National Leadership Consortium Bulletin
The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities Bulletin is a free, web-based publication dedicated to providing relevant, trustworthy, and thought-provoking information to leaders and practitioners in the field of developmental disabilities support services. The Bulletin will serve as a bridge between scientific journals and day-to-day leadership, exploring timely research and policy issues in the leadership and disabilities fields with the aim of promoting organizational change and assisting leaders to support people with disabilities to experience inclusive, valuable, and meaningful lives.
Bulletin 12: A Global Lens to Disability Leadership
Published: October 12, 2024
Description:
This issue of the Bulletin highlights international innovations, research, and issues to increase readers’ awareness of similarities and differences in the disability field around the world. The issue is filled with insights, evidence-based practices, and recommendations to improve the lives of people with disabilities around the world. Explore and learn lessons in this issue from other countries that can help service delivery at home.
Bulletin 11: Leading Change Beyond Your Organization
Published: July 18, 2024
Description:
Systems change is a long-term process that requires a balance between working within the system, changing the system, and replacing the system. What elements are working? What elements need to be eliminated? What elements need to be changed? We have had many successes in changing our system, but we have a lot of work left. In this Issue of the Bulletin, we hear from leaders across the system and look at the many ways that this work of strategizing and pulling levers is being done already.
Bulletin 10: Leading Anti-Ableist Efforts
Published: April 12, 2024
Description:
Being anti-ableist comes in many forms, and essentially, it’s about the work people do to actively address and reduce implicit bias and discrimination against people with disabilities. This issue includes a range of perspectives on ableism and anti-ableist practices, both from people with lived experiences and people who do this work alongside people with disabilities. We hope this issue will challenge you, make you (at least a bit) uncomfortable, and offer you practical tools and actionable strategies that you can implement to become more anti-ableist.
Bulletin 9: Leading the Way Toward Health Equity
Published: January 22, 2024
Description:
Systemic, societal, and attitudinal barriers have led to lack of health equity for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This Issue of the Bulletin, Leading the Way to Health Equity, explores the many complex facets of barriers to health equity and highlights some of the bright spots related to innovations and initiatives aimed at combating this inequity. This issue aims to offer a better understanding of the movements and models that brought us to where we are now, the current quality of healthcare for many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and the many ways that we can work to improve access to and quality of healthcare, supports, and services.
Bulletin 8: Realizing HCBS in Everyday Leadership
Published: October 26, 2023
Description:
The HCBS Settings Rule has impacted the work of every leader in the disabilities service sector in the United States. And while this Rule certainly isn’t new (issued in 2014, originally set to go into effect in 2019, and delayed several times), it is complex to implement. This issue shares knowledge about the creation and rollout of the regulations from state and national systems leaders, advocate leaders, organizational leaders, and self-advocates. Read about how leaders in the field implement practices, innovations, and strategies related to the HCBS Settings Rule.
Bulletin 7: Leading Positive Organizational Cultures
Published: July 11, 2023
Description:
We know that culture impacts outcomes for the organization, for the employees, and for those who use supports and services in our system. Organizational culture sets the context for everything a company does. It is a shared set of beliefs and values that become prevalent and enforced through actions, structures, and other methods. This issue shares strategies for creating and nurturing a culture at your organization that promotes employee engagement and the best outcomes for those who use the supports and services of our system.
Bulletin 6: Engaging In Data Driven Leadership
Published: April 18, 2023
Description:
This issue focuses on how data can be used to promote everyday strategies to employ evidence-based practices in our organizations. In this issue, there are plenty of examples of how organizations use survey and anecdotal data to enhance services and advance organizational transformation efforts to ensure that their changes aligned with the wants, needs, and dignity of their workforce and the people they support. This issue also offers innovative tools to help organizations assess their structures, practices, and services, such as a quick resource guide to help access local, state, and national level data to help organizations stay up to date on trends in funding, services, employment, and outcomes for people with disabilities and their families.
Bulletin 5: Leading Toward Authentic Language and Services
Published: January 20, 2023
Description:
We know that there is power in language but sometimes these concepts can lose their power and intention and become distorted in their meaning. Meaning can also be misconstrued when it comes to policy and practice. Many of our well-intentioned policies can be carried out in ways that limit choice and control for people utilizing services. In this issue of the Bulletin we explore the meaning of the words choice, control, and person and system-centered services, what the research shows is their impact on people’s lives and their relationship to one another, and innovative approaches to supporting practices true to their meaning. We discuss “language creep” or how these words lose their meaning when not supported by practice. We invite you to read the issue with an open mind and take some time to reflect on if your organization is walking the talk in its language and services.
Bulletin 4: Leadership, Services & The Rights of People with Disabilities
Published: October 31, 2022
Description:
This issue highlights some of the work and leadership practices that are intentionally and explicitly human rights-driven, with the hope that these will kickstart or remind you of your why. Included are first-person experiences from people with disabilities about how supports can facilitate or hinder rights, and from organizational leaders about lessons learned during the transformation of services. Read about promising efforts to promote the leadership, self-direction, and decision-making of people with disabilities and learn about strategies that meaningfully embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into day-to-day organizational practices.
Bulletin 3: Looking Ahead and Developing Leadership from Within
Published: July 18, 2022
Description:
Although we know that development of employees is one of the best ways to keep employees engaged, it is not always prioritized. How often do we think about our own development and our own leadership but forget those around us or who report to us? In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins advises to “get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and then get the right people in the right seats on the bus.” What are you as a leader doing to get those right people in the right seats? How are you supporting them to have the right tools for their current positions but also the skills needed for the future? In this Issue of the Bulletin, we examine the strategies that leaders are using and can use to Look Ahead and Develop Leaders from Within.
Bulletin 2: Leading the Current Workforce
Published: May 30, 2022
Description:
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed our workforce. People with disabilities, families, and professionals have experienced incredible trauma, hardship, and sometimes innovations and learning that will have lasting impacts on our organizations and services. The pandemic and current federal priorities also call attention to opportunities for workforce investment that we haven’t experienced to date. The topics highlighted in this issue require us to lead intentionally to meet the opportunities, demands, and challenges currently facing our workforce. The articles in this issue of the Bulletin provide examples, research, evidence-based practices, practical recommendations, and resources that can help you better understand the current workforce and inform responsive leadership approaches and strategies.
Download additional information about the Innovative Initiatives Q&A: The Collaborative for Citizen Directed Supports New Jersey, Mapping the Future: Sustaining a Vibrant DSP Workforce
Innovative Initiatives Q&A Mapping the Future
Bulletin 1: Leading Through Times of Chronic Stress
Published: January 19, 2022
Description:
In this issue of the Bulletin, we explore chronic stress and trauma on leaders of disability support service organizations and on the organizations themselves as well as strategies that promote individual, organizational, and systemic well-being and resilience. We explore the paradox that organizations as well as individuals can be both struggling and embody hope, joy, and resilience. Topics in this edition include: Direct Support Professionals’ Perspectives on Workplace Support, Recognizing Stress and Trauma in Your Organization, Avoiding Burnout, and Tips and Tools for Helping Stressed Out Organizations.
All information provided or published by the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities is for informational purposes only. Reference to any treatment, therapy, program, service, research or research entity, organization, or provider is not an endorsement by the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities. The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities assumes no responsibility for the use made of any information published or provided in the Bulletin.