National Center on Disability and Journalism

The New York Times announced that the Ford Foundation will support the Times’s disability journalism fellowship. The NCDJ is also a partner.

Read the full release here.

Bills brought forth in several state legislatures, including Texas and Wisconsin, might impact people with disabilities negatively. These bills, which are designed to restrict voting methods, leave some people with disabilities wondering how they are supposed to be politically involved.

Read the full story here.

To qualify for Florida’s NICA program, infants must suffer “substantial” damage to both body and mind. Though her body was broken, Brooklyn Grant’s mother and teachers knew she was smart. This is how they stood their ground — and won.

Read the full story here.

Easterseals, a leading national nonprofit provider of outcomes-based services and a powerful advocacy for people with disabilities, has released its Easterseals Study on the Impact of COVID-19 on People With Disabilities. The organization will use the findings as a dynamic roadmap forward, launching a comprehensive, nationwide strategic effort to modify, expand and amplify its services to respond to the urgent and evolving needs of the 1.5 million children and adults it serves.

Read the key findings here.

Disabled people make up 20% of the U.S. population but take up little space on mastheads and in coverage. Why?

Read the full story here.

In 2018, with support from the Ford Foundation, the Disability Justice Initiative and the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress developed their “Courageous Conversations” work to bring together leaders across the disability rights and justice movement and the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements. Staff of the Disability Justice and Women’s Initiatives convened a series of conversations at conferences including Let’s Talk About Sex, The Abortion Care Network, and the Association of Rural Independent Living, among others to talk about how to better collaborate across the two spaces. The authors created this column and the companion resource guide as tools that can be easily adopted or adapted by those wanting to bring these communities together for a nuanced discussion of sexual violence and disabled people.

Reach the full story here.

If confirmed by the Senate to the cabinet role, current Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona could play a significant role in special education at a time when advocates fear that many students with disabilities have been left behind during rolling school closures and remote instruction. Cardona met with advocates for students with disabilities who voiced concerns about issues ranging from school discipline to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on special education services.

Read the full story here.

Rebecca Cokley, director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress, a Ford grantee. She shares some key steps any organization can take to become more inclusive.

Watch the full video here.

In Arizona, ProPublica teamed up with the Arizona Daily Star to sponsor a story by Amy Silverman that looked into why the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities turned down thousands of people who sought assistance.

That road eventually  led to Silverman’s lengthy and at times complicated story being translated into plain language, the first time ProPublica (or any other news outlet, as far as I can tell) created a plain language version of a story in an attempt to increase its accessibility for disabled readers.

Read the full story here.

People with disabilities living in different states aren’t sure when they will be able to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to a lack of clarity.

Read the full story here.