the individualization we were used to in the process -- a necessary evil. And we made rules. Lots of rules. Now, we are trying to live by those rules and finding that our search for order and consistency has not always yielded the results we intended. Is the tail wagging the dog? This Institute will discuss that phenomenon -- and dilemma! -- in the spirit of collegiality and open exchange. The focus will be less on what to require for documentation (although that WILL be discussed) than it will on why we need documentation in the first place, and how best to use/protect/apply the information provided to us by student with disabilities.

New Staff Orientation/Support

Let's face it – there are very few academic programs at the postsecondary level that focus in any significant way on preparing new professionals to fill the critical roles assigned to disability service providers on today's college campus. Some folks move into the field of disability services from a related area in higher education, such as student personnel services. Others bring a legal background or experience with complaint resolution/compliance activities. Some have disability knowledge imported from the fields of rehabilitation, special education, or psych services. And still others take up the mantle because they have had experiences as consumers of such services, or began as techies or administrative support in a disability services office and found a calling. Whatever path has brought these new professionals into the fold, they have one thing in common. They need to get the big picture and they need it fast!

They need to understand the full scope of responsibilities and authority within the office they serve and for the position they now hold. And they need to understand why. Send your new hires to Columbus for three full days. and DAIS will send them home with an entirely new understanding of the promise and potential of students with disabilities in higher education and their own role in the grand scheme of things. We don't promise a religious experience, but we do promise that they'll be moved by their new understanding of the SPIRIT, as well as the letter, of the law.

Into the Sunset: Retreat for Experienced DS Providers s

You have been working in the field of disability services for a number of years – maybe LOTS of numbers of years! You currently serve as the head of disability services on your campus (although titles vary across institutions, SOMEONE has to be in charge, and in this case, it is you!). Now you are ready to think about leaving the program and the institution. Within the next 6-24 months, you hope to be doing something else, maybe even somewhere else. But you have some real concerns about what will happen to your program (and all your hard work!) when you walk out that door.

Do you have a secret fear that the institutional administration will dismantle the program you have worked so long to build as soon as you are gone? Do you worry that your leaving may result in the campus community downgrading the program (and your students) in importance, leaving the students with less adequate access and the institution at serious risk of focusing on the letter of the law at the expense of the spirit of the law and the inclusive campus climate you have worked so hard to build? Is your program so dependent on you – your personality, your skills, your vitality – that your departure will create a serious problem for the campus community? Is there some project you would like to implement, acquisition you would like to make for your program, or change that you would like to see made before you leave – but you just aren’t sure how to make it happen?

There is no question but that the program will change when you leave. That is as it should be. Whoever succeeds you should have the authority and encouragement to make the program his/her own and to help it grow. But they won’t have the opportunity to make positive changes unless they have access to the necessary resources, and they won’t understand why things are as they are (and thus know what to change and what to keep) if you don’t figure out a positive way to hand over your leadership role. This is a chance to provide a structured review of where you are, and where you want your program to be when you are gone!