The California Employment Consortium for Youth and Young Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (CECY) needs your help. CECY would like to improve life after high school for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who would like to go to college and/or get a job. They have put together a survey that will take about 15 minutes to complete, the results of which will help to create tools and materials that assist young adults in finding services for going to college and getting a job.
Questions include:
• How important is it to you that your son or daughter begins college within one to two years of completing high school?
• Has a teacher or counselor from your son or daughter’s school worked with them to plan for their life after high school?
• Is work a goal in your youth/young adult’s Individual Program Plan (IPP) with the Regional Center
If you are interested in providing data that will guide efforts to improve life after high school, click here to take the survey.

Noah, now in preschool and chatty for his age, began showing what researchers called severe symptoms of autism spectrum disorder – a complex developmental disability that affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others – when he was just 6 months old. His eye contact was off, Kristin said, and he wouldn’t reciprocate facial expressions.
Those were red flags for the young mother, who noticed similar signs in her sons Justin and Simon before they were diagnosed with autism years earlier. Read more.

Solano County officials have selected Gerald Huber as the new director of Health and Social Services.
Starting Nov. 10, he will assume leadership over Solano County’s largest and most comprehensive public service agency.
Huber, who has been involved with health and human service programs at county, state and federal levels of government for more than 30 years in Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York, will oversee a $289 million budget and more than 1,200 employees working in five program services areas in 22 offices throughout Solano County. Read more.

EveryoneON believes everyone should have the opportunity to get connected. Offering low cost internet services to eligible participants, students receiving free lunches through their schools may be eligible to receive internet services for as little as $9.95 a month with Comcast. Click here to learn more about EveryoneON.

It’s a mystery that researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute are looking to crack. Why are boys five times more likely than girls to be autistic?
As Christine Wu Nordahl, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UC Davis MIND Institute explains it: A genetic mutation in girls has more hurdles to go over than boys.
“It takes a greater genetic hit for a girl to get autism than it does for a boy,” Nordahl said. Read more.

Oakland, CA – On July 25, the California Department of Public Health (DPH) recommended terminating federal certification of the remaining seven Intermediate Care Facility (ICF) units at Sonoma Developmental Center, impacting 166 residents, finding that the facility failed to meet multiple health and safety standards. This follows action in January 2013 when the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) voluntarily withdrew four ICF units at Sonoma from federal certification due to ongoing uncorrected deficiencies. Read More.

The California Department of Health announced Friday that it had issued a notice to terminate federal funding for the Sonoma Developmental Center, leaving the future of the beleaguered facility unclear. The Department of Developmental Services, which runs the facility, has 90 days to appeal the decision. Read More.