Special Thanks to YOU!

We continue to be blessed with a very strong and passionate membership who have worked incredibly hard to help us develop our programs, start three support groups, complete the Disability:IN DEI survey, and many other accomplishments. (see the slide below for summary)

We’d also like to thank our support group facilitators, Stephanie D’Angelo, Tami Martin, Chris McKay and Harrel Townsend who are incredible for what they do and have helped so many of our members.

We acknowledge our colleagues and partners in Health and Employee Wellness. Dr. Stalker and her entire team have been so amazing in supporting our group. They are both professionally and personally invested with us and we can’t thank them enough for all they have done for our group.

We also thank our lab leaders, from Paul Kearns, Leslie Krohn, Julie Nuter, Stu Hannay and on through the entire executive team, they have been so supportive of our ABLED group!

… and of course, a final thanks to the Leadership Institute as well for helping launch a couple years ago and keeping us going today, especially Lydia Finney, who is an unsung hero behind the scenes of many of the ERG’s in the lab.

 

Mental Health Wellness Support Group Launch

We couldn’t have asked for a better launch of this new group on October 15th. Harrel stepped up to volunteer to lead the facilitation and we are VERY appreciative of the help of Lisa Pocius from HEW and Stephanie Haywood from the Perspectives employee assistance program for working with us in advance and preparing us for the complexities in managing this level and type of support group.

Lets keep it rolling, November 12th at Noon is our next scheduled meeting. Please come! Even if you don’t want to talk or volunteer anything, sometimes it’s helpful just to hear other people’s experiences and realizing that you are not alone. It’s the type of group we think anyone in the lab can benefit from.

ABLED Membership Survey

Coming up to our two year anniversary, we want to pulse our membership to see what’s important for you in regards to ABLED and our programs and services.

Keep on the lookout for this and start thinking about what educational programming you would like to see, future support groups, observances to recognize, events, outreach, etc.

We look forward to getting your feedback!

Planning Committees

To organize our efforts on the goals for ABLED, we are forming new planning committees launching soon. We would love to get your help to volunteer and to any extent you can. We have a lot of passion and expertise around our membership and these committees will give you an opportunity to work deeper in an employee resource group, influence our programming, and expand your network and relationships across the lab.

Here is a short summary of the committees and some of their scope. Please contact us at [email protected] if you are interested or want to learn more.

Communications Committee

  • ABLED’s digital presence: website; blog; social media
  • Leading a new graphic Identity for ABLED
  • Development of communication materials; content
  • Assisting the support groups with communication needs

Disability Equality Index Committee

  • Disability:IN survey response
  • Disability Equality Index survey actions

Programming Committee

  • Education and Event programming
  • Member social events
  • Assisting the support groups with programming needs
  • Fundraising

New ABLED Communications Tools

At our membership meeting this month, Frank Montagna introduced to everyone the new ABLED website and it’s features as well as our new Microsoft Teams channel.

The website is going to be foundational in how we, as an employee resource group, engage and inform the wider Argonne community. We will have an active blog, feeds, etc. to keep it as engaging and updated as possible.

The Teams channel will be a very active tool for our membership to engage and collaborate directly with each other, share resources and news. The Teams site is still being finalized but we will reach out to you all when it is up and running and let you know how to receive an invitation to join.

Thank you Frank, it was a big effort to get this launched!