Jacqui Kearns has respected and tried to further June Downing’s work for years. The organization that Downing was a part of has noticed.
TASH, an organization where Downing once served as a member of the board of directors, gives the June Downing Breakthroughs in Inclusive Education Award to someone who has worked to advance disability inclusion from preschool to grade 12. Downing was known for her work in that field, including the publication of a book that Kearns herself has taught. This year, Kearns was selected to receive the award, something she said was a massive honor and a huge surprise.
“I’m floored. I’m totally taken aback. It’s a big deal. And I never expected it, ever, in a million years,” Kearns said. “I’m really in awe of the work that she did and continue to be in awe of that work.”
Kearns has been involved with HDI for 34 years. During that time, she has worked to advance several education projects, assisted with the creation of Kentucky’s alternate assessment program, and helped educate about Alternative Augmented Communication (AAC). She’s also pursued work on a national level focused on the inclusion of people with disabilities and has collaborated with the Institute for Community Integration at the University of Minnesota and the Ohio Center for the Deafblind Coalition. Recently, Kearns has focused especially hard on communication.
“In the past 20 years, I’ve been doing a lot of professional development training around communication in collaboration with UK’s College of Health Sciences Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders because there is a percentage of kids who come to school and leave school without it,” she said.
Though progress in the field is still ongoing, Kearns said that advancing technology has allowed for easier access to communication tools. Stigma, she thinks, is a much bigger obstacle right now.
“It’s expensive, but it’s not nearly as expensive as it used to be,” Kearns said. “I think a big problem is, people who don’t speak are viewed to not be able to communicate. And that is simply not the case. Lots of myths abound around communication.”
And though Kearns is reaching the point where she’s considering retirement, that won’t mean an end to her work. In the future, she thinks that working to end stigma for people with disabilities and working to help students build communities is the best way to solve these problems.
“I will continue to advocate for communication and continue to act advocate for the inclusion of people with disabilities, because in those environments, kids have access to peers and access to peers is what dispels myths and builds communities,” she said.
