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Atlanta, GA has nearly 1,400 miles of sidewalks, many with barriers to equitable pedestrian access. In this episode of ADA Live, Shauncey Battle, ADA Coordinator for the City of Atlanta Department of Transportation, discusses the city’s recently updated ADA transition plan for the pedestrian public right-of-way. Shauncey explains what a regularly updated transition plan is and why they are important for cities like Atlanta. She describes the different types of barriers that the City of Atlanta found including missing curb ramps and policies and procedures that were barriers to compliance. She also describes how Atlanta is tracking its progress on compliance and how other cities can complete this work in-house on a very small budget. The goal of transportation and the ADA is to ensure that people with disabilities have equitable access to work, school, health care and to participate in the life of their community.

The Power of Work: Danny Gibbs on Mental Health Recovery, Employment, and Peer Support “Let’s Get to Work:” A Podcast from the Disability Employment Policy Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (DEP RRTC) – Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. In this episode of Let’s Get to Work!, Dr. Peter Blanck and Jonathan Martinis speak with Danny Gibbs, a Mental Health Specialist with Orange County Behavioral Health in California. Danny is a person with bipolar disorder, who is a insightful employee as a peer support specialist serving as a consultant for the Innovations project. Danny also discusses the role of work for people with psychiatric disabilities. He discusses the barriers that people face when seeking work. This conversation culminated in a discussion why meaningful work is so important to the dignity of every individual, to hope for the future and to overall well-being.

Episode description, speaker bios, transcripts, and resources for Episode 157: The Adventures of Superfreak: My Childhood on the Hippie Trail with My Disabled Parents www.adalive.org/episodes/episode-157 In this episode of ADALive! we talk with Caleb Dardick, who was raised by parents with disabilities who later became disability-rights advocates in the years before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. At age five, he crossed continents with his family from Amsterdam to India, along the Hippie Trail, as part of a generation’s sweeping search for freedom. In his book, “The Adventures of Superfreak: My Childhood on the Hippie Trail,” Dardick tells the story of his family “dropping out”, capturing the wild promise of the era and the intimate realities of family life on the road.

Work as Recovery: Building Confidence, Community, and Choice “Let’s Get to Work:” A Podcast from the Disability Employment Policy Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (DEP RRTC) – Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. In this episode of Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Employment Policy — Blessing Nwulu-Njoku Jacqueline Hinds of AHRC New York City Job Connection Center Clubhouse, discuss the power of employment and how it facilitates individuals with psychiatric disabilities in their journey to recovery and independence. Blessing highlights the Clubhouse model of employment for individuals with psychiatric disabilities and how through the Clubhouse model, members achieve confidence and learn new skills that will aid in successful and meaningful employment. The two further explore topics of supported decision-making and digital psychiatric advance directives and how both aid in ensuring that individuals with psychiatric disabilities have a voice in all decisions affecting their life.

Episode description, speaker bios, transcripts, and resources for Episode 156: Possibilities: Redefining Blindness, Independence, and Helen Keller’s Legacy available at https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-156/ In this episode of ADA Live!, Barry Whaley, Project Director of the Southeast ADA Center, speaks with Tony Stephens, producer and cast member of Possibilities. Mr. Stephens is the Assistant Vice President of Communications at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). They discuss the new documentary, Possibilities. This documentary is one of the first to incorporate open audio description into the film. They talk about how Possibilities challenges misconceptions of blindness by featuring people who are blind or have low vision in front of and behind the camera. They also compare the life work of Helen Keller to promote independent living for people who are blind in the early 20th century to the efforts of people who are blind or have low vision today.

Accessibility is about far more than meeting legal requirements, it's about ensuring people with disabilities can fully participate in work, education, and everyday life. In this episode of ADA Live, accessibility advocate Esther Klang shares her personal journey and explains how assistive technology, communication access, and thoughtful design have helped her maintain independence. Drawing on her lived experience as an assistive technology user and write, Esther discusses the importance of designing digital experiences that prioritize real-world usability over simple compliance. She also explores the role of universal design, communication access, and involving people with disabilities throughout the design process to create technology that is truly equal, empowering, and accessible for everyone.

Dr. Purvi Sevak, Senior Director of Mathematica’s Disability Practice, joins the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast hosted by Dr. Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC. Dr. Sevak discusses her path from an undergraduate student studying health policy to her work at Mathematica, the evolution and importance of disability employment policy, and her research with the DEP RRTC examining how local infrastructure affects employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Drawing on both professional and personal experiences, Dr. Sevak highlights the importance of disability employment policy to the broader economy. “Making sure that everyone who wants to work can work and contribute is important,” she states. “If people with disabilities are employed and earning more than they could be making on SSI, they're going to be spending more money and just contributing to the local economy, buying more things, renting apartments.”

Archive, Bios, Description, Transcripts for Episode 154: The Access Coalition: Creating More Accessible Retail Spaces available at: https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-154/ Under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, retail spaces are required to provide goods and services to customers with disabilities equal to the goods and services offered to customers without disabilities. This allowed businesses to benefit from the patronage of all customers. Thirty-six years after the ADA became law, many businesses are still not fully accessible to people with disabilities. Recognizing that the consumer spending power of people with disabilities worldwide is over $13 trillion annually, beginning in 2024 Walmart and the American Association of People with Disabilities, or AAPD, began working together on this problem. They created the Access Coalition as a place where business competitors and partners could move beyond basic ADA compliance to reimagine what inclusive, accessible retail space could look like. To tell us more about this ambitious initiative, we have with us Maria Town. She is president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, a cross-disability organization dedicated to increasing political and economic power of people with disabilities.

Archive, Bios, Description, Resources, and Transcripts available at: https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-153/ Our guest, Dr. Joseph A. Stramondo, drawing on both philosophical analysis and his own lived experience with dwarfism and an incomplete spinal cord injury, and the host for this episode, Stephen Kuusisto, will discuss the challenges of traditional medical models of disability and advocates for more inclusive ethical frameworks that recognize disability as a matter of social justice and human rights. Dr. Joseph A. Stramondo is a philosopher and disability studies scholar whose work focuses on bioethics, philosophy of medicine, and disability justice. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at San Diego State University. Dr. Stramondo’s research examines ethical issues related to disability, including healthcare equity, genetic testing, end-of-life decision making, and how social and medical systems shape the lived experiences of people with disabilities. Stephen Kuusisto is Director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute, and a University Professor at Syracuse University. He is the author of the memoirs Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”), Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey, and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening as well as the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light, and Letters to Borges.

Archive, Bios, Description, and Transcripts for Episode 152: New Opportunities for Job Success for Workers who are Blind: The Monarch Rise Project https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-152/ The employment rate of adults with low vision or blindness (52%) is significantly less than the general population of working-age adults (76%). This data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision reveals an overall 24 percent gap in employment. (Data Source: bit.ly/4rFq2cB) One group trying to close this employment gap is the American Printing House for the Blind, or APH, located in Louisville, Kentucky. In this episode we talk with Erin Sigmund, the Director of an APH project called Monarch RISE. We will discuss the ways Monarch RISE empowers project participants to achieve and sustain competitive integrated employment (CIE). Later in this episode, we will hear from two of the project’s participants, Tim Emmons and Bill Adams, about their experiences.

Jonathan Martinis, Director of Knowledge Translation for the DEP RRTC, and Barry Whaley, Director of the Southeast ADA Center, join the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast to discuss how knowledge translation can connect research, policy, and real-world impact. Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC, hosts a conversation focused on the importance of “conveying information to people that is useful, robust, accessible, and in plain language to both improve disability employment policy and disability employment.” To that end, Jonathan explains that knowledge translation is more than just providing information; it’s about connecting information to action. “Knowledge translation is a bridge,” he says. “It is a bridge between what we know or what we're going to find out and what we're doing.” Barry emphasizes that knowledge translation must engage stakeholders and be responsive to their needs, saying, “unless there is communication with the people receiving that information and that it is useful to them, then we've not succeeded in our mission.” Together, Jonathan and Barry discuss how the DEP RRTC and Southeast ADA Center are using multiple tools to translate complex research and resources into practical guidance, with a clear focus: “Knowledge translation is what makes good information into good policy and practice.”

More information, bios, and transcript available at: https://bbi-dep-rrtc.org/resources/podcast-series/lgtw-beth-23/ Beth Sirull, President and CEO of the National Organization on Disability (NOD), joins the DEP RRTC’s Let’s Get to Work podcast to discuss the future of disability employment policy and why employing people with disabilities “is good for business.” Beth explains that NOD has long focused on employment as a pathway to independence and economic opportunity for people with disabilities because, “if you don't have a way to support yourself, there's just no way that you can manifest the American Dream.” Peter Blanck, University Professor and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Principal Investigator of the DEP RRTC, joins Beth in a conversation about how NOD works with employers to unlock the vast, often overlooked talent pool of people with disabilities. Beth emphasizes that employing people with disabilities results in real benefits to businesses, including lower turnover and stronger employee engagement. “[I]f you hire someone with a disability and you provide them with the accommodation that they need,” she says, “they will not leave. You will have a very loyal, longstanding, productive employee.” Ultimately, Beth emphasizes, disability employment policy is about “putting everyone in a situation where they can be maximally effective in their job, which obviously is what companies want.”

In this episode, we welcome Naureen Hunani, a registered dietitian, educator, and the founder of Registered Dieticians or RDs for Neurodiversity, a group dedicated to changing how healthcare and mental health providers can support neurodivergent people with feeding and eating challenges. Her work focuses on the lived experiences of autistic and neurodivergent people and the intersection of feeding differences, feeding challenges, eating disorders, and Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder or ARFID. By supporting disability and neurodiversity, Naureen challenges harmful, compliance-based feeding models and advocates for healthcare rooted in personal choice, access, and dignity. She is widely known for connecting clinical nutrition, disability rights, and social justice to help families, clinicians, and systems rethink what truly supportive, ethical feeding care looks like. https://adalive.org/episodes/episode-151/-Archive, Bios, Description, and Transcripts for Episode 151: When Eating Is a Disability Rights Issue

Get answers to questions about Supported Decision-Making (SDM) in this conversation between Leo True Frost, a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy who uses a communication device to speak, and Jonathan Martinis, Senior Director for Law and Policy at the Burton Blatt Institute. Martinis explains that SDM involves individuals seeking advice and support to make decisions, similar to how non-disabled individuals do. He highlights the Jenny Hatch case, which brought SDM into public consciousness and led to many states recognizing SDM. Martinis emphasizes the importance of planning ahead, identifying supporters, and formalizing agreements. He also discusses the balance between SDM and guardianship, advocacy for legal recognition, and the role of self-advocates in promoting their rights.

Lex Frieden, a pioneering disability rights activist, shares his journey from the car accident that left him paralyzed to his pivotal role in shaping disability employment policy. He recounts his struggles with accessibility and education, leading to his advocacy for the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In his interview with Peter Blanck, Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, Frieden highlights the importance of public and private sector collaboration and emphasizes the need for continued education and advocacy to ensure equal opportunities for people with disabilities.