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How Autistic Individuals Taught Us to Teach
About ten years ago, one of our NYS ED/BPSS licensed instructors for Microsoft Excel Certification came to me. She was frustrated that more and more of her students weren’t paying attention; they didn’t look at her, fidgeted, kept turning their backs to her to play with their computers, etc....
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Seven Tips for Teaching More Effective Job Skills
After fifteen years of modestly fulfilling our mission of teaching Computer Job Skills and securing employment for over three-thousand persons diagnosed with mental and physical disabilities, I regret how little we knew. We had the passion and heart for the work, but we lacked the expertise to be...
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Texting to Save Lives
At a family dinner, my granddaughter Sarah, a high school sophomore in Fairfield, CT, and I were talking about the tragedy in Sandy Hook. She asked me, “Why?” I talked about the need for school programs for early detection and prevention, but I had no real answers or solutions. Later, I...
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The Economics of Recovery: System Reform
New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team gathered an impressive list of suggestions to stem the growth of New York’s 50+ billion dollar Medicaid program. I was particularly impressed with their adoption of the 80/20 concept developed by business marketers in the 70’s....
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The Economics of Recovery: System Reform
New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team gathered an impressive list of suggestions to stem the growth of New York’s 50+ billion dollar Medicaid program. I was particularly impressed with their adoption of the 80/20 concept developed by business marketers in the 70’s....
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The Economics of Recovery: Who’s Driving the Bus?
There appears to be an incredible variety of people guiding our journey of recovery; elected and career government officials, all manner of professionals, academics, health insurers, providers, family, labor unions, big pharma, etc. If recovery takes a village – then it seems they all made it on...
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The Economics of Recovery: When Worlds Collide
To quote Rahm Emanuel, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste - it’s an opportunity.” In the past decade, it’s been one crisis after another: 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina and tsunamis’, Wall Street meltdown, global warming, the gulf oil spill, Haiti, bankrupt governments, even...
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The Economics of Recovery: Threading the Needle
The Government Guy was summing up his four hour PowerPoint presentation on how easy it was for people with disabilities to get a job; “You just need to take advantage of the many work incentives like Ticket-to-Work, PASS Plan, Medicaid Buy-In, IRWEs, Subsidies, Tax Credits, etc., don’t worry...
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The Economics of Recovery – The Day the Patients Ran the Asylum
Joanne was smiling as her fellow students congratulated her for passing her Microsoft Word Certification Test. She had to put in eighteen months of class time at the Center in order to pass. Her goal now was to become certified in PowerPoint and Excel, while she held down her new part-time...
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The Economics of Recovery: Finding Your Voice
It had been a long day; half-a-dozen intake interviews with several Government benefit applications for SSA disability with the usual back-up documentation. I was drowning in paper. I’ve probably completed fifteen hundred applications for Government benefits in the past ten years. At this...
