Prevention Resources

Individuals with Disabilities

A Police Officer's Guide When In Contact With People Who Have Mental Retardation
This brochure offers helpful tips for police on how to communicate effectively and clearly with people with mental retardation in arrest and victim assistance situations.

Abuse and Women with Disabilities
This paper highlights the prevalence of violence against women with disabilities, examining abuse interventions, and offering a critique of studies. It addresses sexual, emotional and physical abuse. It describes abuse experiences of women and girls in non-institutional and institutional settings, as well as abuse by strangers, intimate partners, family members, health care workers and attendants.

Confronting the Sexual Abuse of Women with Disabilities
This document provides a brief summary of the research on sexual abuse of women with disabilities. It covers the origins of our knowledge concerning the sexual abuse of women with disabilities, the methodological quandaries related to sexual abuse research in general and the data on women with disabilities and the men who abuse them, and concludes with an exploration of the efforts of women with disabilities and their allies to counter sexual abuse.

First Response to Victims of Crime Who Have a Disability
A Handbook for Law Enforcement Officers on How To Approach and Help Crime Victims.

Guidelines For Physicians On The Abuse Of Women With Disabilities
Tips on screening patients with disabilities for historical indicators or physical evidence of abuse are summarized in this information sheet for doctors and health care workers.

Impact - A Newsletter of the Institute on Community Integration
Feature Issue on Violence Against Women with Developmental or Other Disabilities.

Individual-Systemic Violence: Disabled Women's Standpoint
This article explores reasons for the systemic omission of women with disabilities from mainstream research and from services addressing non-disabled women's experiences. The article includes a discussion about inequity, predominant values and culture, use of language, disabled women's experiences of oppression and violence, and service provision within the context of feminist standpoint theory.

Information Sheet: People with Disabilities and Sexual Assault
This information sheet, produced by the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, provides several statistics from peer-reviewed journals and governmental sources. The research provided in this document may be useful to those looking to examine the scope of the problem.

Kid&TeenSAFE: An Abuse Prevention Program for Youth with Disabilities
By Wendie H. Abramson and Iracema Mastroleo, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, copyright 2002.

Raising Our Voices - A Newsletter of the Global Fund for Women
The July 2000 issue has several articles on inclusion and women with disabilities.

Responding To Abuse Against Women With Disabilities
This article emphasizes the need for health care workers to increase their knowledge and awareness of the unique forms of relationship abuse and risk factors that impact women with disabilities.

Sexuality and Disability: Annotated Bibliography
Compiled by Amy Levine, MA, SIECUS Librarian and Darlene Torres, Library Assistant

Sexuality Education For Children And Youth With Disabilities
This digest offers a wealth of practical advice and information to help parents and teachers guide teens with disabilities toward positive, healthy adult relationships.

Strong Proud Sisters: Girls and Young Women with Disabilities
Paints a portrait of disabled girls and their needs and resilience, looking at a range of issues – definitions and demographics, access to health care, substance abuse, exercise and sports, depression, self-esteem, eating disorders and body image, disability identity, role models and media images, social and sexual development, violence, educational equity, and employment.

Violence and Abuse Against People with Disabilities: Experiences, Barriers and Prevention Strategies
Laurie E. Powers, PhD and Mary Oschwald, PhD. Center on Self-Determination, Oregon Institute on Disability and Development, Oregon Health & Sciences University.

When People with Mental Retardation go to Court
Brochure for attorneys, judges and other court personnel describing their responsibilities under the ADA and how to effectively work with peole who have mental retardation.

Links

Center for Research on Women with Disabilities
The Center for Research on Women with Disabilities (CROWD) is a research center that focuses on issues related to health, aging, civil rights, abuse, and independent living. CROWD's purpose is to promote, develop, and disseminate information to expand the life choices of women with disabilities so that they may fully participate in community life. More specifically, researchers develop and evaluate models for interventions to address specific problems effecting women with disabilities.

Communities Against Rape and Abuse - The Disability Pride Project
Based in Seattle, Washington the Disability Pride Project generates radical action against violence and oppression within the disabilities community.

Disability Resources, Inc.
Disability Resources, inc. is a nonprofit organization established to promote and improve awareness, availability and accessibility of information that can help people with disabilities live, learn, love, work and play independently.

Institute on Community Integration
The Institute's mission is to improve the quality and community orientation of services and supports available to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. Rather than providing direct services itself, the Institute works with community service providers, school districts, advocacy and self-advocacy organizations, policymakers, and researchers around the world to provide state-of-the-art information and practices that support the community integration of individuals with disabilities.

National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities
The center is a central source of information on: disabilities in infants, toddlers, children, and youth; IDEA, which is the law authorizing special education; No Child Left Behind (as it relates to children with disabilities); and research-based information on effective educational practices.

SafePlace: Disability Services, A Safety Awareness Program
Based in Austin, Texas Disability Services ASAP provides education for people with disabilities in order to increase awareness of domestic and caregiver violence dynamics, empower people to protect themselves and plan for personal safety.