Bender Leadership Academy

The Bender Leadership Academy delivers competency-building programs that enable students with disabilities to engage in educational, empowerment and work opportunities, celebrate successes, and set and achieve career journey goals. Bender Leadership Academy's goal is to increase long-term competitive employment for youth with disabilities. There are 7 main program titles: (1) work readiness training, which focuses on foundational skills assessment, dressing for success, resume building and practice interviews, presentation public speaking skills, virtual workplace tours, and utilizes employer partners for practice interview experiences, (2) student leaders training, which focuses on Leadership, initiative, anti-bullying, resume building and interview skills, presentation public speaking skills, networking and employer connections, virtual workplace tours, and utilizes speakers from employer partners to reinforce concepts, (3) certifcations (icdl international computing drivers license and nrf customer service), which focus on self-paced online modules, the seven microsoft suite basic functionality certifications, virtual proctoring and assessment, soft skills, with instructor oversite, as well as the basic customer service concepts, (4) digital access @ work, which teaches web content accessibility guidelines (wcag), digital accessibility testing methodologies, color contrast analyzer (cca), and non-visual desktop access (nvda), and (5) jarrett community engagement training, which focuses on Leadership, self-advocacy, advocacy for disability rights, volunteerism, the importance of voting, and how to take action utilizing speakers from employer partners to reinforce concepts, (6) advanced student leaders to continue the development of public speaking and Leadership skills while learning how to put your workplace skills to practical use. Bender Leadership Academy's advanced student leaders program continues to focus on Leadership, initiative, and improving interview skills along with financial literacy, entrepreneurship, community engagement, advocacy, healthy mind habits and utilizes speakers from employer partners to reinforce concepts, (7) education2employment to provide experiences that take students from learning to practical application. By collaborating with community employers, Bender Leadership Academy oversees a variety of opportunities that help students apply what they have learned in a supported work experience.

The Bender Leadership Academy conducts the mary brougher mental health initiative, which works to help individuals build a mental fitness routine and become mental health advocates. The initiative provides mental fitness training in the following ways (1) to become empowered to talk about mental health, (2) to engage in healthy mind habits that build skills in self-compassion, coping, and resiliency, (3) to learn to identify and understand emotions and what they tell us, and (4) to explore where thoughts come from and how to process them in a healthy way. The initiative also teaches individuals about mental health advocacy in the following ways: (1) to understand what it means to be an advocate, (2) to learn about current civil rights issues for people with mental health disabilities, (3) to hear presentations from community partners about mental health advocacy, and (4) to explore actions that youth advocates can take to bring about change that addresses stigma of mental health. The initiative launched the #notashamed campaign to reduce stigma around mental health disabilities, to empower youth with mental health disabilities to take pride in who they are, to create a community of allies dedicated to ending myths around mental health disability and to celebrate the intersectionality of the lived experience and mental health disability.