Disability Competencies

 Updated   01.10.26

About June: June Isaacson Kailes is a Disability Policy Consultant who focuses on replacing disability “awareness” and etiquette with maximum-impact practices and measurable skill sets. She helps organizations build disability competencies that improve inclusion across programs, services, and decision-making. This page features practical resources on accessible meetings and events, aging with disability, advisory group effectiveness, disability language, core medical, social, and independent living models of disability, and related archives.

Learn more:  About June, Contact


Accessible Meetings, Events, and Conferences

Accessible Meetings, Events, and Conferences (July 2015), Digital updated version of June Isaacson Kailes and Darrel Jones’ 1993 work, A Guide to Planning Accessible Meetings. The Mid-Atlantic ADA Center and TransCen Inc.  

Aging with Disability

 Aging with Disability – summary is adapted and distributed for use with permission. The material was excerpted and adapted from an application submitted by: Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in collaboration with The University of Southern California and The University of California, Irvine, to NIDRR for a RRTC on Aging with a Disability in August 1998

Aging with a Disability Another Advocacy Priority 1991 , 2 pages, One of the first consumer-focused articles broadened the aging with disability issue beyond polio and spinal cord injury. Details personal experience, sometimes humorously, of aging with cerebral palsy and the frustration with the medical community’s lack of knowledge. Advocates for more research, more involvement of people with disabilities, and more advocacy to address elements of aging with a disability. 

Aging with a Disability: Conclusions after a Visit to the USABergen, March 1998, By Janicke Kilian and Terje Binder, A short version of a Norwegian report

Aging with a Disability: Educating Myself, in Generations, Journal of The American Society on Aging, Vol. XVI, No. 1, Winter 1992, 3 pages, pdf

Details personal experiences about the lack of information related to aging with a disability.  Lists specific questions in key areas (research, prevention, nutrition and advocacy) which need answers. 

Aging with Disability Good News and Bad News 2001, PDF

Aging While Living with Disability 1990

Midlife Cripdom: Getting Fewer Miles per Gallon? THE DISABILITY RAG, Volume 16, No. 4, July/August 1995, 16 pages .pdf

Terms, aging and cripdom, new realities and new concerns and a lot of new questions, advocating for more than health reform, a few horror stories, crip symbol hangups, misguided pride versus freedom, a few tips for weighing whether to use the gear, recommended readings, online resources, new disability resource.  Reprint

Effectively Including People with Disabilities in Policy and Advisory Groups

Effectively Including People with Disabilities in Policy and Advisory Groups (Edition 2, 2012), provides how-to information for including people with disabilities in policy and advisory boards, councils, and work groups; contains material on developing and sustaining an advisory group; discusses why to include people with disabilities; and how to identify qualified people with disabilities. Includes a planning checklist for defining purpose, structure, size, lines of communication, membership, recruiting, budgeting, staffing, minutes, accountability, meeting access, and accommodations; a planning recruiting matrix; and an agenda and minutes template. 

Tips for Interacting with People with Disabilities (2011) pdf

Language

Language Is More than a Trivial Concern! (2010)

Time to Get Rid of “Special”? (1991) Word

Medical, Social, and Independent Living Disability Models

Brief Summary of the Medical, Social, and Independent Living Models of Disability (2024)

Physical Access Videos See “Animations on the ADA and ABA Standards”

  • Parking and Passenger Loading Zones  
  • Maneuvering at
  • Accessible Toilet Rooms
  • Wheelchair Maneuvering
  • Protruding Objects
  • Signs
  • Accessible Bathing Facilities

Archives

Disability Archives– Advocacy, goal setting, mentors, oppression, pride, valuing time