Independent Living Center Wellness Training Project
Principal Investigator: Charles Drum, JD, Ph.D.
Oregon Health & Science University
Time Frame: Years 2 - 5
Status:
Workshops for 2003 were conducted at the National Council on Independent Living conference on Saturday, June 7.
Starting in year 3 the RRTC has collaborated with the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) to offer workshops in conjunction with the NCIL annual conference. The workshops have allowed the RRTC to reach a broad constituency within the disability community and have also served the purpose of informing Centers for Independent Living about the research and training work being conducted by the RRTC on strategies to support wellness. This year’s NCIL conference will be held on June 4-7, 2003 in Washington, DC.
Objective 1: Plan annual workshop
Center staff will identify potential topics, discuss possibilities with NCIL conference planners determine topics to be offered each, year and finalize a topic list.
Objective 2: Prepare to offer annual workshop
Training staff will identify speakers for workshops, identify training materials and formats needed, and develop a schedule for the day.
Objective 3: Recruit participants
We will advertise trainings on the RRTC, AAUAP, NCIL, ILRU and WID web pages and through relevant newsletters, select and register participants, and determine accommodations to be offered during the workshop.
Objective 4: Conduct workshop
Training staff will support speakers and participants to insure the success of the workshop, and will work to keep the workshop on topic and on schedule
Objective 5: Evaluate workshop
Upon completion of the workshop, we will obtain participant feedback, summarize feedback, relay to presenters, and document desired changes for following workshops.
In 2003, the RRTC is held two workshops. The first one, “Conducting Health and Wellness Training within the CIL Network: Some Practical Recommendations” was held on Saturday, June 7, 2003. This workshop provided staff of CILs with information on the importance of health and wellness training for people with disabilities, the role that Centers for Independent Living can play, examples of available curricula for training, and practical information on how to conduct training and avoid common barriers.
The presenters were a panel of individuals who have conducted wellness trainings and are willing to share their strategies to make the most of such training opportunities. The panel participants included:
June Isaacson Kailes MSW, LCSW who served as the session moderator;
Glen W. White, Ph.D., Director of the Research and Training Center on Independent Living at the University of Kansas;
Tom Seekins, Ph.D., Director of the Rural Training Center at the University of Montana;
Connie Brittain from Disability Resources of Southwest Washington;
Cathy Kluttz-Hile, RN, BSN, CDDN, MA a Nurse Consultant with the Division of Public Health in Raleigh, North Carolina;
Rosemary B. Hughes, Ph.D., Director Center for Research on Women with Disabilities (CROWD) at Baylor College of Medicine and
Anthony G. Cahill, PhD., Senior Research Scientist and Head, CDD Research and Evaluation University New Mexico School of Medicine
The second workshop was “Identifying Future Directions for Health and Wellness for Persons with Disabilities” and will be held on Saturday, June 7,2003. The workshop was designed to inform participants on the work that the center is conducting and will address issues such as:
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How do people living with disabilities define health and wellness? What are the barriers and facilitators of health and wellness for persons living with disability?
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What is the current knowledge of reproductive health among women with physical disabilities?
- Do people with disabilities have equal access to alcohol and drug treatment programs?
Participants joined in an interactive discussion to generate ideas and recommendations for the future directions in health and wellness research and policy. Discussion centered on how CILs can act as partners in directing the future of health research and policy. This workshop was be facilitated by June Isaacson Kailes, MSW, LCSW and Charles Drum, JD, PhD.
Last year the RRTC consulted with Anne Marie Hughey from the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), regarding the best approach for reaching participants at the annual NCIL conference. It was agreed that a workshop within the conference would be better attended then a pre-conference workshop. The RRTC Management Team and RRTC Partners agreed that a workshop on physical activity would be of interest to participants at the NCIL conference. It was decided this would be a good opportunity for RRTC partners, Jeff McCubbin and Brad Cardinal from Oregon State University (OSU), to present initial findings from the Transtheoretical Physical Activity Strategies study. The workshop was scheduled for two two-hour sessions during the conference. The sessions were advertised in the NCIL conference materials.
Brad Cardinal and his colleagues from OSU presented at the conference. They provided results from their study in the first session and created an interactive workshop with examples of adaptive equipment and tips on increasing physical activity during the afternoon.
Forty participants attended the morning session and 30 attended the afternoon session. Feedback was positive. One participant stated that these sessions were the reason that they attended the conference. The interactive session provided an opportunity for dialog among participants and was well received.
The RRTC will strive to develop the annual workshops so they are informative while being interactive in nature.
Research
- Participating in NCIL builds our capacity for participatory action research and provides us with valuable feedback on our current research activities.
Policy
- With the potential for reductions in federal spending it is critical to identify partners that can build on our capacity to efficiently allocate our resource dollars
Training
- The NCIL workshops give us the ability to present training materials to a major segment of the disability community in an efficient manor that maximizes our potential for exposure.
