Virtual Community Life Engagement
This brief applies the Four Guideposts for Community Life Engagement to identifying virtual opportunities for interaction and engagement and supporting people with IDD to access such opportunities.
Jennifer Sulewski
Jennifer Sulewski, Ph.D., FAAIDD is a national expert on community life engagement (CLE) for people with IDD. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on CLE, has presented locally and nationally at conferences on CLE, and has provided consultation to state agencies and service providers across the country on how to improve day services and supports. From 2014–2017 she was PI of the Field Initiated CLE Project, a NIDILRR-funded effort to study how to improve day services and supports for CLE, which led to identification of Four Guideposts for Community Life Engagement and a toolkit for service providers. Currently she is PI of another Field Initiated project developing a Guideposts Fidelity Scale for service providers to assess their level of adherence to the Four Guideposts for CLE. Dr. Sulewski is a Fellow of the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and past co-chair of the Disabilities and Other Vulnerable Populations Topical Interest Group of the American Evaluation Association. She received her Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University in 2006, with a dissertation titled In Search of Meaningful Daytimes: Community-Based Nonwork Supports for Adults with Developmental Disabilities.
Community Life Engagement Toolkit
Looking to increase community life engagement of the people you support? This toolkit was developed to help service providers develop and improve high quality supports for community life engagement (CLE). It contains guideposts for success, a self-assessment tool, real-world examples of service providers making CLE happen, and other helpful resources and tools.
Click here for the toolkit: https://cletoolkit.thinkwork.org
Meeting the Holistic Vision of Employment and Community Life Engagement: State Administrator Perspectives on Achievements and Gaps
As states focus on expanding integrated employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and phase out sheltered work, they are finding a need to concurrently examine day services and supports that promote Community Life Engagement (CLE, see yellow box to the right for a detailed definition). These supports can be a wrap-around to ensure individuals’ engagement in the community is maintained and they continue to receive sufficient levels of support, despite fluctuations in job status and hours.
State Roles in Promoting Community Life Engagement: Themes from the State Employment Leadership Network's Working Group
The State Employment Leadership Network (SELN) is a membership-based network of state IDD agencies committed to making changes in their service systems to ensure access to competitive integrated employment for people with IDD (www.selnhub.org/home).
Community Life Engagement
Delivered in conjunction with Cross Plains Community Partners, this powerpoint presentation provides an overview of the four guideposts in Community Life Engagement, as well as implementation strategies from a provider perspective.
Conversion to Integrated Employment and Community Life Engagement
Delivered in conjunction with The Arc of the United States and Starfire (provider agency), this powerpoint presentation provides an overview of the four guideposts of Community Life Engagement and their relationship to characteristics of transformative providers in general.
Community Life Engagement
Delivered primarily to an audience of self-advocates, this powerpoint offers a user-friendly, plain language explanation of the four guideposts in Community Life Engagement.
Getting Out and About: How to Get the Most Out of What Your Community Has to Offer
There are so many ways to be part of your community! You can volunteer, take college classes, go to the gym, or spend time with friends. This workshop will teach four big tips you need to know to help you be more involved in your community.
Guidepost 4: Ensure That Supports Are Outcome-Oriented and Regularly Monitored
We have created a series of four Engage Briefs to examine the guideposts in detail. This brief explores the need to create supports that oriented toward goals and outcomes, and to implement a plan for monitoring progress.
Guidepost 2: Promote Community Membership and Contribution
We have created a series of four Engage Briefs to examine the guideposts in detail. This brief explores the need to implement a plan to help individuals participate in and contribute to their communities.
