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 Inclusive 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.

Archive, Bios, Description, and Transcripts for Episode 152: New Opportunities for Job Success for Workers who are Blind: The Monarch Rise Project https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-152/

The employment rate of adults with low vision or blindness (52%) is significantly less than the general population of working-age adults (76%). This data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision reveals an overall 24 percent gap in employment. (Data Source: bit.ly/4rFq2cB)

One group trying to close this employment gap is the American Printing House for the Blind, or APH, located in Louisville, Kentucky. In this episode we talk with Erin Sigmund, the Director of an APH project called Monarch RISE. We will discuss the ways Monarch RISE empowers project participants to achieve and sustain competitive integrated employment (CIE). Later in this episode, we will hear from two of the project’s participants, Tim Emmons and Bill Adams, about their experiences.

Jonathan Martinis, Director of Knowledge Translation for the DEP RRTC, and Barry Whaley, Director of the Southeast ADA Center, join the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast to discuss how knowledge translation can connect research, policy, and real-world impact.

Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC, hosts a conversation focused on the importance of “conveying information to people that is useful, robust, accessible, and in plain language to both improve disability employment policy and disability employment.”

To that end, Jonathan explains that knowledge translation is more than just providing information; it’s about connecting information to action. “Knowledge translation is a bridge,” he says. “It is a bridge between what we know or what we're going to find out and what we're doing.”

Barry emphasizes that knowledge translation must engage stakeholders and be responsive to their needs, saying, “unless there is communication with the people receiving that information and that it is useful to them, then we've not succeeded in our mission.”

Together, Jonathan and Barry discuss how the DEP RRTC and Southeast ADA Center are using multiple tools to translate complex research and resources into practical guidance, with a clear focus: “Knowledge translation is what makes good information into good policy and practice.”

More information, bios, and transcript available at: https://bbi-dep-rrtc.org/resources/podcast-series/lgtw-beth-23/

Beth Sirull, President and CEO of the National Organization on Disability (NOD), joins the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast to discuss the future of disability employment policy and why employing people with disabilities “is good for business.”

Beth explains that NOD has long focused on employment as a pathway to independence and economic opportunity for people with disabilities because, “if you don't have a way to support yourself, there's just no way that you can manifest the American Dream.”

Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC, joins Beth in a conversation about how NOD works with employers to unlock the vast, often overlooked talent pool of people with disabilities.

Beth emphasizes that employing people with disabilities results in real benefits to businesses, including lower turnover and stronger employee engagement. “[I]f you hire someone with a disability and you provide them with the accommodation that they need,” she says, “they will not leave. You will have a very loyal, longstanding, productive employee.”

Ultimately, Beth emphasizes, disability employment policy is about “putting everyone in a situation where they can be maximally effective in their job, which obviously is what companies want.”