In This Issue
NEW LOCATIONS 
LIU  Post
Riggs Hall 
720 Northern Boulevard
Brookville, NY 11548
  
LIU Brentwood
101 Crooked Hill Road
Brentwood, NY 11717
  
LIU  Riverhead 
121 Speonk-Riverhead Rd
LIU Building
Riverhead, NY 11901

Drop-in Centers Hours

 

Monday:
LIU Post
10:00pm-12:00pm
Tuesday:
LIU Riverhead
10:00am-1:00pm
Wednesday:
LIU Brentwood
11:00am-1:00pm
Thursday:
LIU Post
10:00am-2:00pm
Friday:
LIU Post
10:00am-12:00pm

Please call for appointment.
 
Connect with us!

Like us on Facebook  Follow us on Twitter
Video Corner

Tim's Place: Where breakfast, lunch, and HUGS are served!

Entrepreneurs With Disabilities
Entrepreneurs With Disabilities


Meet Milo, a Therapeutic Tool For People with ASD



 

 
Welcome
Dear Friends and Colleagues;

This quarter the newsletter focuses on transition to employment for secondary or post-secondary students. It is a well-known fact that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is higher than the national unemployment average. Let's take a look at different ways students with disabilities are currently being prepared for the job market. 

The first article, features the home page for the Eastern Suffolk BOCES STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math   education)   High School. While the second, features the home page for the Nassau BOCES Doshi STEM Institute.  The third article, reviews the advantages of teaching entrepreneurship to students with disabilities. In the fourth, Ollie Forsyth, a 16 year old entrepreneur living with Dyslexia is on his way to becoming a millionaire before the age of 20. The   final article discusses a new video game developed to help teach social skills to students on the Autism Spectrum. Each story is inspiring and exciting!!

In the Video Corner we feature stories of entrepreneurs with disabilities. We also have a video featuring Milo, a revolutionary new robot being used as a therapeutic tool for students on the Autism Spectrum.

The resources section is full of helpful links connected to employment and training programs.

Each quarter our newsletter will provide you with current events in education, updates from NYS Education Department, the US Department of Education, and regional resources. Our staff enjoys sharing the most interesting articles and information we find as we navigate through our daily work schedules. What we do know is that there never seems to be enough time to read every article, every e-mail, and every memo that is distributed throughout the field. Our goal is to conveniently share with you the most important and interesting information that we find in a timely manner. We encourage you to join our list serve  click here so in addition to this newsletter you will receive periodic publications and notices that might be of interest to you.
   

Helene Fallon
Project Coordinator
Acronyms & Key Terms:

STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
education
. We focus on these areas together not only because the skills and knowledge in each discipline are essential for student success, but also because these fields are deeply intertwined in the real world and in how students learn most effectively. STEM is an interdisciplinary and applied approach that is coupled with hands-on, problem-based learning.

ACCES-VR
Adult Career and Continuing Education Services-Vocational Rehabilitation
starts with the presumption that all individuals with disabilities can benefit from vocational rehabilitation services and should have opportunities to work in jobs integrated within their communities. Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors guide individuals through service programs they need to reach their employment goal.
WIOA - The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act  was signed into law by President Obama on July 22, 2014. This Act reauthorizes the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) which requires an eligible agency to award multiyear grants or contracts on a competitive basis to eligible providers for the purpose of developing, implementing, and improving adult education and literacy activities within the State or outlying area.
NCWD/Youth - The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth  - assists state and local workforce development systems to better serve all youth, including youth with disabilities and other disconnected youth. The NCWD/Youth, created in 2001, is composed of partners with expertise in education, youth development, disability, employment, workforce development and family issues.
Eastern Suffolk BOCES STEM High School
According to Forbes Magazine, employment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic (STEM) occupations is projected to grow nearly two times faster than the average for all occupations over the next four years. During that time, tech companies alone will need to fill 430,000 STEM jobs.

The Regional STEM High School was designed to meet the needs of local and national workforce demands in engineering and applied sciences. Partnering with Project Lead the Way (PLTW) was the clear choice because of the project-based, hands-on learning approach woven throughout the curriculum.

Nassau BOCES  Doshi STEM Institute

Doshi STEM Institute is a half-day program for 9th- to 12th-graders, launched by Nassau BOCES to create equity in the availability of atom strong Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) educational opportunities for Long Island students.

Students are immersed in science and math courses taught through an interdisciplinary curriculum. Units of study will focus on current issues in STEM-related industries.

Entrepreneurship for Youth with Disabilities

Entrepreneurship is an employment strategy that can lead to economic self-sufficiency for people with disabilities. Self-employment provides people with disabilities and their families with the potential to create and manage businesses in which they function as the employer or boss, rather than merely being an employee. Oftentimes, people with disabilities are eligible and receive supplemental supports (technical and financial) which can serve as a safety net that may decrease the risk involved with pursuing self-employment opportunities.

 Read more...
How a Bullied, 16-Year-Old Entrepreneur With Dyslexia Fought Back and Found His Way

Ollie Forsyth didn't fit in at school. Bullies picked on him for being dyslexic, for being different. They said he was a nobody and always would be. He'd never succeed in life.

The Northamptonshire, U.K. teen could have let their cruel cut-downs crush his spirit, his self-esteem and his motivation. But he didn't. Instead, he looked to self-made billionaire Sir Richard Branson -- who also struggled with dyslexia at school -- for direction and strength. Then, just as Branson gutsily did, he used his doubters' venom to fuel his budding entrepreneurial fire.

The Rise of the 'Gaming for Good' Movement

As a veteran public school counselor, Gregg Graves has seen kids bully their peers for all kinds of reasons, from being too short to wearing the wrong brand of boots. "A group of privileged girls were teasing another child because she got 'Fuggs'-fake Uggs," he says. "I have thousands of those types of stories."

This targeted ridicule, studies show, can have lasting effects. Bullied kids are more likely to get anxious or depressed and even drop out of school. So when clinical psychologist Melissa DeRosier asked if Graves would like to try Zoo U, a computer game she'd created to teach kids skills like empathy and cooperation, he was intrigued. He decided to test-drive the game with his 125 fourth-grade students at North Forest Pines Elementary in Raleigh, North Carolina. They took to the cartoon scenes of hallway chats and playground four-square right away, he says. "When kids started taking the headsets off, they were saying, 'Can we do that again?' and 'That was kind of like real life.'"

Resources:

In the course of day to day business and in the process of writing newsletters, LIPC often comes across resources that may be useful to parents and/or professionals. In this resources section, we share with you the websites that we've found useful this quarter. If you have a resource you have found particularly helpful, we encourage you to share it with us here and we will consider it for the next newsletter. 


Partners For Youth with Disabilities: Young Entrepreneurs Project
http://www.pyd.org/young-entrepreneurs-project.php

Eastern Suffolk Boces STEM Highschool
http://www.esboces.org

Nassau County STEM Program
http://www.nassauboces.org/stem

New York State Career Zone
https://www.careerzone.ny.gov/views/careerzone
/index.jsf


STEM Conference for Kids: 
January 25, 2016 and February 8, 2016
http://www.nassauboces.org/Page/5848
We look forward to working with you.  Please check out the LIPC Website for updates on future trainings and workshops and be sure to look for our next newsletter in the spring!