#RTC:Rural Enews

July 2026

An older man in a green shirt and wheelchair is being pushed down a street by a woman, while people cheer around them.

RTC:Rural Updates

Coming Soon - Project CARE and RILL Network Recruitment

Rural libraries are anchor institutions that can provide valuable help with outreach and leveraging local resources. Are you interested in partnering with public libraries in your rural community? Consider joining the Project CARE Implementation Team or the Rural Independent Living and Libraries (RILL) Network!

For the past year, we have been working with a team of CILs on Project CARE and will be expanding the group this fall to implement our CIL/library resource. The RILL Network is a peer-supported component of our work exploring collaborative programming between CILs and their local libraries to improve disability services. The Implementation Team and the RILL Network will go live this October. Be on the lookout for more information in a future RTC:Rural enews.

Contact Jeff Gutierrez to find out more.

A group of APRIL Roundtable participants speak with one another.

Photo courtesy of Jon Wick

APRIL Roundtables Factsheet

In October 2025, RTC:Rural staff hosted a roundtable session in Portland, OR, at the annual APRIL Conference. The session, Collaborating for Rural Outreach and Assessing the Resource and Training Needs of Rural CIL Staff and Consumers, provided participants with the opportunity to inform future research, training, and development projects and build partnerships for future collaborations. We created a factsheet that summarizes the roundtable discussions into categorized topics.

Check out the APRIL Roundtable Factsheet

Research, Policy, and Practice Summit Recap

In May, RTC:Rural hosted a research, policy, and practice summit examining the critical personal assistance workforce shortage in rural communities. Through a presentation by RTC:Rural researchers and a panel discussion with experts, we explored ways to strengthen rural home health care through coordinated investment in the direct care workforce. We wrote a factsheet with key points, a synopsis of the presentation, and snapshots of our panelists’ perspectives on the personal assistance workforce.

Two women sit and look at their phones. One is a middle-aged white woman with glasses and brown hair, and the other is a younger asian woman with black hair and glasses.

A close up image of a hand using a computer mouse at a desk.

Does who is counted matter? Comparing disability measures and self-rated health.

Are you into data? RTC:Rural researcher Andrew Myers' recent publication examines different measures of disability to determine their accuracy and likelihood of improving health equity for individuals with disability. Differences in disability measurement can result in inaccurate information about health risks experienced by the disabled population, missing millions of disabled Americans' health risks and leading to less effective policies. Accurate data matters!

Read the Publication Here

Network News:

IL T & TA Center Trainings

Our partners at IL T & TA Center have a full calendar of trainings to advance the work of CILs and SILCs. Some of their upcoming trainings include:

Ask Anything: Your IL Resource Group Learn & Share

2nd Thursday of the month
3:00 to 4:00 PM ET

Emotional Wellness & Elevated Engagement Cohort

Wednesdays, September 2nd, 9th, and 16th
3:00 to 4:30 PM ET

Learn and Share: Outreach Strategies: Reaching the Deaf Community

Tuesday, July 26th, 2026
3:00 to 4:00 PM ET

Take a look at other upcoming trainings from the IL T & TA Center.

An older blind woman with dark hair and a purple sweater sits and talks with an older woman in a wheelchair with a dark colored blazer and blonde hair.

Three teenagers sit on a couch and high-five one another.

Scholarship Opportunity! Parent to Parent USA Doctoral Research Award

Our partners at Montana Family to Family work with Parent to Parent USA to provide parent support to families with children with disabilities. They have just announced the P2P USA Doctoral Research Award, which will provide two $5,000 awards to doctoral students researching peer support for parents and caregivers of children with disabilities or special health care needs.

They are welcoming proposals from doctoral students across disciplines, including social work, psychology, public health, education, disability studies, family studies, and related fields.

The application deadline is December 4.

Learn More About the Doctoral Research Award

Seeking Disabled Adults to Participate in a Research Study About Sex Education Experiences

Arya Boris, a doctoral candidate at Widener University in the Human Sexuality program, is seeking participants for her study about what sexuality education disabled people were taught before they became adults. Arya does this research to see how disabled people feel about the sexuality education they got, and to give all disabled people the chance to be a part of making learning better for disabled students.

You can be a part of this study if you are a disabled adult and became disabled before you turned 19. You must have grown up in the United States. You cannot have been homeschooled for more than half of your learning. You must have been born in 1990 or later.

Take the survey here!

A close-up image of a man with a prosthetic leg in shorts and tennis shoes stretching.

The Research and Training Center on Disability in Rural Communities (RTC:Rural) conducts research on disability as part of the Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities at the University of Montana.

RTC:Rural is funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) grant number 90RTCP0007 to improve the ability of people with disabilities to engage in rural community living.