Looking Ahead in 2016:  A Message from NASDDDS Executive Director

First, let me welcome the newest staff to NASDDDS, Adam H. Sass.  Adam joins us as the Director of Community Life Engagement.   We have heard from many of you about the state challenges to create services, based in the community, that support people to have a good life when they are not working.  Adam will be taking lead on understanding models of support that are provided in the community and designed around a person’s interests, work goals and leisure.  He will also be working directly with states in the State Employment Leadership Network.  Welcome Adam!

We know that most of you are beginning your state legislative sessions so we have prepared some webinars designed to be useful to you during these times. 

A couple to have on your radar are:

            Using National Data at the State Level – January 19, 2016 @ 3:00 PM ET – 4:30 PM ET.  This webinar will focus on how national data sets can be used to explain both national trends and single state level data.

            Using NCI in you Quality Assurance plan with HCBS – February 22, 2016 @ 3:00 PM ET – 4:00 PM ET.  This webinar will discuss how NCI survey questions align with the CMS changes and how states can use NCI to assess to assess system-level compliance with the requirements.

            Data Collection for the National Residential Information Systems Project (RISP) and Supporting Individuals and Families Systems Project (FISP) Survey – February 11, 2016 @ 2:00 PM ET.  This webinar will discuss how this data provides a longitudinal look at states systems, enabling the tracking of progress over time, and comparison’s to other states nationally. 

And, of course, we are preparing for our Mid-Year Conference, June 8-10, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri with a focus on supporting families.  We will have nationally known speakers and several supporting families’ community of practice panel representatives that will talk about what they have learned as well as important strategies that have led to better outcomes for people with I/DD. Some of those structures include the areas of:  innovative support, quality, Medicaid, partnerships and collaboration and planning.

In all of our work, we strive to provide states with timely analyses of federal policies, information on state of the art programs and service delivery practices within and across states, and information on national policy initiatives.  We hope your busy year will be supported by these efforts!              

Mary Lee