ADALive!

The Power of Work: Danny Gibbs on Mental Health Recovery, Employment, and Peer Support

“Let’s Get to Work:” A Podcast from the Disability Employment Policy Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (DEP RRTC) – Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University.

In this episode of Let’s Get to Work!, Dr. Peter Blanck and Jonathan Martinis speak with Danny Gibbs, a Mental Health Specialist with Orange County Behavioral Health in California. Danny is a person with bipolar disorder, who is a insightful employee as a peer support specialist serving as a consultant for the Innovations project. Danny also discusses the role of work for people with psychiatric disabilities. He discusses the barriers that people face when seeking work. This conversation culminated in a discussion why meaningful work is so important to the dignity of every individual, to hope for the future and to overall well-being.

Episode description, speaker bios, transcripts, and resources for Episode 157: The Adventures of Superfreak: My Childhood on the Hippie Trail with My Disabled Parents www.adalive.org/episodes/episode-157

In this episode of ADALive! we talk with Caleb Dardick, who was raised by parents with disabilities who later became disability-rights advocates in the years before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. At age five, he crossed continents with his family from Amsterdam to India, along the Hippie Trail, as part of a generation’s sweeping search for freedom. In his book, “The Adventures of Superfreak: My Childhood on the Hippie Trail,” Dardick tells the story of his family “dropping out”, capturing the wild promise of the era and the intimate realities of family life on the road.

Work as Recovery: Building Confidence, Community, and Choice

“Let’s Get to Work:” A Podcast from the Disability Employment Policy Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (DEP RRTC) – Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University.

In this episode of Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Employment Policy — Blessing Nwulu-Njoku Jacqueline Hinds of AHRC New York City Job Connection Center Clubhouse, discuss the power of employment and how it facilitates individuals with psychiatric disabilities in their journey to recovery and independence. Blessing highlights the Clubhouse model of employment for individuals with psychiatric disabilities and how through the Clubhouse model, members achieve confidence and learn new skills that will aid in successful and meaningful employment. The two further explore topics of supported decision-making and digital psychiatric advance directives and how both aid in ensuring that individuals with psychiatric disabilities have a voice in all decisions affecting their life.

Episode description, speaker bios, transcripts, and resources for Episode 156: Possibilities: Redefining Blindness, Independence, and Helen Keller’s Legacy available at https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-156/

In this episode of ADA Live!, Barry Whaley, Project Director of the Southeast ADA Center, speaks with Tony Stephens, producer and cast member of Possibilities. Mr. Stephens is the Assistant Vice President of Communications at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). They discuss the new documentary, Possibilities. This documentary is one of the first to incorporate open audio description into the film. They talk about how Possibilities challenges misconceptions of blindness by featuring people who are blind or have low vision in front of and behind the camera. They also compare the life work of Helen Keller to promote independent living for people who are blind in the early 20th century to the efforts of people who are blind or have low vision today.

The Power of Work: Danny Gibbs on Mental Health Recovery, Employment, and Peer Support by Southeast ADA Center

Accessibility is about far more than meeting legal requirements, it's about ensuring people with disabilities can fully participate in work, education, and everyday life. In this episode of ADA Live, accessibility advocate Esther Klang shares her personal journey and explains how assistive technology, communication access, and thoughtful design have helped her maintain independence. Drawing on her lived experience as an assistive technology user and write, Esther discusses the importance of designing digital experiences that prioritize real-world usability over simple compliance. She also explores the role of universal design, communication access, and involving people with disabilities throughout the design process to create technology that is truly equal, empowering, and accessible for everyone.

Marco Damiani, Chief Executive Officer of AHRC New York City (AHRC NYC), joins the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast hosted by Dr. Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC.

Drawing on decades of experience supporting people with disabilities, Marco discusses his journey from working as a direct support professional to leading one of the largest organizations supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the U.S. He highlights the movement from institutionalization to community-based supports and services and the importance of self-advocacy, self-determination, and Supported Decision-Making.

Marco and Peter also emphasize employment as a way to advance independence and community participation. Using AHRC NYC's nationally recognized initiatives as examples, they show how meaningful, competitive work benefits people with disabilities, employers, communities, and the broader economy.

Dr. Purvi Sevak, Senior Director of Mathematica’s Disability Practice, joins the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast hosted by Dr. Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC.

Dr. Sevak discusses her path from an undergraduate student studying health policy to her work at Mathematica, the evolution and importance of disability employment policy, and her research with the DEP RRTC examining how local infrastructure affects employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Drawing on both professional and personal experiences, Dr. Sevak highlights the importance of disability employment policy to the broader economy. “Making sure that everyone who wants to work can work and contribute is important,” she states. “If people with disabilities are employed and earning more than they could be making on SSI, they're going to be spending more money and just contributing to the local economy, buying more things, renting apartments.”

Archive, Bios, Description, Transcripts for Episode 154: The Access Coalition: Creating More Accessible Retail Spaces available at: https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-154/

Under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, retail spaces are required to provide goods and services to customers with disabilities equal to the goods and services offered to customers without disabilities. This allowed businesses to benefit from the patronage of all customers. Thirty-six years after the ADA became law, many businesses are still not fully accessible to people with disabilities.

Recognizing that the consumer spending power of people with disabilities worldwide is over $13 trillion annually, beginning in 2024 Walmart and the American Association of People with Disabilities, or AAPD, began working together on this problem. They created the Access Coalition as a place where business competitors and partners could move beyond basic ADA compliance to reimagine what inclusive, accessible retail space could look like. To tell us more about this ambitious initiative, we have with us Maria Town. She is president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, a cross-disability organization dedicated to increasing political and economic power of people with disabilities.

Archive, Bios, Description, Resources, and Transcripts available at: https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-153/

Our guest, Dr. Joseph A. Stramondo, drawing on both philosophical analysis and his own lived experience with dwarfism and an incomplete spinal cord injury, and the host for this episode, Stephen Kuusisto, will discuss the challenges of traditional medical models of disability and advocates for more inclusive ethical frameworks that recognize disability as a matter of social justice and human rights.

Dr. Joseph A. Stramondo is a philosopher and disability studies scholar whose work focuses on bioethics, philosophy of medicine, and disability justice. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at San Diego State University. Dr. Stramondo’s research examines ethical issues related to disability, including healthcare equity, genetic testing, end-of-life decision making, and how social and medical systems shape the lived experiences of people with disabilities.

Stephen Kuusisto is Director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute, and a University Professor at Syracuse University. He is the author of the memoirs Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”), Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey, and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening as well as the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light, and Letters to Borges.