While we continue to be excited to gather our community in Fort Worth this November for our in-person convention, the safety of our attendees is our top priority. The staff and leadership of TED continue to monitor guidance by the CDC and best practices laid out by the meetings industry to help mitigate any concerns around attending. Given the current state of the pandemic and our desire to keep everyone as safe as possible, TED has made the decision to require all participants in the 2021 in-person convention to be fully vaccinated--including attendees, presenters, and exhibitors. This decision puts us in the best position to safely gather as conditions continue to evolve. We are also working together with CEC Headquarters as they will be requiring the same for their convention in January, and using the same platform that we will be utilizing.

Registered conference attendees will be provided information on how to verify their vaccination status using a simple, secure, and HIPAA-compliant third-party vendor. Accommodations requested at least three weeks in advance may be offered on a case-by-case basis for those unable to be vaccinated due to disability. We respect everyone’s decision to make health choices that best represent your personal considerations and to deal with those consequences.

In addition to the vaccine mandate, we are considering additional safety measures as part of our mitigation plan, but we will not make conclusive decisions on these until we are closer to the convention date in November. These considerations include possible mask mandates, social distancing, color-coded systems to show personal social distance comfort, etc. We are continuing to monitor and evaluate the outlook for in-person events and will share updates as they are available. We will be posting more information about what you can expect onsite as we get closer to our event dates. 

While we understand that a vaccine mandate is not a guarantee, it is part of an overall plan--each piece gets us one step closer to the end goal of being free from COVID. We are hopeful that the Delta variant will subside this fall and that gatherings with friends and colleagues safely can be something we return to.

We look forward to seeing many of you in Fort Worth. If you have any comments questions or concerns please don't hesitate to reach out to ted@exceptionalchildren.org