Jennifer Jiggetts

The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) has helped local, state, and national leaders prepare youth and young adults with disabilities and underresourced backgrounds to successfully transition into adulthood and excel in productive careers and satisfying lives. The heart of IEL’s leadership, research, and training focuses on the following: • Assists teachers, employers, hiring managers, and law makers with creating access to long-lasting educational and professional opportunities; • Sets clear standards, assessments, and tools to measure success and help youth and young adults develop new skills, take charge of their futures, and successfully engage in their communities; • Creates business relationships that open a world of learning and training resources for our youth; • Acts as a guide to youth, young adults, and their families traveling the road to adulthood, from school to vocational education, careers, and independent/community living; • Promotes enduring opportunities that give youth and young adults the chance to view their disabilities as a resource that allows them to make lasting impacts on their communities; About the Institute for Educational Leadership For a half-century, the Institute for Educational Leadership has lionized leaders at all levels to share resources, cross-collaborate, and share networks to better address the needs of youth and young people with disabilities and limited resources. IEL is a non-partisan nonprofit organization that serves as a catalyst to help policymakers, administrators, and practitioners collaborate to ensure success for all youth and young people with disabilities and their families. The work of IEL focuses on three pillars required for youth and young people and their communities to succeed: • Prepares youth and young people with disabilities by giving them the educational and professional resources needed to support their growth. • Mobilizes the community with public education to support the learning and development of young people. • Innovates with groundbreaking training, research, and projects that create access to professional opportunities so that youth and young people with disabilities can successfully transition to adulthood. The National Collaborative on Workforce & Disability for Youth (www.ncwd-youth.info), created in 2001, assists state and local workforce development systems to better serve young people with disabilities and underresourced youth. NCWD/Youth is a national technical assistance center funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy. The Professional Development Initiative (www.ncwd-youth.info/professional-development ), identifies the knowledge, skills and abilities that youth service professionals working directly with young people need to better connect them to education, workforce, and independent living environments, and drives success of these youth service professionals to affect positive change for all youth, including those with disabilities and other disconnected youth. The Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program™ (www.ramp.iel.org), supported by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, is a high-tech, career-focused mentoring program for youth with disabilities and youth involved with, or at risk of becoming involved in, the juvenile justice system. The Right Turn Career-Focused Transition Initiative (www.rightturn.iel.org) serves juvenile offenders, providing comprehensive reentry and transition services, including connection to education, mentoring, soft-skill building, career preparedness, and violence prevention. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration, local sites operate Right Turn in different communities. The Vocational Rehabilitation Youth Technical Assistance Center (http://iel.org/vryouth-tac) is a U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration-funded project that is charged with providing state VR agencies and related rehabilitation and youth service professionals with technical assistance to help more effectively serve students and youth with disabilities, including disconnected youth who need to re-engage with education and/or work such as those involved in the juvenile justice system, the foster care system, and other traditionally underresourced youth populations. The National Consortium on Leadership & Disability for Youth (www.ncld-youth.info) helps young people in the disability community grow their leadership capabilities and influence the programs designed to serve their needs. The High School/High Tech Program (www.ncwd-youth.info/hsht) is an effective strategy for improving post-high school outcomes for youth with all types of disabilities. The program is designed to address the full array of needs of transition-age youth with disabilities, including exposure to science, technology, engineering, math, and technology-related careers. For additional information, call- or visit www.iel.org.