Class of 2019

“I have had the great privilege of having incredible mentors in my life. What they taught me and I hope to pay forward as a mentor is the importance of silence, flexibility, and humility. Listening to another person to hear not only what they are saying but what they need in return. Guidance, a sounding board, compassion, understanding…. mentoring takes on many different forms and requires the ability to adjust to the individual. Most importantly, my mentors taught me that mentoring is a two way street and in providing support to another person you learn as much (sometimes more) from them as they learn from you.”

We are proud to induct Elizabeth Jennings into the Susan Daniels Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame.

Elizabeth Jennings, M.A.P.P., is the Interim Acting Executive Director of National Disability Institute (NDI) where she has worked for the past thirteen years and served as Deputy Director for the last five years. Elizabeth has 22 years of experience working to improve the employment and economic outcomes of people with disabilities. She is skilled in multi-modal training and technical assistance with an eye on customizing materials and approach to meet the learner where they are towards increased knowledge gains and capacity building. She has developed fact sheets, reports, toolkits, trainings, and curriculum on a broad range of topics identified as beneficial to the employment and economic advancement of people with disabilities.

Elizabeth is recognized nationally for her knowledge on financial literacy education activities and strategies that improve the economic advancement of people with disabilities and the interplay of those strategies with Social Security disability benefits, including applicable work incentives and other SSA tools to mitigate barriers to full participation.

Prior to joining NDI, Elizabeth worked for Gulfstream Goodwill Industries in employment services and as the manager of their Benefits Planning, Assistance and Outreach project that covered five counties in South Florida, and was the Director of Community Impact for United Way of Palm Beach County where she managed the disability funding portfolio and worked closely with the County’s Youth Transition Taskforce to develop a plan for improving transition services for youth with disabilities and to launch an annual conference for transition-age youth and their families that was adopted by the School District.

Elizabeth earned her Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania where she is currently serving as an Assistant Instructor.