Tools You Can Use and More: 2025 Year-in-Review for YTI

As 2025 winds down, Wendy Strobel Gower, executive director at the Yang-Tan Institute (YTI), has been writing the institute’s holiday card and reflecting on the past year. “A recent and recurring theme for YTI is tools you can use to improve the lives of people with disabilities,” she said. These tools provide information and practical advice, based on research findings and expertise from YTI faculty – see below for links.

In 2025, YTI also published research papers, embarked on new projects and collaborations, redesigned its YTIOnline website to showcase more of its professional development offerings, and reworked its website to highlight upcoming events.

Research Is a Touchstone

Research has been keeping YTI busy. “Our research investigates a wide range of disability-related topics,” said Sarah von Schrader, director of research and program evaluation at YTI. “In 2025, our output included peer-reviewed papers and several articles and book chapters.”

Here is a sampling of the titles; those that are linked are free to read – or the abstract is – and taken together they illustrate the range of the institute’s research:

• Predictors of Postsecondary Education and High School Exit for Autistic Youth
• Supporting Students with Disabilities in Transitioning to Adulthood
• Disability and the Future of Work: Chapter 13, ‘Ableism Management’: The Additional Labor of Work and Life with a Disability
• The Oxford Handbook of Rehabilitation Psychology, Second Edition: Chapter 16, Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment.

YTI researchers also secured three new field-initiated grants, and the projects are now getting underway. These projects will:

• Explore how employers’ practices and attitudes affect employment opportunities and other related outcomes of justice-impacted individuals with disabilities.
• Identify policies, programs, and practices needed to support care workers with disabilities and adults with disabilities who use personal care services to be able to work – as both groups endeavor to engage in the labor force.
• Investigate steps autistic young people can take to achieve better outcomes and how programs can better serve these young people.

Training from YTIOnline and eCornell

The refreshed YTIOnline professional development website is now online, making it easier to access a variety of professional development opportunities, including certification courses from the new Disability Workforce Development Center and its many new trainings, such as the ACRE-approved Basic Level in Employment Services course. YTIOnline is also home to the popular Work Incentive Support Center.

Cornell University’s eCornell offers Disability at Work and Neurodiversity at Work, both created by Susanne Bruyère, YTI ‘s academic director.

Working for New York State: The Land Grant Mission

YTI also supported New York’s Employment First goals in a variety of ways, including hosting its first Ithaca-based conference in June with the theme of working together across systems, as well as helping the New York State Office of the Chief Disability Officer hold its annual Disability Rights and Employment Awareness Month (DREAM) conference in October.

Year-End Mini-Reports

Here is a sampling of initiatives that YTI teams have been working on this past year – and what they are looking forward to in the new year.

Autism Transition to Adulthood Initiative

In 2025, the Autism Transition to Adulthood Initiative (ATTAIN) completed work under a gift from K. Lisa Yang and started new research efforts, thanks to a NIDILRR Field Initiated Research Project. For the gift, data analysis for a pilot project focused on self-determination is underway, as is work on five publications. Moving forward, a community research team has been recruited, and the first team meeting is scheduled to take place this year. In January, the project expects to update its website. 

Disability Employment Policy Rehabilitation Research and Training Center

YTI will work in partnership with the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, as well as with researchers from Harvard, Mathematica, and Rutgers. YTI will conduct research over five years toward developing a set of research-based state policy implementation practices to increase rates of competitive integrated employment of people with significant disabilities.

Disability Workforce Development Center

Looking ahead to January, the Center will offer training for a basic level in employment services certification to a new spring cohort. This training has been approved by the Association of Community Rehabilitation Educators (ACRE) and is facilitated by our highly skilled and field-experienced vocational rehabilitation experts, offering relevant and timely knowledge with practical application recommendations.

Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability

The Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability (EARN) recently released Benefit Your Business through Disability Employment, a new guide for employers on the benefits of hiring people with disabilities. EARN also enhanced its Mental Health Toolkit this year, adding a new section on substance use disorder in the workplace. This section includes guides for employers and employees on how to prevent workplace substance use and support colleagues in treatment for, or recovery from, substance use disorder.

Oregon Inclusive Career Advancement Program

The Oregon Inclusive Career Advancement Program(ICAP) is in its fifth and final year. Through ICAP, 634 people with disabilities have enrolled in career pathways across Oregon community colleges, which far exceeds the goal of 500. For more information, see YTI Asks, ‘Can Career Coaching Be Transformative?

New York State Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment Demonstration Project

YTI recently wrapped up a third year of program evaluation for the New York State Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment Demonstration project. Led by the New York vocational rehabilitation program (ACCES-VR), evaluators at YTI are learning more about how effective implementation of new programs can impact the ability of subminimum wage earners to attain competitive integrated employment. 

Northeast ADA Center

In 2025, the Northeast ADA Center launched the Small Business at Work Toolkit, which helps small businesses welcome customers and employees with disabilities. The Center also re-imagined and relaunched DisabilityStatistics.org, a website that makes it easy to get disability-related statistics in map, chart, or text format – for more information, see DisabilityStatistics.org Offers Visualization and Local Data. The Center continues to provide training and technical assistance on all aspects of the ADA. Follow the Northeast ADA on LinkedIn or Facebook to learn about opportunities to stay up to date with the Americans with Disabilities Act!

Technical Assistance Partnership for Data

During the 2024-25 academic year, the Technical Assistance Partnership (TAP) for Data provided 665 hours of coaching and technical assistance and conducted 21 recorded professional development events that were made available to over 400 regional specialists.

The TAP for Data created and maintains the Partnership’s Data Management System, which is used by over 400 regional partnership and family engagement staff across New York to track plans, activities, and outcomes of Partnership work in support of teachers, families, administrators, and students with disabilities in the state. The TAP for Data also leads the statewide evaluation of the Office of Special Education Educational Partnership, developing an annual report and sharing findings frequently with program implementers and other constituents. 

Technical Assistance Partnership for Transition

During the 2024-25 academic year, the Technical Assistance Partnership (TAP) for Transition provided over 1,300 hours of coaching and technical assistance, using 35 professional development packages and resources focused on transition across the lifespan for students with disabilities as they prepare for the adult life they choose after high school.

In partnership with the Office of Special Education and ACCES (OSEA) State Implementation Team, the TAP furthered cross-agency initiatives by developing and analyzing statewide surveys and contributing to the creation of a New York State Education Department (NYSED) Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) policy memo. 

Work Incentive Support Center

During 2025, the Work Incentive Support Center (WISC) team provided training to over 1,600 people. Some were earning continuing education units or exploring a topic of interest, but WISC also certified or recertified 333 people with a Work Incentive Practitioner (WIP-C) credential and 50 people with a Veteran, Youth, or Leadership credential. 

The team also built a new credentialing course about work incentives for self-employed individuals receiving disability benefits. The course was funded by a subcontractor grant with the National Disability Institute. Eventually, this course will become available to interested participants. 

Tools from YTI in 2025 

To close out this year-in-review, here are YTI’s highlighted tools from 2025:

• The ATTAIN project, which investigated “predictors of success” for autistic youth, released a checklist for youth with autism (PDF) and a brief about ATTAIN’s findings (PDF).
• Benefit Your Business through Disability Employment is a new guide from EARN. EARN also recently added a section on substance use disorder in the workplace to its Mental Health Toolkit.
• The Small Business at Work Toolkit addresses the real-world concerns of small businesses as they welcome customers and employees with disabilities. Published by the Northeast ADA Center, it focuses on the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Disability Benefits at Work provides information about Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance, with a focus on disability-related eligibility and work incentives. The Work Incentive Support Center updates this site annually.
• Disability Stats Your Way (PDF) provides colorful instructions on using the free DisabilityStatistics.org website to access disability-related statistics in map, chart, and text formats that can be used in presentations or reports. 

About the Yang-Tan Institute

Providing practical information to policymakers, employers, educators and others who assist people with disabilities is a core focus for the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, which is part of Cornell’s ILR School. The institute’s mission is to advance knowledge, policies and practices that enhance equal opportunities for all people with disabilities. Its research, training and technical resources expand knowledge about disability inclusion, leading to positive change.

The institute leads many grant-funded projects, including the Northeast ADA Center and the Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability. The institute also receives funding via a New York state legislative appropriation to assist with disability-related initiatives, and it offers a variety of professional education opportunities.