Volume 16 Number 2 • 2003

Training for CILs:
Past Perspectives & Future Directions

By Linda Gonzales,
Executive Director, Association of Programs in Rural Independent Living (APRIL)

During the past couple of years, many Centers for Independent Living (CILs) have experienced budget cuts. Some Statewide Independent Living Councils (SILCs) have been written out of state budgets. Medicaid programs have been slashed. Whether these will be permanent reductions or temporary set backs, is yet to be seen. One thing is clear—at a time when state budgets are being balanced on the backs of programs and people that can least afford it, CILs and SILCs everywhere are tightening their financial belts and looking for the best way to spend the resources they still have available.

One resource that has grown significantly over the past several years is the availability of training and technical assistance. From conferences and workshops, to internet classrooms, to one-on-one assistance, the independent living community abounds with training and technical assistance events and opportunities. This is a good time to look at the field of IL training, where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going.

In the Beginning …

Being a twenty-plus year veteran of the IL movement, I recall the early days when there were very few training options specifically for CILs. There was the occasional IL management simulation training offered in some distant city, some best practices competitions that opened eyes to other ways of getting things done, and of course the annual regional or national conference that helped remind us of the big picture and of the need to take the dreams back home. Other than that, we in the early IL movement had to make it on our own. That was what it was like in the early 1980s in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We had our moments though. I recall a time when our staff sat outside on a grassy slope on the grounds of the local Audubon Society on a sparkling spring day. We listened in awe to a man named Wade Blank (co-founder of ADAPT), and a few members of ADAPT that had come to Santa Fe to give us an in-service on consumer advocacy. We had them back a few years later for a demonstration in Las Cruces. For several years, our CIL sponsored a Disability Expo on the downtown Plaza. We even hosted the very first Region VI IL Conference. Lex Frieden sat with us in our conference room and presented a slide presentation on how to start a rural CIL in a community known as Crockett, Texas. Those were the glory days.

Learning the ABCs of the ADA

The 1990s brought a surge of training events related to learning about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). After working long and hard to get the landmark piece of civil rights legislation for people with disabilities passed, the real work had just begun. Regional Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers were formed and groups like the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and National Council on Independent Living got involved in ADA-related education and training for IL staff. Technology Assistance Centers also sprang up around the country and many CILs had opportunities to get involved and learned much about the field of assistive technology.
During this same time, the ten Regional Rehabilitation Continuing Education Programs (RRCEPs) were functioning, but focused primarily on the continuing education needs of vocational rehabilitation personnel. While RRCEPs had a mandate to include independent living in their training efforts, this happened on a haphazard basis, at best. Only one Regional RRCEP – Region VI emerged as an outstanding source for IL training opportunities. (See article later in this newsletter).

The IL Training Net is Cast

Two decades of positive growth and proof that a little demonstration program called independent living could (and had) far exceeded all expectations of success, CILs were finally coming of age. In the latter part of the 1990s specific funding for independent living training and technical assistance became a permanent part of Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act, ushering in the era of the IL NET. A partnership between the Independent Living Research Utilization and National Council on Independent Living, the IL NET is a national training and technical assistance project working to strengthen the independent living movement by supporting CILs and SILCs. Activities include workshops, national teleconferences, technical assistance, online information, training materials, fact sheets, and other resource materials on operating, managing, and evaluating centers and SILCs (www.ilru.org).

In recent years, the National Institute of Disability Rehabilitation Research provided funding for National Technical Assistance Centers for under-served groups, including Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. Each one of these TACs provides training and technical assistance to the rehabilitation and IL field as a core service. There is even a Research and Training Center on Full Participation in Independent Living at the University of Kansas. Other federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services have provided funding to states on special topic training like implementing the ADA Olmstead decision and systems changes activities, not to mention large nonprofit organizations like Easter Seals Project Action or AgrAbility programs, National Head Injury Foundation, Johnson and Johnson, to name a few others.

Even large CILs have gotten into training efforts at a national level. The Western New York Independent Living Project Inc. is the home of the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Independent Living Management. They conduct organizational research to develop resources and offer training programs and technical assistance to independent living center managers and staff and State Independent Living Councils across the country. Their purpose is to assist CILs in providing the highest quality of service to consumers by improving the effectiveness of Independent Living Centers. Check out their web site at www.rrtcilm.org for a list of current offerings.

Technical Assistance with a Rural Flare

No article on independent living training and technical assistance would be complete without mention of our own Rural Independent Living Leadership Mentoring Initiative (RILLMI). RILLMI is the result of joint efforts by The University of Montana Rural Institute Adult Community Services and Supports/Training Department and the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living (APRIL) to address the unique circumstances of rural CILs and SILCs. With small budgets limiting their training choices, many rural CILs were not able to access the training events offered around the country. Though more could participate in other forms of training, the one-on-one contact with trainers was not available.

RILLMI makes use of the mentoring model of leadership and organizational development. Intensive mentoring at two selected sites each year, and peer-to-peer mentoring with two additional sites, offers training and technical assistance tailored to the needs of the mentored site. Bringing the training to the rural CIL offers other opportunities as well–a chance for the CIL to interact with other community organizations as they co-sponsored Community Training Days. RILLMI Regional Training events, held in larger cities across the U.S., offer nearby rural CILs access to a day of mentoring as well.

The IL NET saw value in the peer approach and offered to support an additional six sites to receive the peer-to-peer service. Peer Mentors were identified and a Call for Technical Assistance brought forth the requests for the peer mentoring. Peers are being matched to sites as the program swings into this expanded mode, and more sites will be solicited for 2004.

In The Future: Personal Trainers

Well, maybe not in the physical exercise sense of personal trainer–but how can someone to get a handle on all of the training being offered, when it is being offered, where or how it is to be conducted, and whether it is it worth the time and money to attend? A Personal Independent Living Trainer will help the agency personnel whose role it is to answer the questions above, work with individual CILs and SILCs to come up with a training and technical assistance plan, and help find resources to take advantage of available training.

The Regional Coordinator is the IL NET’s newest approach to comprehensive yet individualized training needs identification and planning. Each of the five Regional Coordinator sites has the responsibility of covering two federal regions of the country. In the coming months, every CIL and SILC in the country can anticipate a call from the IL NET Regional Coordinator. Every CIL and SILC will be given the opportunity to get involved with training as formally or informally as it might choose.

In conclusion, even though funding may be tight, training resources abound. As CILs and SILCs move forward into the 21st century, they have the best chance to be prepared to meet the challenges that hard fiscal times bring.