Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies

The University of Kansas Research and Training Center on Independent Living (KU RTCIL) has produced a 9th edition of Guidelines: How to Write about People with Disabilities. Originally published in 1984, Guidelines was “modeled after the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook … to reach reporters and editors, whose word choice influences their audience’s attitudes toward people with […]

Speaking Up For Us of Maine (SUFU), is a statewide organization run by and for adults who live with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). They recently produced three resources to help educate and guide adults with I/DD on the following topics: speaking up; making informed choices; and moving from self advocacy to self determination. The University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion […]

Source: Licensing deal brings Afari mobility device invented by UMaine professors to market (UMaine News, March 22, 2022) In 2013, professor of interdisciplinary disability studies and social work Elizabeth DePoy had been persuaded by her husband to run in a 5K. She knew she was fit enough to complete the course, but balance challenges had her worried […]

It’s a cold morning in late November and Jake, a high school junior, sits on the edge of a leather couch in the University of Maine’s historic Heritage House. He’s accompanied by his mother, Christy; and Hailey Howard, his vocational rehabilitation counselor from the Maine Department of Labor’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR). They’re here […]

Source: University of Maine Alumni Association, “Stephen Gilson and Elizabeth DePoy: An expansive vision of mobility.” Professors and inventors Stephen Gilson and Elizabeth DePoy were recently featured in a column by the University of Maine Alumni Association as part of their “Innovators of UMaine” series that is supported by a grant from the Maine Technology […]

CCIDS and partners in the Maine Developmental Disabilities Network (the University of Maine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies, Disability Rights Maine, Maine Developmental Disabilities Council, and Speaking Up for Us) collaborated with Gray Media Group (WAGM-TV) to design, produce and broadcast seven video public service announcements (PSAs) to help increase COVID-19 vaccinations among […]

Source: Maine launches a new checking account to help expand banking options for Mainers with disabilities. Maine Public / Jennifer Mitchell (October 19, 2021) “Unlike other ABLE programs to come from that same 2014 legislation . . . Maine’s program is unique in that it allows people who receive disability benefits to save and manage their […]

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) News – Making Data Visualizations More Accessible (October 12, 2021) Researchers find blind and sighted readers have sharply different takes on what content is most useful to include in a chart caption. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a simple chart […]

Disability Rights Maine (DRM) and Speaking Up for Us (SUFU) recently collaborated on a recorded training, Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Settings Rule: Basics & Advocacy (YouTube). The training was led by Abbott Philson, SUFU Board Chair; and Lauren Wille, Esq., DRM staff attorney on the developmental disabilities team. A sign language interpreter is provided. The […]

Each fall, the NH-ME LEND Program conducts a leadership intensive on the history of disability. This year, the session was reworked to cover the history of the disability movement. Trainees were asked to watch the 2020 documentary, Crip Camp, and to reflect upon how this innovative inclusive summer camp for teenagers with disabilities during the […]