Indiana Disability Justice Celebrates Three Years Together

April is Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness month and the Indiana Disability Justice is celebrating entering it’s fourth year of collaborating statewide to end sexual violence with people with disabilities, including developmental and cognitive disabilities. The IDJ is a coalition of survivors of violence with disabilities, self-advocates, disability service providers, anti-violence coalitions, and caregivers who have a common goal of increasing holistic wellness of people with disabilities. IDJ strategies include education and advocacy, restorative and transformative accountability, policy change, and research that help to create inclusive and supportive environments to help prevent sexual violence.

The leadership includes Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence), Skye Ashton Kantola (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Tammy Themel (AccessABILITY), Jody Powers (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Jennifer Milharcic (Consultant, Self-Advocate), and Haleigh Rigger (Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking). Together the leadership team works with the advisory council toward creating protective environments that enable thriving for people who are made vulnerable by systems inequity. IDJ 2021 goals include:

  1. Community Strengths and Needs Assessment (CSNA): reimplementing a survey tool to assess safety, independence, and sexual wellness of people with disabilities in Indiana who have experienced sexual harm;
  2. Organizational Assessment Tool: implementing a tool for use by organizations interested in preventing harm against people with disabilities, and identifying areas of improvement for disability services and opportunities for violence prevention;
  3. Educational resources: continue creating educational resources to empower people with disabilities in their self- and community-advocacy efforts, and educational resources to support service providers, caregivers, and businesses in working more effectively with people with disabilities;
  4. Resource Hub: host a website to house IDJ webinars, assessment tools, and blog sharing the voices of survivors with disabilities;
  5. Webinars: Implementing at least 5 new webinars focused on disability justice and sexual violence prevention;
  6. Evaluation: Developing and implementing creative, community‐building evaluation strategies to assess IDJ effectiveness and areas of improvement.

IDJ invites you to pick a protective environment and create or enhance the possibilities for positive and protective relations, organizations, and communities in service of an equitable society for people with disabilities, their allies, and everyone. Contact IDJ for coaching, training, and technical assistance at indisabilityjustice@gmail.com. Subscribe to the IDJ Hub to receive blog posts by survivors with disabilities, accessible prevention evaluation tools, and webinars that centralize disability in violence prevention.

From Zero to 1000: Accessibility, Inclusion, Connectedness with the IDJ Hub

Congratulations to IDJ, because in WE ARE THREE years old!!! [confetti explosions]

In December 2020, we welcomed more than ONE THOUSAND VISITORS from around the world. We started with an idea in 2017 that grew into a very successful Patreon Community in 2018. We needed to transition to the online Indiana Disability Justice and Violence Prevention Resource Hub in 2020 to reflect the growth in our capacity and reflect our commitment to continue to promote and enhance connectedness across movements, sectors, fields, and communities. We remain inclusive community owned and co-operated with the functionality of a website.

In the last three years, the IDJ established a mission, vision, and values, designed an online Disability Justice and Violence Prevention Resource HUB, developed and piloted two evaluation tools (the community survey and the organizational survey), published 30 posts on the Hub, organized and published 12 webinars, supported the development of a healthy sexuality speaker’s Hub, shared a toolkit written by a self-advocate, accessible environmental and focus group protocols. The success of the IDJ is the cross discipline/cross field fluid membership with a large core leadership team (5-members, 90% of whom are people with disabilities) who work together through temporary action teams that convene as needed to accomplish shared outcomes and develop next steps to make progress in decreasing violence and increasing equity in the state of Indiana for people with disabilities. During all-member meetings throughout the year, IDJ learns about the field or community represented by the IDJ member themselves, the connection to the problem of multiple forms of violence, and to develop solutions and tools to implement with people with disabilities for people with disabilities.

Organizations and individuals who participate in IDJ come away with an array of skills, competencies, and a shared language to prevent violence with and for people with disabilities in their workplaces and neighborhoods. The result is iterative and multiplying the number of accessible survivor-centered disability resources. IDJ is continuously developing and implementing creative, community-building evaluation strategies to assess our effectiveness as a coalition, and the effectiveness of IDJ prevention strategies, and sharing the story of IDJ’s collaborative work via the HUB. The Hub and IDJ leadership was featured by PreventConnect in a #MeToo Prevention Townhall, and National Resource Center on Domestic Violence accessed by people across the globe in 18 countries, 28 states, and more than 50 cities across two continents. The IDJ wants to understand what we are doing well, in survivor-centered and accessible ways, and how the IDJ might continue to improve and advance the work and the leadership of people with disabilities.

We were awarded funding by Indiana Department of Health to continue to support this project through paid leadership from the Rape Prevention and Education Grant FY2021-2022. The leadership includes Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence), Skye Ashton Kantola (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Tammy Themel (AccessABILITY), Jody Powers (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Jennifer Milharcic (Consultant, Self-Advocate), and Haleigh Rigger (Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking). Together the leadership team works with the advisory council toward creating protective environments that enable thriving for people who are made vulnerable by systems inequity.

Post written by: Cierra Olivia Thomas Williams, IDJ Co-Founder, Co-Leader, Prevention Specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence  

Heaven and Shadow Man

Art by Ashley McDaniel from Florida. Ashley is a person with schizophrenia and art keeps Ashley safe.

God's House
This is a drawing of a castle in the sky where God lives. There is a pathway with grass on each side leading from the front door off into the distance. There are three suns shining in the sky, one fluffy blue cloud and three blue dots.
Shadow Man is invisible
This is a drawing of Shadow Man in black, gray and red. There is a gray and red spiral in the middle of the page under the writing and under the spiral is a red fire with black outline and Ashley’s name. The text written in black ink reads “Shadow Man is talking to me but I don’t see him though so I ignor him.”

Dismonsterize Disability

A one panel cartoon in black ink with a plain white background featuring a cerebral palsy man holding a picket sign that reads “DIS – MONSTERIZE DISABILITY ” The man is looking straight forward standing on the sidewalk. At the right of the panel is written “DANIEL AARON HARRIS” in the far right bottom corner is written “ (C) 2021 Daniel Aaron Harris

Dis – Monsterize Disability 

Monsterize is defined as

To make something or another into a monster or the appearance of

Or 

To give another very bad reputation, demonize, vilify.

As a cerebral palsy man I have experienced monsterization along with a lot of people with disabilities. As an artist and children book author my mission is to change the narrative of people with disabilities are viewed and betrayed in media outlets. I chose “Dis instead of De” for a impactful a word play. Bobby Blue is a cerebral palsy character created by me to help people big and small see the value within the disability community.

Photo of Daniel Aaron: a white man siting in a chair in front of bookselves. He has brown hair with a beard. He has a serious expression. He is wearing a yellow t-shirt that says “Fallen Walls”. He has a tattoo of a lion on his left arm.

Daniel Aaron Harris as an artist, actor and author aims to change the narrative of disability. He lives in Memphis TN, where he runs a ministry called Fallen Walls. Daniel has written 7 children’s books and is currently working on his doctorate of ministry at Western Theological Seminary.

Website- www.fallenwalls901.org
Facebook- Daniel Aaron Harris
Instagram and Twitter- danielfw901
YouTube – Daniel Aaron Harris