IMPACT:Ability

IMPACT:Ability brings together a sexual violence prevention program with a Boston disability services agency. Together, they worked to create culture change supportive of equitable practices and multiple forms of relationships for people with disabilities. Meg Stone, IMPACT:Ability Executive Director and Keith Jones presented September 1, 2016 at the National Sexual Assault Conference on their work “Collaborating with the Disability System to Prevention Sexual Assault and to Support Survivors with Disabilities.” IMPACT implemented policies that support the ethical and equitable treatment of people who receive services at a disability services day program in Boston. Using a variety of evaluation methods, Ms. Stone reported most non-managerial staff could not correctly identify proper reporting protocol in 2012 before her intervention. In 2014, post-intervention evaluations demonstrated most staff could correctly identify reporting protocols and were more likely to report caregiver abuse of a client with disabilities.IMPACT:Ability is an evidence-based program that uses a three pronged approach to:

  • build capacity within agencies to support and report abuse using model policies and procedures;
  • empower people with disabilities with relationship skills necessary to pursue safe, healthy, and consensual interactions with others; and
  • provide organizational consulting and consent training, including sexual violence prevention model policies (code of ethics, mandated reporter of abuse, participant-on-participant abuse, whistleblower, abuse disclosure checklist, residential sexuality).

Credit

Post written by Cierra Olivia Thomas Williams, Prevention Specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Sexual Violence Toolkit by Self-Advocate

Kelsey Cowley (ICADV Disability Consultant) has written and had published a toolkit for self-advocates who want to learn how to prevent sexual violence in their communities. The toolkit called “Starting the Conversation: Addressing Sexual Violence within the Disability Community through Advocacy, Education, and System Change” was recently published by a national agency called Self Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center (SARTAC). This toolkit is so exciting for our field because this is what SVPP (sexual violence primary prevention) can look like when we move beyond consent to consider power. 

Post written by Cierra Olivia Thomas Williams, Prevention Specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence  

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This Hub is a clearinghouse of resources that help people facilitate, teach, plan, evaluate and study sexual violence prevention and disability justice. We aim to present each resource in a useful, practical way and link directly to the resource so people can get to what they need quickly. Please keep that philosophy in mind when submitting resources. 

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Cierra, Elder to Elder Post written by Cierra Olivia Thomas Williams, Prevention Specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence  

May, 2018, Miwok Ancestral Home lands on Mt. Tamalpias

Webinar 4: Best Practices for Working with People with Disabilities

Description

This webinar will address interpersonal and healthy intimate partnerships, professional policies and implementation, medical and social services, and notes on prevention.

Presenters
  • Skylar Ashton Kantola (she and they, Facilitator), MESA Program Coordinator, Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Assault, kantola@purdue.edu
  • Jody Powers (she/her), Consultant with Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence
  • Kirat Sandhu (she/her, Tech Moderator), Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking

Closed Captions & Transcript created by Skye Ashton Kantola, MESA Program Coordinator & Reshma Sunil Rawlani, MESA Graduate Student Worker

Co-Sponsors