Submitted Photo The Collab for Change team during a webinar are, from left to right Michele Burney, Krista Opstedal, Kristin Michels, Susie Mack and Christine Brigden.

The North Dakota Center for Person with Disabilities (NDCPD) will be hosting the last three sessions of its Collaboration for Change webinar today and also March 14 and 21 from 12 to 1 p.m. in Memorial Hall on Minot State University campus.

Collaboration for Change is a webinar series of seven one-hour webinars intended as an informational exchange on specific disability topics that provide a unique opportunity to learn from industry experts while promoting NDCPD’s related skills and services.

“This is our first time running this series,” said Susie Mack, the operations coordinator at NDCPD. “We’ve had over 300 registrants and 120 or so log in online.”

The speakers at these webinars have all been a part of the disabilities field. Think College, a national agency that offers technical assistance and training related to college options for students with intellectual disabilities, spoke on the use of ECHO’s, a form of training that supports postsecondary faculty in learning about and implementing the principles of UDL to meet the learning needs of diverse students, increase student engagement and enhance faculty effectiveness.

“We’ve had speakers come from all over the country and lecture on many different topics,” Mack said. “We also have the opportunity to talk about what we do here at NDCPD, and how we implement those topics as well as the services we provide.”

The webinar is open to the public and is for anyone interested in the disabilities field. The audience ranges from people in the disabilities field, people with disabilities, family members of those with disabilities and others.

Speakers have included Cari Glantz and Tai Leigh Baker from University of Wyoming, and Shelby Dorsey and Cate Weir from THINK College.

The last three webinars will cover topics like Using Customized Employment, Inclusion Towards Rightful Presence and Quality Training leads to Job Retention.

NDCPD hopes to continue doing the Collaboration for Change series again in the future.

“It’s important for people in the community to continue to learn more about what we do and the services we offer, “ said Mack. “We hope to do more of these webinars in the future, “ she said. “It was a shot in the dark putting this together and it really blossomed.”