It’s unusual for two people to win HDI’s prestigious Burberry Award, but this year, two people deserved the honor.
The 2025 recipients are Allison Borden and Caleb Rader. The award recognizes students for their leadership, commitment to disability advocacy and academic achievements. Rader is a doctoral student who has focused on suicide prevention, especially among autistic people, while Borden started onto the path of disability advocacy when her daughter was born with a brain injury that later led to the development of other disabilities, including cerebral palsy.
Borden and Rader were participants in Kentucky’s LEND program and in interviews conducted by HDI Intern Eric Sheldahl, both award winners talked about their experiences and the paths that led them to disability advocacy.
For Borden, that path started with her daughter, but grew as she went. She values the ability to learn and grow as she learns more about the perspectives of others in the disability community, something that she was given many opportunities to do during her time with the LEND program. Though now she is an advocate for a less medicalized view of disability, that perspective didn’t come naturally to her.
“It happened immediately after Mallory was born, doctors said, ‘this is what we have to do, and this is what she won’t be able to…everything was what she won’t be able to do and what we must do to intervene to make sure she can do it so that she’s more normal,” Borden said. “That’s a very frightening way to be introduced to a world, versus disability is joyful, it’s a difference.” Over time, however, her perspective shifted, and at LEND, she noted that some self-advocates have a difficult relationship with parents who have refused to listen to their perspectives. When she entered the program, she was determined not to do what their parents had done.
It was that open-minded approach, which she’s taken not just to LEND, but to many other settings, including conferences, roundtables, Medicaid reviews, and policy programs. She hopes that she can bring a kinder, softer approach that will help advocates find common ground when perspectives between multiple views clash. “I was nominated by another cohort member from LEND, who, I think, recognized the gifts that I brought as a parent to this space and in helping expand people’s thinking,” Borden said. “She is someone who was in early education. So she had just mentioned how much that I had impacted her thinking and how to look at things, maybe from a new perspective maybe in a kinder way.”
Meanwhile, Rader focused on his suicide prevention work, where he has specifically turned his focus to strengthening the program for autistic people. “I am currently working with some other autistic advocates and researchers in order to help create a website and toolkit to help autistic people and care providers and professionals,” Rader said. “We are having conversations and making action plans to make these steps that weren’t being taken before.”
Rader’s work has covered a wide range of topics, from helping people spot the warning signs in autistic people to giving presentations on the topic and creating resources designed to help autistic people. Prevention work like this became his passion in high school when a cousin of his died by suicide. It became an even stronger focus as Rader began to struggle with his own mental health through college. These events had a profound impact on his life and drove Rader down a path he didn’t even know existed. “I wanted to do my best to help however I can,” Rader said. Over time in the field, Rader has learned that there’s more than his efforts in the equation – this work demands collaboration. Fortunately, though the progress he’s making with his allies is slow, it is still ongoing. “This is something that we as a collective can do to help bridge these gaps in care and help prevent suicide and help give people hope,” he said. “I think that we need to learn to trust autistic people, that they are experts on their own lived experience.”
The Paul Kevin Burberry Award is an annual award given by the University of Kentucky’s Human Development Institute (HDI), recognizing a student who embodies the leadership, advocacy, and commitment to individuals with disabilities that Paul Kevin Burberry demonstrated. Burberry, who had cerebral palsy, was the first student with significant disabilities to graduate from Berea Community High School and later attended UK, graduating posthumously with highest honors. The award honors his legacy and is given to a student involved with HDI who exemplifies these qualities.
Congratulations Allison and Caleb!
