North Carolina Innovations Waiver Action Team

01/13/2026

Camp Bluebird is a track-out and summer camp program for school-aged children with autism. We focus on: Social skills, play skills, and life skills.

01/12/2026

Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, 3-4 pm ET

01/09/2026

New Paid Fellowship Opportunity for Community Reporters with I/DD!

Link for more information: https://nccdd.org/news-media/highlights-hot-topics/december-2025-highlights-and-hot-topics

Community Reporters are individuals with I/DD who enjoy storytelling, meeting people, and sharing news from their communities. They will use their skills to collect local stories, interview community members, and create short stories in a format of their choice, such as blog posts, audio or video interviews, graphic art, and infographics. Their stories will be shared on NCCDD’s website, newsletters, and social media.

23 East Group, the marketing and communications agency for the NCCDD, is launching this Community Reporter Program to amplify the voices and stories of people with intellectual or other developmental disabilities (I/DD) across North Carolina. This initiative is part of a larger media storytelling project to highlight what’s happening in local communities in North Carolina, through the eyes and experiences of people with I/DD.

Learn more about the fellowship and how to apply here: https://nccdd.org/news-media/highlights-hot-topics/december-2025-highlights-and-hot-topics

01/09/2026

Please join us for our Money Follows the Person (MFP) webinar where national policy advocates and state administrators highlight the history of the program, State snap shots, and Tribal MFP Initiatives. Speakers will highlight the cost-effectiveness of the program and also provide recommendations lo...

12/30/2025

Family members carry the burden and costs of caring for America's aging population. Federal policy change is slow to come but a new movement and state actions are building momentum.

12/20/2025

Judy Heumann -- the renowned activist known as the “mother of the disability rights movement" -- was born on this day in 1947. Heumann, who used a wheelchair for mobility after surviving polio at the age of 18 months, helped lead the fight to establish the world's first comprehensive civil rights law protecting the rights of people with disabilities: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As she once observed, “when other people see you as a third-class citizen, the first thing you need is a belief in yourself and the knowledge that you have rights. The next thing you need is a group of friends to fight back with.”

Pictured here as TIME's Women of the Year for 1977, Heumann was at the center of multiple battles for civil rights for people with disabilities, most famously the 504 Sit-In. Organized by Heumann, Kitty Cone, and Mary Jane Owen, over 150 other activists occupied the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare for 25 days in 1977 demanding the implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, one of the first federal disability rights laws. The 504 Sit-In remains the longest sit-in ever at a U.S. federal building.

Equally importantly, Heumann helped change the narrative about disability, showing that the true burden of disabilities is how others respond to it: "Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives — job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example," she once said. "It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair."

In the days before the ADA, Heumann was refused admission to public school because she was a "fire hazard" and offered two hours a week of in-home instruction instead. In 1970, she took the New York Department of Education to court after they refused to give her a teacher's license, citing their belief that she would not be able to evacuate her classroom in an emergency.

After the passage of the ADA in 1990, Heumann served as the U.S. assistant secretary of education, and took her advocacy global, traveling to more than 30 countries as they passed their own disability rights legislation. Until her last days, she kept up her fight for equality, noting how much progress still needs to be made. "Change never happens at the pace we think it should," she once wrote. "Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start to happen, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, something will tip."

Her incredible story is told in a captivating picture book biography "Fighting for YES! The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann" for ages 6 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/fighting-for-yes

Judith Heumann was also the author of a powerful memoir for adult readers, "Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist" at https://www.amightygirl.com/being-heumann

Her memoir was adapted into a young readers edition, "Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution" for ages 10 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/rolling-warrior

For more books for children and teens starring Mighty Girls with disabilities of all varieties, visit our blog post "Many Ways To Be Mighty: 35 Books Starring Mighty Girls with Disabilities" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12992

12/18/2025