CATHY FICKER TERRILL, M.S

"We must support people to dream their biggest dream. The most important job for every professional in the field of disabilities is to support people to find and use their voice to advocate for their own individual dreams for the future."

LIFTING VOICES: "We must support people to find and use their voice to advocate for their own individual dreams for the future."

For the past 45 years, Cathy Ficker Terrill's career has included working in leadership positions in government, non-profit organizations, university teaching, advocacy and supporting and mentoring self-advocates. She has worked internationally to define, measure and improve personal quality of life for people with disabilities. She is a Past President of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). She is a past two-term White House Appointee to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities (PCPID).

Ms. Terrill has drafted and worked with self-advocates and families to pass state and national legislation in the US for early intervention, inclusive education, successful transition, competitive employment, family support, comprehensive healthcare for children, autism insurance coverage, housing, and disability rights. She wrote and implemented seven different Medicaid waiver plans for states. She has worked at the local, state and national stage for comprehensive organizational change toward fully inclusive supports and services for children and adults with disabilities. She has served on numerous boards, task forces and committees to create systems of services that have as their core, self-advocacy, self-determination and inclusion for all.

She has volunteered internationally, helping to create services for people with disabilities in many countries, including Russia and Lithuania. Under the direction of President George Bush, Sr., she joined a team of professionals who went to Saudi Arabia after Dessert Storm to conduct a comprehensive country-wide assessment of services and strategic plan for people with disabilities and people receiving aging services. She has been volunteering in Poland with family advocates wanting to set up programs and strategic

plans for young Polish adults with IDD. She arranged for the families to also tour programs in the US.

Over the years, Ms. Terrill has helped to bring groups of self-advocates and professional to the U.S. to see community supports in action. She also volunteered in Kosovo, with Mental Disability Rights International to promote community-based services and institutional closures. She led a delegation of 40 self-advocates and professionals on a professional exchange in China on IDD and brain injury. She has done volunteer work in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

JAMES R. (JIM) THOMPSON, PHD

“Being an advocate means believing in and taking action to support a cause that is bigger than oneself. The cause that has captured my imagination for over 40 years has been to assure that people with disabilities have full access to all of the opportunities that community life has to offer. My advocacy is fueled by the knowledge that people with and without disabilities have much to gain when people with disabilities are supported to be full participants in all aspects of community life.”

James R. Thompson, Ph.D. has over 40 years of experience in the field of developmental disabilities, as a direct support professional, special educator, rehabilitation counselor, teacher educator, and researcher. He has authored or co-authored over 70 books, book chapters, monographs, and articles in professional journals, and has directed multiple federal and state-funded research and model demonstration projects. He pioneered assessment and planning practices that are focused on understanding people with disabilities by their needs for extra support. He is the lead author of the adult and children’s version of the Supports Intensity Scales, the first assessment tools to provide a standardized measure of the support needs of people with developmental disabilities. The SIS scales have been translated and published in 17 languages and are being used throughout North America and world. Dr. Thompson’s

latest book, Planning for the Success of Students with IEPs: A Support-Based Approach to Inclusive Education, will be published in 2022 by W. W. Norton & Company.

Dr. Thompson earned his undergraduate degree in special education (1980) and a master’s degree in educational administration (1989) from Illinois State University. He earned a doctoral degree in educational psychology (1994) from the University of Minnesota. He currently serves at the University of Kansas as a Professor in the Department of Special Education, a Senior Scientist in the Beach Center on Disability, and an Associate Director of the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities. He also maintains a courtesy appointment as a Visiting Professor at the University College Ghent (Belgium), and serves as a consultant with the Het EQUALITY Research Collective (the EQUAL Center), a center that is devoted to the study of Quality of Life and disability populations.

He is a past President of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) and is currently on the Board of Directors for the Council for Exceptional Children's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Division as well as The Arc of Douglas County (KS). He is the Editor in Chief of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a professional journal of research, policy, and practice published by the AAIDD.

BELIEF IN A BIGGER CAUSE: "People with and without disabilities have much to gain when people with disabilities are supported to be full participants in all aspects of community life."