Policy, United Spinal Updates

October is National Disability Education Awareness Month

disability awareness monthThe U.S. Department of Labor has been celebrating National Disability Education Awareness Month in October for the past 70 years. This year, their theme is “Inclusion Drives Innovation.

With the unemployment rate for people with disabilities double that of those without disabilities (8.4% vs 4.4%), it is important that key links to employment such as transportation are full partners with the disability community.

United Spinal’s challenge to Washington, DC’s Department of Transportation (DDOT) is to engage the agency’s innovative energies with traditional barriers to employment and transportation as well as what the promise self-driving vehicles hold for tomorrow’s employees with disabilities.

United Spinal’s Kent Keyser spoke on a panel at DDOT on October 4, along with Selvin Garcia of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia and Henry Claypool, Policy Director, University of California, San Francisco Community Living Policy Center and former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Director, Office on Disability and a founding Principal Deputy Administrator of HHS’ Administration for Community Living.

Do you want to be part of a movement that is spreading disability awareness across the country and right into the halls of Congress?

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