Disability INC.

From organizing her first rally at age 19 to representing New Yorkers at the NYC Council, Council Member Joseph has achieved both personal and civic goals that once seemed unattainable. Hear how necessity and the belief that each person can make an enormous difference can improve the city we love.

Guest: Yvette Watts Executive Director of The New York Association of Emerging and Multicultural Providers Finding herself a parent of a child with autism in 1985, she soon realized that advocacy was a necessity, not a choice. Follow her transition from parent to advocate as she embarked on a personal mission, eventually becoming an advocate for people with developmental disabilities (DD) and the...

Guest: Sadye L. Campoamor Chief Equity Officer, Office of the NYC Comptroller Brad Lander How do people become advocates? Sadye’s evolution as an advocate and community organizer began as a young teacher in Harlem. Listen as she recounts her experiences and shares her belief that everyone has the ability to contribute in some way to the causes they care about. “We need you urgently, exactly as you...

In the final episodes of our series “Seize Joy, Building Community,” host Cheryelle Cruickshank speaks with Lucina Clarke. As a young Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapist providing home-based services to toddlers, Lucina Clarke instantly experienced a powerful jolt of connection with their parents and knew she could help. Now the Executive Director and Co-Founder of My Time Inc. an organizati...

INCLUDEnyc’s Executive Director, Cheryelle Cruickshank, continues our new podcast series, “Seize Joy, Building Community" with Belinda Johnson. Belinda maintained a successful 40-year career in education while raising a child with a disability. Join us as she shares her experiences, knowledge, and perspective in the reassuring voice of a friend who has been there.

Host Cheryelle Cruickshank kicks off the first episode of our new series, “Seize Joy, Building Community.” This week, she speaks with Jackie Ceonzo. When Jackie’s son, who is on the autism spectrum, was turned away from a program for young people with disabilities, the experience motivated her to never accept the status quo. Now the Executive Director and Founder of SNACK & Friends, serving in...

Para Alma, madre mexicana de dos niños con autismo, la primera barrera que tuvo que superar fue el diagnostico de su hijo mayor, luego la barrera idiomática, siguiendo por la falta de información que hay para padres inmigrantes y finalmente, el estigma que hay sobre el autismo. Hoy conversa sobre cómo aprendió a navegar el sistema de educación especial de NYC y cómo fue que INCLUDEnyc la ayudó a i...

Beth Rosenberg is the Founder/Executive Director of Tech Kids Unlimited, not-for-profit educational organization that teaches 21st century computer science thinking and technology skills to neurodiverse youth ages 7 to 21. She is a multiple award-winning teacher, consultant, author, and frequent contributor to conferences, publications, and events. To read the transcript for this episodes, please...

Nate Trainor is a passionate advocate for the acceptance of people with disabilities and, although non-verbal, is a powerful "voice" for inclusion. Nate has experienced firsthand what rejection, exclusion, and assumed incompetence feels like. He is an author and provides many presentations throughout the country, advocating for people with disabilities, and volunteers his time to help others under...

Rick Guidotti, an award-winning photographer, has spent the past twenty-five years collaborating internationally with nonprofit organizations, hospitals, medical schools, educational institutions, museums, galleries, advocacy groups, and communities to enact a sea-change in societal attitudes towards individuals living with a genetic, physical, behavioral, or intellectual difference. His work has...

How a chance conversation between two NYPD cops on the beat in Brooklyn changed one man's professional and personal trajectory. Donny Swanson is the principal of Pathways to Graduation in Staten Island, NY, where he utilizes a unique blend of beliefs, adaptations, and flexibility which he developed growing up in NYC with a disability. Pathways to Graduation supports at-risk students who have not b...

Art allows us to process our lives and complex emotions individually, and to come together collectively while building community. Join our conversation on why having brothers and sisters with disabilities stimulates the creation of art.  Allan B. Goldstein is a distinguished NYU Tandon School of Engineering Senior Lecturer, whose Disabilities Studies course teams up students and community members...

Approved, publicly funded special education schools are facing an existential threat. Hear about their history, the challenges they face, and how one school stayed true to its mission by discontinuing public funding. Donna Kennedy guided the Gillen Brewer School, a NYC private school providing special education services in a private school in NYC since its inception in 1992, serving as Head of Sch...

What will mental health care look like going forward? Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital. Since 2001, he has been listed every year as a Top Addiction Psychiatrist in New York Magazine’s Best Doctors issue. He is the recipient of a George Foster Peabody Award for his PBS and HBO films ed...

Dr. Tom Liam Lynch is Director of Education Policy at The Center for New York City Affairs at The New School and Editor-in-Chief of the website InsideSchools . A former educational technology professor, English teacher, and school district official for the New York City Department of Education, Lynch has written dozens of articles and presented the world over on educational technologies, online le...

Autism didn’t appear in the DSM until 1980 or as a disability category under IDEA until 1990. Meet the woman who began building the autism advocacy movement on Staten Island in 1981. Donna Long is a dynamic Staten Island community leader who has been advocating for the needs and services of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and autism since the early 80s--and her...

INCLUDEnyc’s Julianne Toce interviews David Bloomfield, Professor of Educational Leadership, Law, and Policy at Brooklyn College. David discusses the state of special education during this uncertain time and provides recommendations. You can reach David at davidcbloomfield@gmail.com, visit his website, or follow him at @BloomfieldDavid. This podcast was recorded 4/21/2020.   To view the transcript...

All sibling relationships are dynamic, but they are all the more so when your sibling has a disability. Listen in to special education teacher and advocate Lindsay Hyland and INCLUDEnyc’s Beth Ebert discussing the challenges, joys and impact of having a sibling with a disability. To view the transcript of this episode, visit  https://www.includenyc.org/images/uploads/content/Lindsay_podcast.pdf Li...

INCLUDEnyc’s Jane Heaphy interviews Dr. David Connor, Professor Emeritus at CUNY’s Hunter College & Graduate Center. Dr. Connor, whose research focuses on inclusive education, learning disabilities, and teacher education, discusses how professionals and families can leverage the transition IEP meeting to advance participation, self-advocacy, and self-determination. To view the transcript for this...

INCLUDEnyc’s Jean Mizutani chats with cannabis advocate and parent Maureen Surin. Advocating for her daughter, Maureen’s efforts resulted in Ashley’s Law, which allows Illinois students with certain medical conditions to take medical marijuana in school.   To read a transcript of this podcast, visit  https://www.includenyc.org/images/uploads/content/Maureen_Podcast_Transcript.pdf

INCLUDEnyc’s Kpana Kpoto interviews Oroma Mpi-Reynolds, education lawyer, parent, and former Special Education Settlements & Claims Attorney at the New York City Department of Education. This conversation explores the impact of race, culture, and socioeconomic status on special education and the racial disparities in identification and discipline. Listen as they discuss the inequities in the speci...

NY Peace Institute’s Restorative Justice Coordinator Kailani Capote shares her experiences implementing restorative justice at a Harlem high school with Colin Montgomery of INCLUDEnyc. Restorative justice practices will be adopted across all NYC middle and high schools in the 2019-2020 school year and they make up a big part of the DOE’s recent major reforms to limit school suspensions and to equi...

Leonie Haimson, one of New York’s most active education advocates and proponent of small class sizes, and Jean Mizutani of INCLUDEnyc address the challenge of controlling student data in an era when practice precedes regulatory safeguards and education is today’s most data-mineable industry. For more information, visit https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/

Susan Dooha, Executive Director at The Center for Independence of the Disabled, NYC (CIDNY) and Ruth DiRoma of INCLUDEnyc discuss the movement to ensure that all New Yorkers are safe during emergencies. When they filed their first lawsuit against the city in 2011, demanding emergency planning that addresses the universal needs of residents, little did they know how soon the arrival of Hurricane Sa...

Susan Scheer, CEO at the Institute of Career Development, founder of Access-A-Ride and Jean Mizutani of INCLUDEnyc discuss Section 504, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Education for All Handicapped Children’s Act/IDEA, which were all born of the vigorous activism of people with disabilities and their allies. This conversation explores the current state of activism and leadership at a...