Investing in the Independent Living Movement Means Investing in Youth

March 20, 2019; 3:00 – 4:30 PM Eastern

Register Today

Centers for Independent Living (CILs) are required to support young people with disabilities as they transition to adulthood. This is a core service of CILs, but one that many CILs are still figuring out how to best provide. Before any services or support can be achieved, CILs must understand how to get youth with disabilities meaningfully engaged in their CIL and the Independent Living Movement. This work is not easy, but it can be done with the right staff, expectations, and understanding of the young people with disabilities in your community.

Our presenters will share concrete ways your CIL can reach young people, help them see your CIL as something they should be a part of, and get them involved for years to come. Investing in youth will improve our organizations and ensure the future of the Independent Living Movement.

You won’t want to miss this webinar on core services and the future of our Movement.

Registration Fee: The registration fee is $75.00 per site (connection) and does not apply per participant. Registrants are encouraged to gather as many individuals as desired to participate by telephone or webinar. NCIL is facilitating registration for this webinar and  you can register online. For webinar registration assistance, please contact NCIL at 202.207.0334, or visit their website at http://www.ncil.org.

Target Audience: 

Executive Directors, program managers, staff, and any others interested in developing effective youth engagement in Centers for Independent Living.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this training, participants will have knowledge and resources that will enable them to:

• Recognize the importance of working with youth in supporting a robust and self-sustaining culture in Centers for Independent Living (CILs).
• Describe strategies to locate, recruit, and engage young people with disabilities to represent community, embrace the philosophy of independent living, and serve as partners and leaders in CIL program planning and implementation.
• Identify tools and strategies for developing relationships with youth development and advocacy organizations that lead to long term collaborations.
• Identify leadership qualities in youth with disabilities and facilitate their transition into leadership roles that support their goals.

Meet Your Presenters

Allie Cannington is a white, Queer, Disabled community advocate and educator. For over nine years, Allie has organized youth with disabilities on local, state, national and international levels, always centering Disabled youth with multiple marginalized identities- including Queer and Trans, low/no income, houseless, and youth of color.

Currently, Allie serves as the Statewide Community Organizer for the Disability Organizing Network, a program of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC). Allie is humbled to partner with organizers and advocates across the state to mobilize and elevate the power of the Disability community. Before starting at CFILC, Allie lived and worked in Washington DC, where she was the first Youth Transitions Fellow with the National Council on Independent Living. After returning to the Bay Area in 2016, Allie worked on the frontlines of direct service and youth development organizations, specifically with youth experiencing homelessness & Trans and Gender Non-Conforming youth.

Allie’s direct service and program development work focused on leadership development, political advocacy, workforce readiness and independent living.

No matter the space, Allie honors the legacy of the Independent Living Movement and uses intersectionality, equity, and #DisabilitySolidarity as guideposts for success. Ultimately, Allie’s work is dedicated to unveiling everyone’s proximity to disability and to fueling justice movements that are intersectional, sustainable, and intergenerational.

Keri Gray is a diversity & inclusion influencer, millennial talent expert, and public speaker. She designs programs and leverages relationships that cater towards building and attracting diverse talent. Keri identifies as a Black woman with disabilities and uses her experiences, political views, and programming to empower and equip professionals from marginalized communities. In her work, she actively utilizes a framework of intersectionality- meaning that her work intersects with issues surrounding people of color, women, AND people with disabilities.

Keri is also the Senior Director of Stakeholder Engagement and Strategic Communications at the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). Prior to AAPD, Keri worked as the Director of NextGen Initiatives at Disability:IN. She creatively designed programs for approximately 1,000 young professionals and collaborated with over 95 global fortune 500 companies to connect diverse talent to opportunities in the private sector.

Keri was raised in Longview, Texas but currently resides in the Washington, DC metro area. She attended college at Abilene Christian University where she received Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Communication and then a Master’s degree in Communication.