CILTS contracted with BPA to provide disability awareness training and support services to the Commission on Improving Life Through Service to achieve several key goals including increasing disability awareness in AmeriCorps programs in California, increasing recruitment of members with disabilities, and assisting CILTS in implementing its plan of achieving ADA compliance. These goals were addressed through training, technical assistance, and outreach to the disability community.

BPA's approach included a number of strategies for ensuring success in achieving project goals that went beyond simply providing generic disability awareness and ADA training to staff included:

• A train-the trainer approach to enable Disability Specialists to conduct disability awareness and ADA training workshops for staff and members of their own programs;
  
• Development of a detailed training manual including agendas, curriculum, handouts, overheads and resource materials;
  
• Using regional seminars as an opportunity for team-building among Disability Specialists so they could continue to provide ongoing support to each other once the training and support contract was over;
  
• Having Disability Specialists co-facilitate program workshops with BPA trainers as hands-on preparation for being able to conduct the training themselves;
  
• Providing follow-up technical assistance and phone consultation to trainees to support implementation efforts and reinforce curriculum content;
  
• Including disability organizations in the training to facilitate outreach and partnerships;
  
• Building a Trainer/consultant feedback system into the service delivery process such that frequently-asked training and technical assistance questions were incorporated into the training curriculum on an ongoing basis.