Disabilities Awareness and Empathy Training

Brief Overview of Workshop

A light breakfast with hot/cold beverages will be provided.  All participants are asked to check-in at 8:40 AM with the workshop beginning promptly at 9:00 AM

The morning session will start with a brief overview on disability/independent living with Jim Beck, Executive Director of Access Alaska. Immediately following, Duane Mayes, State of Alaska Director of the Division of Senior and Disability Services, will lead a section on Deaf Culture. Following lunch, Rich Saunders, member of the Governor's Council on Disabilities and Special Education, will lead a cross-disability section including some language/etiquette and a wrap-up weaving all the parts back together.

Registration for this event will close on Wednesday, April 24 at 4:30 PM.

Please note: participants will be asked to participate in an experiential exercise during lunch which will be provided by United Way of Southeast Alaska.

Brief Biographies on Presenters:

Jim Beck has worked in disability rights and independent living in Alaska for nearly 30 years.  He began his career in Alaska with Challenge Alaska, known then as Alaska Handicapped Sports and Recreation Association.  Jim has worked for the Alaska Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in a variety of positions and throughout the ranks at Access Alaska, a Center for Independent Living, as an Independent Living Specialist, Americans with Disabilities Act Project Coordinator, and now the Executive Director, a position he has held since December 2002.

Jim has served on the State Independent Living Council in the 1990s, where he served three terms as the Chair and again in 2005, serving again has Chair for two terms.  He has served on the Board of Directors for Challenge Alaska, Alpine Alternatives, Access Alaska, the National Council on Independent Living, and the Palmer Museum of History and Art.  Jim has traveled the state and the nation consulting and training on disability rights and laws, accessibility and related disabilities

Duane Mayes, Director of the Senior & Disabilities Services Division of the Alaska Department of Health & Social Services, began a career in social services just out of high school when he took a job in a nursing home.  He found he loved the work, perhaps because he and his two siblings already had experience caring for their father, who had significant physical disabilities from polio.  Also, both his parents are deaf.  Mayes is fluent in American Sign Language, his first language.

Mayes went on to get Bachelors and Masters degrees in vocational rehabilitation.  Mayes moved to Alaska in 1981, where he worked for many years with the Alaska Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.  He has 26 years of rehabilitation experience, eight in the private sector and four as the owner of his own business.  He went on to work for two years as Operations Director of the Governor's Council on Disabilities and Special Education before taking the position of Division Director for Senior and Disabilities Services.

Rich Sanders has worked in the field of disability services since 1985, and is currently employed as staff to the Alaska Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education. He worked for the State Division of Vocational Rehabilitation from 1991 to 2002 in a variety of capacities including case management, vocational evaluation, and work incentives projects. Just prior to accepting his current position with the Council this year he was the Program Manager and lead Assistive Technology Specialist with the state’s contractor for the Tech Act project, Assistive Technology of Alaska. Prior to his current role, he served as Program Coordinator for the Alaska Works Initiative and the StartUp Alaska Customized Self Employment grant. He has a dual major Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Management and Human Services from Alaska Pacific University and an Assistive Technology Applications Certificate from the University of Cal State Northridge.