WID addresses health care disparities for people with disabilities by working to improve access to quality care. In addition to addressing physical accessibility issues, WID trains doctors and medical staff in culturally competent health care and in how to make services and equipment accessible.

Access to Medical Care

Access to Medical Care: Adults with Physical Disabilities is a 20-minute video and training curriculum for physicians, dentists, nurses, and other medical staff about key issues that influence the quality of care in outpatient clinical settings. The video uses interviews with medical providers and a diverse group of people with disabilities to address cultural competence; access and communication issues in the clinic; common myths and stereotypes about disability that interfere with accurate assessment of patients; and barriers to health care delivery. The training curriculum offers case-based learning exercises and extensive in-depth reference materials about appropriate provision of care, specific skills to increase good communication and rapport, and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The curriculum emphasizes access and communication as the fundamental components in addressing health care disparities for people with disabilities.

Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones is a collection of fifty stories about facing abuse and violence, published by the World Institute on Disability. The compelling stories are told by a diverse group of people with disabilities, as well as family members, services providers, and other allies, and cover a wide range of mistreatment and recovery experiences. By sharing their stories, these writers hope to empower similar survivors to resist and to disclose abuse and violence, to recover if abuse occurs, and to move ahead to live strong, fulfilling lives. Contributing writers from eight other countries join those from the United States in sharing their stories. Saxton’s introductory comments frame complex abuse issues as part of the larger picture of societal mistreatment of people with disabilities, going far back in history. The stories featured in Sticks and Stones are wrenching; the authors’ voices are strong. Yet the reader is left with a sense of hope and encouragement that mistreatment can be challenged and empowered disabled people can end abuse in their lives. Read excerpts, see what people are saying, and order Sticks and Stones today!

Curriculum on Abuse Prevention and Empowerment (CAPE)

Abuse of people with disabilities and elders creates a significant barrier to independent living and full integration into the community. To reduce the incidence of abuse, WID created this comprehensive training curriculum in English and Spanish to educate people with disabilities, services providers, and family members about abuse awareness and prevention strategies. CAPE explores fundamental issues of abuse, best-practices training approaches, and personal stories of resisting and recovering from abuse. CAPE focuses particularly on preventing abuse by anyone in a “helping role,” including informal or paid assistants, family members, and services providers.

With CAPE, WID is offering comprehensive empowerment and self-protection tools directly to disabled people living independently. These tools include developing self-respect, asserting boundaries, getting help, disclosing abuse, knowing one’s rights, learning self-advocacy skills, practicing safety planning, and building resilience. These are the “CAPE-abilities” that can interrupt and prevent abusive behavior and help those recover who have experienced abuse. CAPE is unique in its focus on peer support in abuse prevention and its multimedia format, based on proven educational theory and practice. CAPE uses attractive, motivating multimedia educational resources relevant to daily life, such as movies, quizzes, learning games, comic-book images, and stories by and about people with disabilities. Read more about CAPE!

MAP to Health Access

MAP to Health Access offers research, education, training, technical assistance and technical resources. Through development and dissemination of a comprehensive training curriculum including high-motivation learning tools and downloadable, web-based materials, women with disabilities will learn about their right to accessible, quality health care as required by federal law. They will receive training in self-advocacy skills to enable them to become educators and resource people to their own health providers and local health care organizations about these rights and the resources required to enable them. We will disseminate MAP for Health Access in English and Spanish through California women's health and disability community organizations with whom WID already has relationships. We will enlist a twenty-member stakeholder advisory group, including disabled women and health professionals, and women interns from the Disability Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Building on our current training resources, our program will address the substantial health disparities for women with disabilities which results from medical providers’ lack of knowledge about their responsibility to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (via ADA required access and accommodation for people with disabilities in out-patient clinics.) This project will empower disabled women and improve care for their unique health care needs. MAP's first sample handout is about adjustable exam tables. Click here to download.

For more information, contact Marsha Saxton, Senior Researcher, at marsax@wid.org.