360 Creative Team It’s here! The third edition of LivAbility magazine! We work to tell compelling stories of advocacy, independence and equality through interesting people, places and things in each issue. This quarter, we feature Josette Ulibarri and Shawn “Dallas” Hall, very different individuals who each demonstrate daily what it means to be a 360Human. Josette is a mom, an aspiring model and fierce advocate for herself and the community. Shawn leads our new feature: “Cool Careers” as an MMA judge, radio host and owner of a home health agency. It doesn’t get cooler than that. Shawn, like our future profiles has not let an able perspective define his career choice. That’s cool. Both Josette and Shawn live with joie de vivre and have powerful stories of self-advocacy to achieve their goals as well as cool jobs and independent adventures that demonstrate their robust integration into their communities. In between the pages of LivAbility, you’ll find stories that reflect the entire 360Spectrum of living well with a disability.
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LivAbility Magazine
In our regular columns…Employment expert, the inimitable Susan Webb, covers the dilemma of the earnings cliff. Don Price embarks on a new recreation adventure in the nationally-recognized Arizona Urban Fishing Program. Last, Loren Worthington’s regular column “Road to Rio” covers amazing Paralympians on their quest for Gold. In each issue, we try to bring you information about important issues that impact you. This time, we cover caregiving, voting, Ability360’s shared vision with ASU to enhance employment training through a peer mentoring component and how the healthcare system fails people with disabilities. We also feature the National Center on Disability Journalism as they rewrite the way disability is portrayed in media. Ed Roberts said: “We have three top priorities: advocacy, advocacy, advocacy.” We can never tell enough stories of successful advocates; meet effective self-advocate Kara Kahnke, and Ability360 advocacy specialist, David Carey.
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We illustrate the core services of independent living that Ability360 provides. We hope you’ll find themes of peer mentoring, education, employment, and community integration throughout. We’re also aware that our first three covers have featured individuals who use wheelchairs. Although they are each very different, we recognize that we’ve been weighted heavily on mobility disabilities and pledge that we’ll reach for broad and interesting stories to tell in other realms of the disability experience and in other parts of Arizona. We’re flexing and growing as we go. We welcome your tips and ideas on great stories, so please share them at editor@ability360.org. We hope you enjoy this edition of LivAbility. We’re already hard at work on next quarter. See you then!