This training video was created for first responders in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania to better serve individuals with autism.
This video features Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver and our athletes discussing why it's so important to include people with intellectual disabilities in all areas of life-especially healthcare access. The first step is learning how to communicate with respect, compassion, and care.
Whether you're in a professional environment or just having a personal conversation, consider these 10 basic rules for communicating with a person with an intellectual disability.
The Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) recognizes the importance of information sharing and networking among the people they support and their families. You may not know where to turn to get direction and guidance.
This website has a number of groups that exist across New York State. Within these organizations are self-advocates, parents, and family members just like you, who have experienced similar circumstances and are willing to share their experiences.
Many of these organizations and groups are organized by self-advocates and parents of children with disabilities. They are often staffed by professionals who can provide assistance or guide you to other advocacy groups that will be able to answer your questions.
As part of its 2020 CARES Act Telehealth Award from The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Family Voices National created a Telemedicine Curriculum titled the Nuts and Bolts of Telemedicine: Essentials for a Family-Centered Experience.
The curriculum includes four webinars:
There is a recording of each webinar that serves as a train-the-trainer so presenters can familiarize themselves with the information. There is an accompanying set of PowerPoint slides and talking points, in English and Spanish, that presenters can use "as is" or adapt to best need the needs of the families they serve.
COVID-19 is a disease caused by a virus that spreads easily and can make people very sick. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine protects against COVID-19, and is an important tool to help stop the pandemic. People with developmental disabilities, their families, and supporters play an important role in preventing COVID-19 by getting a vaccine. View this website for fact sheets with information about the COVID-19 Vaccine.
This project started in January of 2020 when the world, and most especially the United States, was different. Our priority to analyze the changing reality of disability was born of a growing sense of concern that much of what people knew of disability in 1990 had not evolved or not evolved enough. Unless we know who's being left out we cannot create a world that minimizes the rising volume of functional limitation and support everyone to live self-directed lives.
The goal of this project is to spotlight issues for people too seldom considered as central to understanding disability in America. To summon awareness that can help to inform policy as we act to rebuild from the 2020 COVID 19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. The hope is to stimulate research with neglected populations to end doing harm and learn what works if we are to measure progress.
People with intellectual, cognitive or developmental disabilities get involved as both victims and suspects/offenders with law enforcement and with the criminal justice system. Use this factsheet to discuss policing with individuals with disabilities.
Traditional face masks interfere with lip reading and transmission of sign language "facial grammar," disrupting communication for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. In fact, being unable to see facial expressions is a barrier to communication for many people: teachers, health professionals, performers, police, and more. Clear masks -- those with a transparent window in front -- are being sought by many. Nationwide, volunteer sewists have produced and donated thousands of cloth masks, easing the PPE crisis. Together, let's shift mask culture to clear.
The United States Census Bureau reports that approximately 56.7 million Americans have a disability. This booklet is for anyone—with or without a disability—who wants to interact more effectively with people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was conceived with the goal of integrating people with disabilities into all aspects of life, particularly the workplace and the marketplace. Sensitivity toward people with disabilities is not only in the spirit of the ADA, it makes good business sense.
Use this resource to help you expand your practice, better serve your customers or develop your audience. When supervisors and co-workers use disability etiquette, employees with disabilities feel more comfortable and work more productively. Practicing disability etiquette is an easy way to make people with disabilities feel welcome.
Disability can impact communication. Identifying a patient’s disability and its potential impact on effective communication is the first step in reducing the risk of miscommunication. The type of disability – whether intellectual, sensory, mobility or mental health – will help determine the kind of accommodation needed. Usually minor accommodations can be made to ensure effective communication. There are many options for auxiliary aids and services to ensure effective communication. Health care providers and their staff can develop skills and acquire tools that will allow them to successfully provide accommodations to patients with disabilities. This guide will provide information to help you communicate effectively with your patients with disabilities.
We are writing this booklet in June of 2020. Right now, there are protests all over the country about racism and police violence. We wrote this booklet in plain language so as many people as possible can understand the protests. There is a lot to know about racism and police violence. Racism is when people are treated unfairly because of their race. Anti-Black racism is when Black people are treated unfairly because they are Black. We can’t talk about everything in this short booklet. We will tell you where to learn more. And, we will work on more resources. This booklet is just to get you started.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Health and Disability program offers technical assistance to local health departments to improve their capacity to develop emergency preparedness plans that are inclusive of people with disabilities. The program provides health departments with practical strategies and recommendations for successfully including people with disabilities in emergency planning and response efforts.
Based on NACCHO’s experience in providing this technical assistance to health departments, NACCHO developed five key recommendations that health departments should consider when planning to accommodate and address the needs of people with disabilities in emergencies or disasters.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), with support from the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and The Arc of the United States (The Arc), promotes the inclusion and engagement of people with disabilities in planning, implementing, and evaluating public health programs, products, and services. In 2013, NACCHO conducted key informant interviews with LHDs on the topic of inclusion for people with disabilities to better understand the capacity for inclusion among LHDs. NACCHO found that LHDs were interested in including people with disabilities but did not always have the tools, resources, or knowledge needed to begin. This guide highlights specific strategies and tools to help both local and state health departments include people with disabilities in public health programming and planning efforts.
Federal law requires covered entities—like COVID-19 testing centers and other medical facilities—to ensure their staff communicate effectively with people with disabilities. There are many types of disabilities—some visible, some invisible—and each individual person has their own unique needs and preferences. The best thing to do is ask a person how you can support them during the testing process. Use this resource for tips and guidelines to help you communicate effectively.
This documnet provides guidlines on how to effectively write about people with disabilities.
Everyday Words for Public Health Communication offers expert recommendations from CDC's Health Literacy Council and other agency communicators on how to reduce jargon and improve reader understanding. You can search for public health jargon or plain language words and find alternatives and example sentences.
The CDC Clear Communication Index (Index) is a research-based tool to help you develop and assess public communication materials.
JFK Partners is a program of the Department of Pediatrics of the University of Colorado School of Medicine located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado. Designated as Colorado's University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) Program, JFK Partners has collaborative relationships with numerous organizations that are a part of Colorado's developmental disability and special health care needs communities.
The purpose of JFK Partners is to provide:
This toolkit assists public health and emergency planners and nongovernmental organization (NGO) stakeholders in determining the capacity and capability of particular NGOs for disaster response and recovery. In addition, the toolkit fills an important gap in knowledge and understanding about the key elements that drive NGO participation. Revisiting the toolkit routinely can help an NGO monitor its progress in achieving goals for engagement in disaster response and recovery and for working with other NGOs in a community or region.
This online training provides foundational knowledge about people with disabilities, the health disparities that they experience, and how local health department staff can include people with disabilities in their public health programs and services.
This research-based guide will help you develop intuitive health websites and digital tools that can be easily accessed and understood by all users — including the millions of Americans who struggle to find, process, and use online health information.
Foundational Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Inclusion of People with Intellectual Disability is designed to provide organizations with the necessary foundation to move towards the full and sustainable inclusion of people with ID as they work to improve overall population health. This foundational resource also provides organizations with strategies to better understand what actions they can take to improve inclusion of people with ID in their existing policies, programs, and services. Using this resource to develop an action plan, specific to the goals and capacity of the organization, a program or organization can outline strategies to identify where the organization is (assessment), what steps to take (implementation), and whether it is doing what it intended to do (evaluation).
The goal of inclusive health is to promote inclusion of people with ID in health systems that serve the general public, including their policies, programming and services, training programs, research, and funding streams.
An infographic that providex information about the 61 million adults in the United States that re living with a disability. Use this infographic to join CDC and its partners to work together to improve the health of people living with disabiltiies.
About 1 in 4, or 61 million, U.S. adults reports having some form of a disability. Disability is part of the human experience, but sometimes people use words or phrases that are insensitive and do not promote understanding, dignity, and respect for people with disabilities. Most often than not, this is not intentional, but is disrespectful just the same. Use this factsheet to learn more about plain language and tips for communicating with and about people with disabilities.
Adults with disabilities experience significant health disparities compared to adults without disabilities. To improve the health of this population, state epidemiologists, researchers and public health professionals need access to accurate and timely data to inform their state’s health promotion activities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created Disability and Health Data System (DHDS) to provide quick and easy access to data on demographics and health information for adults with disabilities. Learn more about DHDS in this informative factsheet.
The CDC-funded New Hampshire Disability and Public Health project (DPH) is a collaboration between the University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability and NH Division of Public Health Services. The project goal, to promote and maximize health, prevent chronic disease, improve emergency preparedness and increase the quality of life among people with disabilities, is achieved through activities that focus on infusing disability components into existing public health programs and initiatives.
Individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and their families have new expectations for life after high school, including attending college, becoming employed, managing personal assistance services and transportation, and having intimate relations. However, the vocabulary needed to support these socially-valued adult roles is frequently not be available in pre-programmed devices nor in commonly used visual symbol systems. This website contains vocabulary needed to participate in 8 socially-valued adult roles:
This guidance is for a broad audience, including emergency professionals across settings and sectors of government, education, business, and nonprofits. People with disabilities and others with access and functional needs are a diverse and large part of every community. Combined, these individuals can represent over 50 percent of your population and include people who have no or limited abilities to run, walk, stand, climb, see, hear, read, speak, understand or remember. These are people who may need additional, targeted response assistance to:
Planning ahead for inclusion can help to create an event that is welcoming to everybody. Here are some guidelines to consider when organizing meetings and events.
This checklist is designed to help any person, group, or organization plan a meeting or conference that is inclusive and welcoming for everyone. It offers helpful suggestions in many areas of event planning, including choosing a location, using respectful language for registration questions about accommodations, and tips on refreshments and meals. Its purpose is to provide practical recommendations that promote meaningful participation for everyone.
This archived webinar strives to define the three major types of disability, discribe how people with disabilities can be included in the six MAPP phases, and describe three NACCHO and NCHPAD resources that can suppot local public health disability inclusion efforts.
Adults with disabilities living in rural areas typically rely on services that are more informal and less specialized. They must travel farther and pay more for those services, and they tend to receive lower quality care than their urban counterparts. Local health departments play a crucial role in filling resource and service gaps that face rural America. This resources provides five approaches health departments can follow to promote the health and well-being of people with disabilities who live in rural areas.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) works to promote the highest level of engagement of people with disabilities within all local health department (LHD) programs, products, and services. The establishment of accessible communication practices across all LHD activities is critical in supporting this aim. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires state and local government agencies to practice “effective communication,” stating “whatever is written or spoken must be as clear and understandable to people with disabilities as it is for people who do not have disabilities.” This fact sheet provides five action steps for LHDs to ensure that accessibility and inclusion are agency-wide priorities when developing and delivering all forms of communication.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued revised ADA regulations under Title III, which covers many types of private businesses, or “places of public accommodation.” Many of these revisions apply to places of lodging, such as new requirements for reservation systems, and revised standards for facility access.
El Departamento de Justicia (DOJ, por sus siglas en inglés) ha emitido regulaciones revisadas de la ADA bajo el Título III, que cubren muchos tipos de empresas privadas o “lugares de alojamientos públicos”. Muchas de estas revisiones se aplican a lugares de alojamiento, tales como los nuevos requisitos para los sistemas de reserva y normas revisadas sobre el acceso a instalaciones.
There are people in Puerto Rico who, because of a disability, the state of their health, or because they are taking care of a person who requires supervision or has a disability, cannot physically go to a clinical laboratory to get tested for COVID-19. Because of the close contact for supervising and supporting the daily tasks of these populations, it is difficult for these families to implement the appropriate isolation at home. For this reason, we recommend performing the test at home through the services of a clinical laboratory. It is also crucial that a doctor provides the order or referral for taking the sample for the COVID-19 test of all the household members who live with the person with disabilities.
This document outlines a number of recommendations in order to facilitate the implementation of at-home COVID-19 laboratort tests.
FEMA is committed to working with public, private and non-profit organizations to build a culture of preparedness and ready the Nation for catastrophic events in a manner that includes and meets the needs of people with disabilities. This document contains the contact list of regional disability integration specialists addressing emergency response in multiple regions.
Drive-thru medical sites are one way that hospitals and health departments provide intermittent medical services (such as administering the flu vaccine) with greater ease and/or safety for their patients. Typically consisting of pop-up tents and traffic cones, these temporary sites may be located in a parking lot at the hospital or a retail store or in a state fairground.
Whether these drive-thru medical services are funded and/or operated by the state, county, or city or a private business, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that the services are accessible to people with disabilities. This fact sheet lists considerations and strategies to promote accessibility at drive-thru medical sites, including those sites where patients may be asked to exit their vehicles.
We serve a diverse population, including people with different educational, work, and life experiences. Using plain language simplifies words, making them clear to the reader, no matter their background.The National Center for Education Statistics reports about 1 in 5 adults cannot read a newspaper. This resource provides information on writing in plain language.
Please answer the questions on this form to help physicians provide you with proper medical treatment, in case you need to go to the hospital for COVID-19 related symptoms. Complete as many of the questions as possible.
"People First Language puts the person before the disability, and describes what a person has, not who a person is." Visit www.disabilityisnatural.com to see the original, full-length article.
Key messages on talking with deaf patients cultivated from conversations between healthcare providers and patients with lived experiences.
Quick tips on how to make your bog accessible to people with disabilities.
From mobility issues to cognitive impairment, disabilities affect many people's lives, whether by living with or loving someone who is differently-abled.
Curious about why going fragrance-free is important? Want to make your space more accessible? This new toolkit makes the answers easy to find and provides helpful tips and resources.
This guide discusses the unique difficulties autistic students face and how educators can respond to them. In addition, advice is provided from autism experts and resources to help families with an ASD child.
The city you live in can have an enormous impact on your quality of life - especially if you have a disability. From wheelchair accessible sidewalks to employment options to the weather itself, there are a variety of characteristics that can determine whether your hometown is a good place to live.
All too often, people with mobility limitations are excluded from the party, gathering or social event because the host's home is not visitable. The Research and Training Center on Independent Living has produced "Making Homes Visitable: A Guide for Wheelchair Users and Hosts," a resource that provides information about how people can make their homes visitable by people with mobility limitations - and why it matters.
This toolkit is intended to assist entities in planning meetings and events that are accessible to persons
with disabilities. It provides recommendations and checklists for all phases of a meeting or an event,
from choosing the venue to promotion, registration, presentations, materials, social events, meals,
and staff and volunteer training. Note, however, that it is impossible to anticipate every barrier that
might limit or preclude participation by a valued member. Moreover, because new ideas for improving
accessibility and new technologies continue to emerge, this toolkit should be viewed as a living
document that is meant to evolve.
You take medicines to help with health problems. Medicines can help you live a healthier life. You
have to be careful because medicines can also cause problems. There are four things you should
do to be safe.
This fact sheet provides important information on effective medicine use for women with intellectual disailities. Medicines can treat health problems and help you live a healthier life. When used incorrectly, medicines can also cause serious health problems. Many of these problems can be prevented. Learn four (4) tips to avoid common medicine mistakes.
Compared to people without disabilities, people with disabilities are at a higher risk for poor health outcomes such as hypertension, obesity, fall-related injuries, and depression. Knowledge about the health status and public health needs of people with disabilities is essential for addressing these and other health disparities. However, most public health training programs do not include curricula on people with disabilities and methods for including them in core public health efforts. There is a clear need for public health efforts to reduce health disparities among people with disabilities. This may be achieved by building a stronger public health workforce skilled in ways to include people with disabilities in all public health efforts.
Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)
The National Organization on Disability (NOD) is a private, non-profit organization that promotes the full participation and contributions of America's 57 million people with disabilities in all aspects of life. NOD focuses on increasing employment opportunities for the 80-percent of working-age Americans with disabilities who are not employed.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials' (NACCHO's) Health and Disability Program has been working with local health departments (LHDs) across the United States for several years to encourage the inclusion of people with disabilities in LHD programs, products, outreach, and services. In a recent national assessment of LHDs, NACCHO found that LHDs often misperceive what constitutes the population of people with disabilities.1 Some LHDs reported people with disabilities as those with developmental disabilities or physical disabilities, while others reported that Communities of Color or non-English speaking populations classify as members of the disability population, which is not the case. This fact sheet helps to clarify who people with disabilities are from a public health perspective and provides health-related information to LHDs about the members of this population.
The Hilltop Institute's Hospital Community Benefit Program is a central, objective resource for state and local decision makers who seek to ensure that tax exempt hospital community benefit activities are responsive to pressing community health needs.This brief is the ninth in the series, Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA. Earlier briefs address the requirements for tax exempt hospitals established by §9007 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and assessed federal and state approaches to community benefit regulation.
There are currently at least 30 million Americans using wheelchairs and those numbers continue to increase as a large population of people with age related challenges look for ways to live independently in their homes.Bathroom safety is one of the number one concerns in making a home accessible because more than 2/3 of emergency room visits are due to bathroom falls.
These guidelines from the U.S. Access Board serve as the basis for standards for new construction and alterations of recreation facilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The Guidelines provide suggestions on ways psychologists can make their practices more accessible and disability-sensitive, and how they might enhance their working relationships with clients with disabilities. Additionally, the Guidelines provide information on how psychologists can obtain more education, training and experience with disability-related matters.
This checklist provides guidance for determining whether a hotel has accessible grounds, paths, and amenities for guests with a variety of disabilities. This checklist was adapted and modified by AUCD to be used for site selection of the 2012 Disability and Health Partners Meeting site hotel.
This webpage contains scoping and technical requirements for accessibility to buildings and facilities by individuals with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. These scoping and technical requirements are to be applied during the design, construction, and alteration of buildings and facilities covered by titles II and III of the ADA to the extent required by regulations issued by Federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and the department of Transportation, under the ADA.
The Access Board is an independent Federal agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities. The Board develops and maintains design criteria for the built environment, transit vehicles, telecommunications equipment, and for electronic and information technology. It also provides technical assistance and training on these requirements and on accessible design, and continues to enforce accessibility standards that cover federally funded facilities.
This guide suggests ways your fitness facility can go beyond the minimum requirements of the law and make your facility and services more appealing and accessible to more people. The illustrations and information in this book demonstrate how barriers in the physical environment can be removed and how exercise equipment and fitness programs can be designed to create a welcoming facility that will attract additional members.
This guide is intended to help designers and operators in using the accessibility guidelines for play areas. These guidelines establish minimum accessibility requirements for newly constructed and altered play areas. This guide is not a collection of playground designs. Rather, it provides specifications for elements within a play area to create a general level of usability for children with disabilities. Emphasis is placed on ensuring that children with disabilities are generally able to access the diversity of components provided in a play area.
This checklist from the American Foundation for the Blind provides practical, cost-effective solutions concerning access to hotel services and facilities by your guests who are blind, deaf-blind, or visually impaired, as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
If you saw a person in a wheelchair unable to get up the stairs into a building, would you say "There is a handicapped person unable to find a ramp?" Or would you say "There is a person with a disability who is handicapped by an inaccessible building?" What is the proper way to speak to or about someone who has a disability?
This document provides suggestions on how to use Person First Language to communicate with and about people with disabilities.
The 2011-2012 Montana Mammography Directory provides information on mammography service providers by city. Each entry includes contact information, hours of operation, standard and additional services available, and disability access information.
This publication highlights guidelines and strategies to help organizations make their meetings accessible and welcoming to people with disabilities. The guide focuses on small and last-minute meetings to make sure that a variety of participants are included in all aspects of organizational life.
This site provides suggestions of more respectful terms that may be used when referring to people who have disabilities.
The Checklist contains common ADA problems identified during surveys of lodging facilities and will help you to determine if these problems exist at your lodging facility.
A guide for health care workers who plan and facilitate meetings & other health-related events.
The hospitality industry prides itself on giving its customers a warm welcome and providing outstanding service in pursuit of high guest retention and consumer satisfaction. By extending that same level of customer service to guests who have disabilities, hotels and lodging establishments can build a clientele in a growing, diverse market that remains as yet nearly untapped.
Health messages should be designed for diverse audiences, including people with disabilities. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) in adherence with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that members of the general public with disabilities have communication access that is equally effective as that provided to people without disabilities. The MDPH Healthy Aging/Health and Disability Unit has developed guidelines for accessible printed health communications. These guidelines contain MDPH policies, recommended standards, and suggested websites for accessible design and print information. Additional resources for alternative communication services are also included.
The Florida Center for Inclusive Communities (FCIC) has developed health and wellness brochures to provide individuals with developmental disabilities with important information about living a healthy life. All brochures are available to download as pdfs documents. This brochure provides information on how to protect yourself from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public accommodations to provide goods and services to people with disabilities on an equal basis with the rest of the general public. The goal is to afford every individual the opportunity to benefit from our country's businesses and services, and to afford our businesses and services the opportunity to benefit from the patronage of all Americans. This resources provides a checklist for existing facilities to follow to acheive barrier removal.
This fact sheet describes person first language and communicating with people with disabilities.
The Community Action Guide outlines the principle underlying community engagement and strategies for successful engagement. It's a practical hands-on guide that includes step-by-step descriptions of the community engagement process, checklists for conducting successful events, toos for assessing the access in a given community. examples of how the community Engagement Initiative process has been applied.
This webinar provides examples of how public health programs have impacted health outcomes for tribes/Native Americans. Presenters shared specific examples from their programs, and participated in an interactive question and answer session on this issue.
In response to the Surgeon General's A Call to Action to Improve the Health and Wellness of Persons with Disabilities, the U.S. Office on Disability, in collaboration with the Department of Labor Office on Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), initiated a National Work Group to ensure that medical, nursing and dental students receive training in providing high-quality care to patients with disabilities.
As part of this work, AUCD and the Training Directors Council are pleased to host the Electronic Tool Kit of pre-service curricular materials, directed to the needs of patients with disabilities, for use by medical, nursing and dental schools. Whenever possible, we have indicated where effectiveness studies have been conducted for each tool.
This tool kit has direct links, whenever possible, to web-based materials, and contact information for obtaining materials available in other formats (e.g., DVDs, etc.). The five topical areas are by intended audiences:
- Medical students/residents
- Dental students
- Nursing students
- Interdisciplinary (applicable across two or more of the above disciplines)
- Other (general knowledge about developmental disabilities, family-centered care, etc.)
Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)
Resources for understanding and implementing Section 508
Getting out into nature can be difficult for people with mobility challenges, as most hiking trails and many gardens are not designed for wheelchairs, walkers, scooters or similar mobility assistance devices. The simple pleasures which gardening offers can have added value for those with limited access to nature.
This technical assistance webpage has been developed to provide guidance in the planning and design of pedestrian improvements constructed as part of an alteration project. Its text, illustrations, and case studies aim to expand the reader's body of knowledge in accessible right-of-way design.