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Harry Bruell, President and CEO of PathPoint in California, is sponsoring a special free film screening on Wednesday, April 13, 2022, at 1:00 pm PDT (4:00 pm EDT) of the award-winning short film “Under the Lights,” the story of a young man with epilepsy.
Under the Lights is the story of Sam, a boy with epilepsy who is so desperate to feel like a normal kid that he goes to prom knowing that the lights will make him have a seizure. Cinema has historically stigmatized and ignored people with epilepsy, a demographic of 1 in 26 who have almost never been represented authentically on screen and suffer from brutal stigma every day. Under the Lights was written and directed by a filmmaker with epilepsy, Miles Levin, and Miles will participate in a Q&A as part of the film screening.
Please register here and consider involving groups of people that you support and/or clients. Feel free to share this invite broadly and invite friends, family, and community members. This could also be a great class for remote learning. Remember to register!
PathPoint
Supporting people in living the life they choose
States eligible to compete for Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment Grants totaling $167 million
Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) released the notice inviting applications for the Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment (SWTCIE) demonstration project, which is aimed at increasing access for people with disabilities to jobs that pay good wages.
The SWTCIE project is the largest discretionary grant administered by RSA, with $167 million available to State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies and their partners.
“Economic security should be available to all Americans,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “Providing individuals with disabilities with a high-quality education and the services that they need to thrive will result in real pay for real jobs, empowering them and leading to greater social and economic inclusion.”
Read the full press release.
Message from the Provider Relief Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA):
HRSA is making more than $413 million in Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Phase 4 General Distribution payments to more than 3,600 providers across the country this week.
Providers received an email notification Monday, March 21 if their application was among those processed in this latest batch. HRSA is working to review all remaining applications as quickly as possible.
With this announcement, a total of nearly $12 billion in PRF Phase 4 payments has now been distributed to more than 82,000 providers in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and five territories. This is in addition to HRSA’s distribution of American Rescue Plan (ARP) Rural payments, totaling nearly $7.5 billion in funding to more than 44,000 providers since November 2021.
Learn More
The Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) is happy to announce the publication of the next online Visual Gestural Communication (VGC) training module! Over 8,000 individuals supported in the ODP system have VGC listed as their primary mode of communication.
The first two modules previously published went over the basics of VGC and Visual Schedules. The next module will be a guide to “Getting Started with VGC.” To take this module, you will first need to complete “Prerequisite: The Basics.”
These modules can be found on MyODP under Trainings > Special Populations > Non-traditional Communication.
*Please Note: Closed captioning and transcription available.
You can email ODP if you have any questions.