By Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, Director, Whole Community Inclusion
On May 19th, we celebrated another successful year of learning about disability awareness and how to support students of all abilities with this year’s Reta Emerson Fellows/Teen Assistant Program (TAP) Teens.
Since participating in an intensive training last August, these teens have worked in their synagogue schools supporting students with learning differences and more complex special needs. They have come to ongoing education sessions through the year, learning about positive support strategies that they could implement with their students. They’ve also written about their experiences on our TAP blog, lead disability awareness education in their synagogues and volunteered at community events for people with disabilities.
I am so proud of these smart, compassionate and energetic teens! They fill me with hope that our Jewish community is moving in the direction of recognizing the humanity and value in each person.
We are currently taking nominations for next year’s group of Reta Emerson Fellows. Please reach out to me to nominate a great teen that you know: gkaplan-mayer@