Welcome to the official website for the 2024 TASH Conference!
Each year, the TASH Conference brings together our constituents to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The Conference is attended by passionate leaders, experts, and advocates from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees are influential in their fields and communities, and play an important role in the provision of services and supports for individuals and organizations around the world; and include professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; self-advocates, adult service providers; students, family members, and many others. This year’s conference theme is Celebrate Together: Let the Good Times Roll!
Click on the "Registration and More" tab for additional information about our Conference location, registration, reserving a guest room, sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities, and more! The full Conference schedule is now available for viewing. Registered attendees will receive an invitation to log in and create a personalized schedule.
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While there is lots of research on the experiences and outcomes of people with disabilities, findings are not often shared in ways that are accessible and supportive of advocacy efforts. Advocacy methods that include quality data are often highly effective in steering the changes advocates hope to see; however, community engagement with disability data, including the collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data, is usually minimal. This can result in a disconnect between what researchers and policymakers feel is important to advocates and what advocates feel is important for their community. This session will feature an overview of existing efforts related to collecting and strengthening disability data and how these efforts are currently supporting advocacy. Then, we will have a rousing discussion with attendees about the most critical ways to enhance engagement with the disability community to support use of disability data in local, state, and national advocacy,
Join this session to learn about an innovative partnership between the LEAD Center and Parent 2 Parent USA (P2P USA), harnessing the input from parent advisors to craft resources to promote employment and career outcomes for their family members with disabilities. Families also identified resources through which they can access essential supports and services. Hear from family leaders and employment subject matter experts from LEAD Center about the pivotal role families play in envisioning and supporting the people with disabilities in their lives across their lifespan as they journey towards competitive integrated employment.
Marsha Quinn is the Co-Executive Director for Parent to Parent USA and brings nearly 30 years experience in non-profit marketing and management to its 40 member organizations across the nation. She works to ensure access to peer to peer emotional support for ALL families of individuals... Read More →
Students with IDD are not typically included in school engagement for both academic and social activities. Though laws seek to encourage inclusive education for all students, at the Secondary School level, inclusion is lacking due to academic expectations in the classroom, social opportunities, buy in from both staff and fellow students, and because of typical expectations and norms in a public high school. In order to remedy this problem, we propose that school stakeholders work together in order to create inclusion opportunities for all students. This presentation discusses inclusion successes and perspectives held by a variety of stakeholders: teachers, related service providers, students with and without disabilities, parents, and school administrators. A call to action is offered for all stakeholders to find innovative, intentional, and joyful opportunities for true engagement for all students.
Despite the 1999 Olmstead v. L. C. decision upholding the right to community integration and community living, the state of Illinois continues to operate seven state operated institutions for some Illinois residents with IDD. Going Home Coalition (GHC), formed in 2010, is an advocacy coalition comprised of a diverse statewide network of mostly self-advocates along with families, community providers, and allies whose mission is to advocate for systems change to transition away from institutional living and increase community supports. GHC’s broadest accomplishment to effect systems change is through their civic engagement and collective action of bringing conversations into the public discourse. The purpose of this study is to understand how and to what extent members of the Coalition engage in civic engagement activities. In addition, we sought to understand the barriers and facilitators members with disability have in civic engagement.
Kim Fisher is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at Illinois State University. She studies how social networks and social capital promote community participation and social inclusion for adolescents and young adults with IDD and the role access to information... Read More →
