Spring Showcase Celebrates ICI's Community Impact

Sun Jun 18 2017
Image of the ICI Spring Showcase, showing the Weisman Art Museum where the event took place.

On June 1, the ICI Spring Showcase brought together approximately 80 staff and community partners to highlight the impact of ICI's collaborative work at local, state and national levels. The event was anchored by three feature presentations highlighting speakers from both ICI and the community:

  • Building State and Local Capacity to Improve Outcomes for Black and American Indian Students with Disabilities in Minnesota: Implementing and Sustaining Effective Innovations. Jana Hallas, Maureen Hawes, and the Minnesota Department of Education's Eric Kloos and Tom Delaney explained how ICI's Check & Connect and Systems Improvement Group  are working to improve graduation rates among Black and Native American students with disabilities.

  • ADA Fellows: International Learnings in Inclusive Education. Brian Abery and Renáta Tichá introduced 20 Fellows from Armenia, India, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, who are part of the 2016 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Anniversary Program: A University of Minnesota Partnership with India, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Ukraine based at ICI. They explained the current state of disability supports available in their countries and how they will implement the inclusive education techniques learned in Minnesota when they return home. Most of the Fellows' community mentors were in the audience, including Jeanette Bitzer, Kate Emmons, and Kelli Parpart of Osseo Area Schools; Joan Breslin-Larson, Kursten Dubbels, and Eric Kloos of the Minnesota Department of Education; Mary Beth Kelley and Martha Moriarty of LDA Minnesota; Steve Larson and Don Lavin of The Arc Minnesota; Jennifer Hansen of Special Olympics Minnesota; Kristi Rudelius-Palmer of Youthdrive; Sheila Williams Ridge of the University of Minnesota's Shirley Moore Lab School; and Peggy Martin of the University's Department of Occupational Therapy.

  • Organization-Wide Person-Centered and Positive Behavior Support Practices in Community Settings.  Rachel Freeman and the Minnesota Department of Human Services' Jason Flint and Tim Moore described how ICI is collaborating with human service organizations to integrate person-centered practices, organizational workforce development, and positive behavior support (PBS) in order to improve outcomes for people with disabilities.

This new internal event also featured an hour of ICI "shout outs" where numerous staff briefly highlighted the community impact of their individual work projects. Overall, this segment - and the entire day - demonstrated ICI's wide expertise and passion for making a difference in the lives of many.

The showcase planning committee was Tony Baisley, Nik Fernholz, Maureen Hawes, Amy Kurowski-Moen, and Mark Olson.