San Mateo, CA, June 14, 2023 – The WITH Foundation is pleased to announce that $450,000 will be awarded to six organizations as a result of the November 2022 grant open cycle. These grants will fund a variety of programs that promote comprehensive and accessible healthcare for adults with developmental disabilities.
“We are pleased to support this work and how each organization will be intentional in being disabled led and/or engaging self-advocates as experts,” said Ryan Easterly, Executive Director of the WITH Foundation.
The following six organizations have been selected to receive this funding:
Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Washington, D.C.
The Disability Policy Center from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) is a driving force of health policy discussions for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This renewal of three years of general operating support for the Disability Policy Center will assist the Center in serving as a bridge between numerous interest groups, including self-advocates and health policy organizations, as well as between disability-specific policy conversations and the broader discussion on healthcare reform.
Down Syndrome Connection of the Bay Area, Danville, CA
The Mental Health Alliance provides training and support to the mental health community serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to ensure that people with Down Syndrome and other forms of I/DD can have better access to quality mental health services. This pilot aims to develop more communication-based specially trained mental health providers in the Bay Area region.
The Association for Successful Parenting, Baltimore, MD
The Association for Successful Parenting (TASP) will develop Training Materials for Health Providers to Effectively Support Parents with Intellectual Disabilities. These five self-paced training modules are designed for healthcare professionals supporting families in which the parents have an intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) or learning difficulty. Self-advocates and health providers will provide input on content. The goal of the training modules is to address the inequities in healthcare services for parents with I/DD. This project partners with the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD).
National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, Washington, D.C.
The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health (NAAAH) will identify inequities facing Black young adults with I/DD aging out of Medicaid, CHIP, SSI, and Title V across five states in a research project. Because information on Black young adults with I/DD aging out of public programs is not consolidated anywhere, this research effort will bring the issues and recommendations into one report that will increase knowledge and action to improve identified problems.
University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO
The Disability Equity Collaborative (DEC) of the University of Colorado Denver will create standards and implementation guides to advance disability equity in healthcare in two areas: how to establish an accessibility program, and how to provide effective communication. Two panels of experts will then refine and finalize the standards guides and disseminate the toolkit broadly via outreach to organizations who serve adults with I/DD.
Wiki Education, Chico, CA
Wiki Education will improve health and disability-related articles on Wikipedia, one of the most utilized healthcare resources in the world. This project builds on the previous WITH-funded project and will provide training and support for experts as they systematically improve between 30 and 40 high-value Wikipedia articles about disability healthcare. The project will impact the public’s understanding of important healthcare and developmental disability studies topics and create a snowball effect on the depth and breadth of available healthcare resources in the future.
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WITH Foundation promotes comprehensive and accessible healthcare for adults with developmental disabilities in the United States.
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Press Contact: Laura Shumaker
Director of Communications, WITH
communications@withfoundation.org