Conway Human Development Center residents were able to celebrate Independence Day alongside their caretakers and family members during a fireworks display held on campus Tuesday night.

Having the opportunity to provide residents with this inclusive event further allowed staff members to boost their morale and allow residents to enjoy a fun-filled, festive night just as any one else would on the Fourth of July.

“This is definitely an event that inspires and uplifts our residents,” Juan Alfaro, the facility’s total care team department head, said following the evening fireworks show.

Just as other families across the state, and across the nation for that matter, will be out enjoying cookouts and watching fireworks burst in the sky, Alfaro said it was import to CHDC and Department of Human Services staff to provide that holiday staple for CHDC’s residents.

Sesame Place® has partnered with The International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES), a global leader in online training and certification programs, to become the first theme park in the world to be designated as a Certified Autism Center (CAC). It is our goal to provide every family with an enjoyable and memorable visit to Sesame Place, and we are proud to offer specialized services to guests with autism and other special needs.

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A 9-year-old Nova Scotia girl with cerebral palsy is being hailed a hero for saving her baby brother from drowning in their family’s backyard pool.

“You don’t need to be able to walk and talk,” Lexie’s grandmother, Nancy Comeau-Drisdelle, told CTV Atlantic. “You can still make yourself heard and you can still help. And yes, she did save his life.”

Comeau-Drisdelle and Lexie’s mother, Kelly Jackson, had been getting ready for Lexie’s ninth birthday party at the family’s Dartmouth home while Lexie, who uses a wheelchair to get around, watched them work from the kitchen. When Lexie’s 18-month-old brother Leeland woke up from a nap, their mother went upstairs to get changed.

“Mum brought him downstairs for me,” Jackson, a mother of three, said. “We didn’t communicate about, oh the door isn’t locked.”

With Leeland in the kitchen, Comeau-Drisdelle turned around for a few seconds -- and that’s when the little boy slipped out the back door.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is postponing until July 1, 2020 the date states need to comply with an Obama-era rule under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that would address whether minority students are disproportionately placed in special education. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos's office has also announced postponing the date for including children ages 3 to 5 in the analysis of significant disproportionality from July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2022, according to a document released by the ED and published in the Federal Register today.

During the public comment period on the "equity in IDEA" rule, 390 parties submitted comments, with many commentators opposing the notion of postponement, arguing that the status quo is unacceptable, that states have failed to adequately solve the issue — which some regard as a civil rights problem — and that federal government needs to intervene.

Although their chronically low wages showed modest gains last year, frontline workers who provide support and care to Ohioans with disabilities still left their jobs in droves.

A new survey by the Ohio Provider Resource Association found that employee turnover in 2017 climbed to 61 percent — a staggering rate that compares with the churn of the retail and fast-food industries.

“I hope some legislator will look at this and see what’s happening,” said Sandy Staton, a 63-year-old retiree who cares for a brother severely affected by cerebral palsy.

Staton would like to work less and hand over some of the duties to a direct-support worker. But she and her family have all but given up on finding dependable, long-term help.

“The problem lies in consistency,” said Staton, who lives in South Point, a Lawrence County village along the Ohio River in southern Ohio. “To get to know my brother, to understand him, is very difficult. It takes time.”

The task essentially dwarfs the compensation, Staton said, and many employees walk away.

The association received survey responses from private-sector agencies representing more than 8,000 direct-support workers and found that the average hourly wage rose by about 9.7 percent from 2015 to 2017, to $11.23 an hour, said Mark Davis, president of the provider association.