IMPACT: Ability has partnered with Mass Advocates Standing Strong to teach a 10-session safety and self-advocacy program to individuals with disabilities. The program teaches concrete, practical, verbal and physical skills while simultaneously creating institutional change by giving service providers, teachers, caregivers, and high-level state agency leaders the tools to recognize and respond to incidents of abuse and potential abuse.
Starting in 2011, ICH served as the evaluator of an IMPACT: Ability pilot program funded by the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund that worked with individuals in a school-to-career program at Triangle, Inc. ICH is continuing on as the evaluator of a 4-year Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded IMPACT: Ability project that works with Boston Public Schools and the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services.
The IMPACT: Ability project has also recently been featured on Boston’s NPR station, WBUR radio and profiled on the Boston Channel. Click here for the WBUR broadcast, “Boston Initiative Trains Intellectually Disabled Teens To Resist Abuse”, and click here for the television video “Segment Two: Almost Equal” to see IMPACT: Ability profiled at 3:20!