Disability Inclusion Toolkit

Disability Training & Technical Assistance

Higher education employers can tap a wide range of training and technical assistance materials to educate institutional leadership and employees about the importance of and strategies for fostering a disability-inclusive work culture. These include:

• The Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion (EARN) offers training on a range of disability inclusion topics via webinars and customized programs.

• The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) offers a monthly “school year” webcast series, (JAN Elearning and Traning Resources) on a range of topics related to accommodations for individuals with disabilities. It also provides a series of “Just In Time” online training modules, each of which can be used by employees individually at their computers or incorporated into larger training efforts.

• The Campaign for Disability Employment is a multi-faceted outreach initiative that provides a range of materials employers can use for workplace-based training activities, including public service announcements with accompanying discussion guides and posters.

• National Disability Employment Awareness Month, held each October, offers an opportune time to educate about an institution’s commitment to disability inclusion and celebrate the many contributions of its employees with disabilities.
• Disability@Work: A Framework for Employing People with Disabilities identifies promising employment policies and practices for recruiting, hiring, retaining and advancing qualified individuals with disabilities. It also has an Annual Disability Statistics Collection.
• A Disability Sensitivity Training Video created by the DC Government shows people with and without disabilities in work-related and social settings and provides tips on how to interact.

• Disability Etiquette from the University of Northern Iowa’s Office of Compliance and Equity Management’s Disability Etiquette guidelines.  is an archived webcast with practical tips for making your workplace more inclusive of individuals with disabilities.

• The Employer Toolkit from the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University helps employers with inclusive culture, policies, practices, management, hiring, retention, accommodation and advancement of individuals with disabilities. (HERC Member Institution)

• Communicating With and About People with Disabilities provides suggestions on how to relate to and communicate with and about people with disabilities.

• “Work Without Limits Resources” toolkit from Work Without Limits assists employers in delivering on a commitment to full inclusion of people with disabilities.  

• The National Study of Employers, published in 2016, by the Families and Work Institute (FWI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offers key disability employment policy recommendations for employers.

• How to Address the Mental Health Needs of Faculty and Staff. A free resource guide is available for college and university leaders that offers recommendations for helping faculty with mental-health issues. In this Q&A, guide co-author and Ohio State University professor Margaret Price says shared accountability and access are needed for the strategies to succeed.